The Reaction of People on our Return Home

Heroes Remember

The Reaction of People on our Return Home

Transcript

Everything was new to us. We didn’t know how to act with white people. We didn’t know how to act, we didn’t know how we’d act with our relatives, friends. That all, that all had to come into consideration. And there was a lot of anxiety and not knowing what was on the other end of the rainbow. In a lot of cases there wasn’t a lot of, there was a lot of disappointment. Not on purpose, but 4 years, 3 ½ years is a long time. People change. They wanted to know what happened, what did the Japanese do to us. What, how can we punish the Japanese back? That was interviewing us and giving us the, I called it the third degree. By this time I had spent quite a time in a, three weeks in hospital, and I think I handled it quite well. Oh the weight had come back almost to a 135 pounds. It came back fast. And as soon as I got home, I was walking on a highway, just outside of Winnipeg, just on the outskirts, and a car came and picked me up. And he was, then known, he was the president of Norstar Oil, now known as Shell Oil. He was the president of Norstar Oil in Winnipeg. And he stopped his car in the middle of the road on the side. We had a long talk. He says, here’s my card, you want a job, any day of the week, come and see me. I did, but not until about four months later.

Description

Mr. Friesen describes being concerned about coming home, being debriefed, regaining his health, and ultimately being offered and accepting a job with Shell Oil.

Isaac ‘Ike’ Friesen

Isaac ‘Ike’ Friesen was born on a farm in the Russian Ukraine on October 19, 1920. His father died while Ike was an infant, leaving his mother to run the farm. At the onset of the Bolshevik Revolution, Mrs. Friesen sold the family farm and emigrated to Winkler, Manitoba, later moving to and buying a house in nearby Pomcooley. Mr. Friesen attended the four room school across the street, completing grade eight before becoming a farm laborer to help support his mother. He eventually tried working on a sugarbeet farm in Carmen, Manitoba, but quickly decided joining the armed forces was a better option. He tried to join the Royal Canadian Navy, but was deferred to the Army. He took basic training as a member of the Eighteenth Manitoba Reconnaissance Regiment at Shilo. He was designated as “D” - unfit for overseas service, until being recruited by the badly depleted Winnipeg Grenadiers where his status suddenly became “A1.” Once the conflict in Hong Kong ended with the Allied surrender, Mr. Friesen worked as a laborer at Kai Tek airport. He was eventually shipped to the camp in Niigata, Japan, where he labored as a stevedore. After being liberated and returning to Canada, Mr. Friesen, as the result of a chance meeting while hitchhiking, was offered and accepted employment with what is now Shell Oil.

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