On a boat to Japan

They used to, well we were all sitting close together in the hold and they opened the hatch twice a day and they'd lower a pail of water, eh. So we'd wet our lips, you know, because we didn't want to drink it all because the other guys would have nothing, right? And they'd give us, for the journey, they made the camp make buns made out of rice flour and they give us I think it was two a day, yah, and we had that to eat, two a day. I think we were twenty-nine days on the ship. They went all over the goddamn place, I don't know. Interviewer: What were the toilet facilities? Very rough. Hmmmm......toilet? I don't know. Interviewer: So there was no toilet? Not that I know of.

Mr. Bourbonniere talks about the conditions on the boat on the way to Japan with the other prisoners.

Armand Bourbonniere

Armand Bourbonniere was born on May 7th 1922 in Ericksdale, Manitoba. He was the youngest of ten children. His father worked in the dairy transportation business. Mr. Bourbonniere left school when he was 14 years old to work for his father picking up cream and eggs from local farms until he turned sixteen when he moved to Winnipeg and worked at a cleaning company picking up clothes until he joined the Army in September 1939.