I Think I’d Tell Them to Stay Home

He done a bad trick. He sent us over there, not half trained, not half enough ammunition, had no air support and send us like a bunch of guinea pigs - die or live or get killed. We were outnumbered ten to one. There were ten of them to one of us. Hey, what you gonna do with a thing like that? There were only two regiments and we weren’t very well equipped with that. To my opinion right now, I think I’d tell them to stay home, not to get entangled with anything like that. Because I was talking to a soldier from the First World War, his name was Vincent England, and he told me that. He says, “Hector,” he’s related to us, he says, “Hector, I’m telling you this. Whatever you do, never undertake to volunteer for the war, for the army. You’ll be sorry.” And I believe him. What he told me was true, yeah, what he told me was true. Because he’d been wounded, his arm, he can’t use his arm, he is dead now. I would pacify and try to pacify them to stay at home and do what they can for their parents because the army, there’s lots of them likes it, likes the army, but is it going to be sunshine all the time? It’s like us, we thought we were going to have sunshine all the time, but we didn’t have sunshine. We had hell on earth, that’s what we had. It’s a mystery, a miracle that we got out of there alive, us people!

Mr. Hunt discusses the futility of the Hong Kong deployment and reveals a pacifist attitude.

Hector Hunt

Hector Hunt was born in Pabos Mills, Quebec, on December 9, 1911. His father was the local river guardian. Mr. Hunt was the second oldest of 16 children. He had little schooling, having gone to the woods at the age of ten to cut pulp with his father. He also transported supplies to his father when he was busy on the river. At sixteen, Mr. Hunt started work at the Chandler pulp mill for twenty-five cents and hour. When the opportunity to enlist occurred, he signed up anticipating better wages and lifestyle. He had very little basic training and no live ammunition weapons training. Mr. Hunt served in Newfoundland before eventually being shipped overseas toHong Kong. He was a POW in both Hong Kong and Japan, where he worked in the coal mines near Niigata. Mr. Hunt credits his strong faith for helping him to endure his time in captivity. After completing his service, Mr. Hunt returned home to work in the local mill.