I Don’t Remember Getting Anything to Eat

Actually, I can’t, the only thing I can remember is being told, and after we were told we were gathered up and they marched us onto an old freighter and put us down in the hole and they shipped us off. We weren’t allowed up on deck. All your urine, everything was just, you were walking around in it, laying in it. I don’t even remember getting anything to eat on that trip between Hong Kong and Japan. We were all in bad condition by this time. There was some better than others. The trouble was that, like, the people that was raised in the city, they were, they didn’t have as much stamina as people like myself that worked ever since I was kid. I was, I knew what hard times were, and hard work. I worked hard all my life up to that time. And these city guys, they gave up faster cause they couldn’t take the tough part of it. I think that was most of their downfall. I don’t hold it against them or nothing.

Mr. Agerbak describes being shipped to Japan to the labour camps, and compares the coping skills of soldiers from urban and rural backgrounds.

Knud Agerbak

Knud Agerbak was born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1918. His family of seven emigrated to Canada in 1927, settling in Manitoba where his father worked as a farm labourer. Mr. Agerbak started working on a farm at the age of 13. He then loaded freight for the railroad, and finally worked in a pulp mill. His sense of patriotism led him to enlist the day that war was declared in 1939. He tried to enlist in the PPCLI, but not having reached the age of 21 didn’t have naturalized Canadian status and was turned down. The Winnipeg Grenadiers did , however, accept him. He performed garrison duty in both Bermuda and Jamaica before his deployment to Hong Kong. Hong Kong quickly surrendered, and Mr. Agerbak spent time on labour gangs at KaiTak airport in Hong Kong, and the Yokohama shipyards and northern iron mines in Japan.