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POW Diseases

Heroes Remember

POW Diseases

Transcript
For some reason I was really ill. Now I may get this mixed up a bit, that this occurred the first time we were in Sham Shui Po. I came down with amebic dysentery, and I had malaria. Malaria they had very little quinine, they call it, to get it and I got to about the last there was really because they did figure I was gone. I was lying on the bed there with blankets around me then the orderlies would change them, you know ringing wet, army blankets, until I lost oh 25 or more pounds. The amebic dysentery was really... I had a bad bad show. I went in to the so-called hospital and that was a bloody shambles. The concrete floor, a room about 30 oh no 40 or 50 feet by 40 or 50 feet and we had latrine buckets, great big barrels. There was blood and puss and water all over the floor. I was lying on a blanket on the floor one time and I had hot beri-beri. Now there’s another thing, most of the men had wet or dry beri-beri and they would burn your feet so you’re over a grill and one of our orderlies, an old, old fat chap that had helped out and came and sat down on my bed and took my feet and gradually massaged them or stroked them or something until I went to sleep. I’ll never forget that. It was really marvellous of him to do that. And I got an earache I had to get Major Crawford, who was our senior medical officer, to check it over and he put some oil in there or something, I don’t know. But I had a bad time. And another time when you get back to your hut and you have to go to the latrine, go to the toilet, which at that time they were down a kind of a concrete walk and it would be about oh 50 yards and you’d probably be dripping all along the damned sidewalk. You’d get in there, one or two of ya. The sentries just for the hell of it would start shooting over the top. I don’t think they actually shot into the buildings. But anyway they were shooting and you got a little worried about it. And in the condition you were in it didn’t help a lot. Outside of the two that bothered us the most, bothered the men most particularly was the wet and dry beri, the wet beri-beri your limbs swollen up and if you put your finger in the indentation it would stay there for awhile. And the hot foot, the guys would try to walk on the concrete or put their legs in feet in buckets of cold water. Nothing seemed to help very much. We did get later on, and that would be two or three years later some nicotinic, something or other. We did get in from the Japs, I suppose, was where and we all, everybody I know, I had a couple because I had bad hot feet, we had two shots of this nicotinic stuff. When you had it, like we were pretty pale looking people, well your whole body would flush up, (inaudible) blushing all over your body and that’s what it did, but it did ease the situation and help clean it up.
Description

Mr. White discusses the large variety of diseases experienced by inmates of the POW camps.

Harry Leslie White

Harry Leslie White was born in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England, on May 24, 1907. His family emigrated to Winnipeg, Canada, in 1911. His father, a First World War Veteran, became a policeman. After finishing grade 6, Mr. White had numerous jobs to help support his family. He did some reserve training and was also taught to box by his father. After being turned down by the air force, Mr. White joined the Winnipeg Grenadiers for basic training in Kingston, Jamaica. Here he also helped guard a POW camp holding German and Italian naval personnel. Once in Hong Kong, he joined E Company. Mr. White was captured, but unlike so many others, spent his entire time as a POW in Hong Kong, working on the Kai Tek airport. After the war, Mr. White established an orchard, and later returned to Eatons, where he had worked prior to the war.

Meta Data
Medium:
Video
Owner:
Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:
4:28
Person Interviewed:
Harry Leslie White
War, Conflict or Mission:
Second World War
Location/Theatre:
Hong Kong
Battle/Campaign:
Hong Kong
Branch:
Army
Units/Ship:
Winnipeg Grenadiers
Rank:
Lieutenant

Copyright / Permission to Reproduce

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