So Many Prisoners Died of Malnutrition
Heroes Remember
So Many Prisoners Died of Malnutrition
A lot of prisoners died because of lack of the right kind of food
and lack of the right kind of food. There was one prisoner
that was in our room. He was 45 and we used to call him Old Bob.
He was Bob Owen from Wales but he had a wife in Newfoundland and
had four or five kids, children, but he hadn’t seen them in a
long time. He was a merchant seamen. So Old Bob, he got sick
and had this board that every time somebody got sick they put
this board, you know, like a wedge type of board under their
back so that it would raise them up so they could breathe better
But once you got that in your room you knew that it was the end
for some of the fellas that had that board. And Old Bob, he died
once he got that board. And he couldn’t eat so he passed away.
I went to the pilgrimage a few years back and the men that were
in the cemetery, there must have been at least a thousand,
you know, that takes up the British, and the Canadians, and all
of the Americans. There must have been at least a thousand men
in that cemetery that died in the prison camps from lack of
medical and the right kind of food. It was quite a site to see
so many grave markers in the Yokohama cemetery that was
unnecessary.
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