Dr. Crawford and the Kamloops Kid

Heroes Remember

Dr. Crawford and the Kamloops Kid

Transcript

Dr. Crawford used to get slappings practically every day asking for medical supplies and so forth. He took some terrible beatings as far as I’m concerned especially from the Kamloops kid who was an interpreter. He would stand up there, he would get a chair to hit Crawford because Crawford was about 6’7” and this little Nipanese bugger, he was maybe I don’t know if he’d be 5’, or a little bit over and he would stand up on the chair to hit him across the face because that was one of the biggest insults you could get by the Japanese was to get hit across the face and Dr. Crawford took it day after day. He was a marvelous man, marvelous man. Interviewer: What else can you tell me about the Kamloops kid? Well the first thing that he did when he came in to camp was, “Where are all the Canadians?” and he lined us all up and went down, ”You guys used to call me a slant-eyed, four-eyed and all this sort of stuff when I was in school.” He’d go slapping down people’s faces. He was after the Canadians all the time. He would check their barracks. I don’t know how in the hell he kept missing my Gurkha knife that I had in my kit bag. I don’t know how he did it, how I got away with it. I had it for well, I moved out in around November ‘43 to go to Japan and I had that Gurkha knife all that time.

Description

Mr. Harrison admires the dignity with which Dr. Crawford endured abuse at the hands of the Kamloops Kid, who would slap him around every time he requested medications for the ill.

George Harrison

George Harrison was born on April 4, 1920 in Winnipeg, Manitoba and was youngest of three children. His father died shortly after his birth, forcing his mother to place him and his siblings in an orphanage, where he was at times badly beaten. Learning this, his mother took her children back home. After completing grade 9, Mr. Harrison went to work to help support his family. Eventually, he gained employment with CPR Telegraph. On September 13, 1939, Mr. Harrison enlisted with Winnipeg Grenadiers, becoming a specialist on the Vickers machine gun. During the battle of Hong Kong, Mr. Harrison was made a sergeant, and was involved in deadly fighting. Along with the general misery and persecution suffered by all of the POWs, Mr. Harrison faced down both blindness and potential amputation of his toes.

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