Hidden First Aid Supplies

Heroes Remember

Hidden First Aid Supplies

The camp we went into when we went up north they had in there two hundred of us and there was two hundred of mixed, there was Japanese and Americans and Dutch and a few others, East Indians and a few others and they had been in a camp for quite some time. There was a smelter at the shore, down below the shore about fifteen miles away and there was a prison camp there and say we were another fifteen miles up the mountain and then the mine was another five or six miles up further, we used to march up there and go to work and back. One day, Nimitz Fleet came in and they shelled the smelter and they really flattened it and, of course, they killed some of the prisoners in that camp and wounded and cut a few of them and the wounded were brought up to our camp. In our camp there was a small building there and nobody had ever seen it open and nobody knew what was in it and we had all these fellas that we didn’t have bandages or supplies for or that and, of course, it wasn’t long after that that the war was over and the first thing they did was break open this shed and here was all medical supplies, Red Cross medical supplies. There was even enough stuff there to equip a dental office and they would never let us have it, they never gave it to us and it’s these these are the kinds of things that really got to ya, you know.

Mr. Gerrard describes an American bombardment which injures several internees and the fact that there was nothing available with which to treat their wounds. After the camp is liberated, a horde of first aid supplies is found in a locked building.

Horace Gerrard

Although born in England on January 19, 1922, Mr. Gerrard's family emigrated to Red Deer, Alberta where his father died when he was six years old. Once he was old enough, he hunted game to help feed his family as well as cutting wood for heat. Mr. Gerrard left school after grade nine, working at odd jobs. He joined the 78th Field Battery as a reserve when he was sixteen. He later joined the permanent force in 1939 with the 5th Heavy Battery. Eventually Mr. Gerrard joined the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals, with whom he served in Hong Kong. He worked with both British and Canadian battalions during the Battle of Hong Kong, before being taken prisoner by the Japanese.