You Can’t say, “I’m not Going.”

Heroes Remember

You Can’t say, “I’m not Going.”

Transcript

And the war ended on Christmas day. There was a fellow by, my sergeant was a fellow by the name of Jack MacIsaac. He was from Nova Scotia. And we were a platoon, and we started, we run across this penitentiary yard to attack Japs that was in the houses, but they were in the houses and they were all well-equipped. They had moved in all their machinery (inaudible). I don’t know whether it was important, but I think all the prisoners was gone. I believe they had let the prisoners go. There was one fellow up in the cage but it had been blasted and I know he hollered all day. He was whooping and hollering but he was like in a cage, he was locked up in the middle of the building on the top and the other stuff was... But I don’t know why when... When they give you orders to attack in the army, you have to go. You can’t say, “I’m not going,” and you can’t say, “Well what are we doing, what are we doing that for?” And that was Christmas day, but that was the last attack we done. And they killed quite a few of our fellows. They killed a fellow by Leo Nellis and Jackie Lyons and they killed Maurice Delaney alongside of me. They shot him in the head and his brains run down the side of his head. And I was shell-shocked. I was bleeding in the nose and the eyes, not the eyes, but the ears from the concussions from mortar bombs falling, you know. But, that was just about the end. Then they had the armistice, that was about nine o’clock. Then they sounded the bugles, and they said the war was, to go as prisoner of war to the Japanese Imperial Army.

Description

Mr. Murphy describes his final action before being forced to surrender to the Japanese.

Leo Murphy

Leo Murphy was born September 3, 1919 in New Richmond, Quebec, where he grew up and completed his elementary education by 1931. He was one of nine children. Before enlistment he was a day labourer working in a sawmill, construction, excavation, farming, and a lumber camp. Mr. Murphy enlisted with the Royal Rifles on Nov 25, 1940, and took his basic training in Newfoundland and Val Cartier, Quebec. He was overseas for four years, spending all but the first three months as a POW in Hong Kong and Japan. The emotional impact of the Hong Kong deployment started early for Mr. Murphy, when on the same day his brother was killed beside him and he took the life of a Japanese soldier. During his captivity, he suffered from beri-beri, dysentry, pellagra, had his foot crushed in a mining accident, and developed liver problems. At the time of his liberation, he was a mining coal in Omini, Japan, as a slave labourer. Mr. Murphy arrived back in Canada in October, 1945 and was discharged February 5, 1946. From 1947 to 1960, he was employed as a brakeman with the Canadian National Railroad. Mr. Murphy was married on Sept 1, 1947, to Yvette Savoie. He died March 26, 2001.

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