A Guard with Hot Foot

Heroes Remember

A Guard with Hot Foot

There was an amusing incident. I worked in the blacksmith shop and my job was, I had an old fella, now I’d say he was about 90 but now that I’m 70 maybe this guy wasn’t any more older than 65 or something, you know, but he seemed like an old man and he was a pretty wise old fella too and whenever he needed hammering I had to do the hammering. So the odd time he’d bring me in a little bit of food. One day believe it or not we were making a, connecting rods for a donkey engine and we put a roll of steel n the fire and we had to build the fire up around to make an oven out of the fire and to do this once we had to pull it out and put it on the ground, it was red hot and it just cooled enough that you couldn’t see the glow on it and one of the Jap guards came and he stood with his heels right beside it and I looked down and I saw this and I looked at my boss and he saw it too and then he just looked away and ignored it and in no time at all that guard was bouncing all around the room trying to get his boots off. It was the greatest hot foot I’ve ever seen anybody get.

Mr. Gerrard describes an incident in the mines blacksmith shop where a Japanese guard stands too close to some molten steel rods and gets hot footed. Mr. Gerrard and his elderly Japanese foreman find the incident very amusing.

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.