I Wake up Just Screaming!

They took us to the University of Hong Kong and they left us in there overnight and then the next day we were at the Bowen Road Hospital or outside of the Bowen Road Hospital. We slept outside. We stayed there for a couple days. You’re getting jabbed with a bayonet, and getting a few, using the butt of their rifles on your back. Anybody that was wounded they bayoneted them. I also seen them take the nurses out of Bowen Road Hospital, and rape them while they held machine guns on us and then slit them wide open with bayonets. Anybody that moved, got shot. One of our boys stole something, a ration of rice or something from somebody else, and the Japanese guards spread eagled him in the yard, and tied him down, like they drove pegs in and they poured boiling water down, pried his mouth open and put a stick in it so he couldn’t close it. They poured boiling water down his throat until he died. And they poured it for a little while and then they'd quit and wait for about an hour and do it again. And they made us all stand at attention and watch this and I still have nightmares over it. I wake up just screaming.

Mr. Lowe describes barbaric treatment by Japanese guards, including the rape and slaughter of a group of nurses, and the torture and death of a prisoner who was guilty of theft.

Garfield Lowe

Garfield Lowe was born in Cobalt, Ontario, on May 6, 1919. His mother died shortly after his birth. His father was a mine manager, but moved to Rackham, Manitoba, and setup a blacksmith shop where Garfield learned the trade from his father. Mr. Lowe was on his own at age 15, and over the next six years did a variety of jobs, including trapping skunks for two dollars a pelt, farm labourer and sawmill worker. During this time he was married and had two children. At the age of 21, he enlisted with the Winnipeg Grenadiers. After completing basic training in Sherbrooke, Quebec, he performed internment camp duty in Kingston, Jamaica, where he received extensive machine gun training (no live fire), but no infantry tactics. In Mr. Lowe’s words, the Grenadiers were reinforced with “rejects” before leaving for Hong Kong. Mr. Lowe spent time in four different camps during his incarceration, and witnessed some horrifying events which haunt him to this day.