Too Exhausted to Fight Anymore

Heroes Remember

Too Exhausted to Fight Anymore

Transcript

Christmas Eve, we had been, myself with an officer and about ten men, was sent across a valley, which would have been across a little bay from Stanley Village and we were supposed to set up a post there to prevent the Japanese Army from setting up guns that would shell across the bay into Stanley Village. And during the night, a Japanese patrol passed by where we were located. We had, we got there in the middle of the night, total darkness. We had no idea where we were, what we had for shelter or anything. In the morning we realized we had no shelter. We were just on the side of a hill, open hill and we didn't realize that just over the hill behind us there was a large Japanese force. About noon, the whole hill just became alive with small arms fire from every direction, and we had no cover, and our officer that was with us, I believe it was Lieutenant MacMillan, he said, "Every, it's every man for himself. Try and find some cover as best you can." So about three or four of us jumped, ran to a bit of a cliff and hopped over and there was such a, a small ledge on it, as we landed our rifles went out of our hand because we were going down the hill. We finally got ourselves anchored on this bit of a ledge, and that's where we were until mid afternoon. We had, we had no arms now, and we were just about to fall into a precipice. And we were there for probably fifteen or twenty minutes, I would say, and there was a voice from across the valley where we had come from earlier in the night, with a a megaphone and it was a Japanese officer with a megaphone and he was saying in perfect English, "The war is over, the governor has surrendered, I'll give you safe journey across the valley, come to my post." Apparently he could see us. We had no idea that he was there and a... Interviewer: So what's going through your mind at this time? Well I, personally, and I think everybody else was the same, that after seventeen days with practically no sleep, and very little food, I think I had probably two warm meals of stew during seventeen days and apart from that it was a snack here or there, whatever you could find. I was so exhausted, I don't think I contemplated my situation really very well, and so we talked it over the three or four of us that was there and we decided what have we got to lose? We had, there was nothing we could do. So we went over to him, and they treated us reasonably well. They didn't question us about who we were, what we were doing there and whatnot. And as we were lined up after we finished talking, he marched up and down in front of the line of us with his sword drawn and we weren't quite sure just exactly what our situation was going to be. But after about a half an hour I believe it was, he put his sword in the sheath and got a detail of his soldiers to take us back behind the lines. So Christmas day, evening or night, we, we were all tied together on Happy Valley Race Track. Interviewer: So at this point, you knew you were heading to war camp? Yep. Yeah it looked like, we sort of figured, well I guess they're not going to behead us or shoot us or whatever, but up to that point we were given to understand that the Japanese didn't take prisoners. Interviewer: Pretty scary feeling... It was a scary feeling but as I say, I was so exhausted and everybody was so exhausted that what they did didn't really matter. So it seemed looking back. Interviewer: It's hard for someone like myself to understand that Pretty hard for anybody to understand, but on our way being marched back to Happy Valley Race Track, we, we confronted some of our men that had been tied together and bayoneted or murdered. They were actually murdered, 'cause you don't, you don't tie dead, dead men together, you tie, you tie live men together and then kill them and that's the way they were found and we just couldn't quite figure out whether we were lucky or not.

Description

Mr. MacLean describes the events of December 24th and 25th, 1941. Japan’s last big offensive, being cornered on a cliff, surrendering, and seeing comrades while marching to a POW camp.

Ralph MacLean

Mr. MacLean was born in the Magdalen Islands on June 27, 1922. He now resides in Calgary, Alberta, with his wife and family. Mr. MacLean signed up for service looking for excitement and thinking he would get to travel to Europe and was assigned to the Headquarters Company of the Royal Rifles. Instead of being sent to Europe Mr. MacLean found himself in Hong Kong in mid-November 1941. He was captured by Japanese forces on Christmas Day after being forced to retreat to the side of a cliff and left with no means of defence. During his captivity, Mr. Maclean was held at Shamshuipo and North Point POW Camps, before being shipped to Niigata as slave labour for a steel foundry. Liberated by Americans, Mr. MacLean returned to Canada soon after, and returned to civilian life.

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