On the Wings of a Mother’s Prayers

Heroes Remember

On the Wings of a Mother’s Prayers

Transcript

Interviewer: How did you men keep your morale up during those final months of the war? So many people have asked me that and how, so many people have said, "How, how do you happen to come back when so many, so many men didn't come back?" And I said, "My mother's prayers." I said, "My mother's prayers." For two whole years my family didn't know whether I was alive or dead, for two whole years they didn't know if I was alive or dead. My, my sisters had lost, seemed to have lost all hope that I would come back. But my brother Jim, my mother and my, my brother Jim, Jim said, "I just had this gut feeling that you would come back," he said. "I had this gut feeling that you would come back," he said. Interviewer: How do you remember keeping your own morale up, Mr. Forsyth? Well, let's, let's face it, I prayed, I prayed, I prayed. Interviewer: If you saw one of your comrades starting to slip and get, become depressed and despondent, what would you men do to try to raise the spirits of that man? Well, it, it seems to me that, that we had to, we had to, we had to instill some, some, a real desire to, to hang on, to hang on. You, one day at a time, one day at a time, to, to hang on and, and, well, for the sake of our folks back home, we had to do our best to come through and, and it was, well, it was our duty to, to do the best we could to, to stay alive and to, and to return. It was, it was, it was, it was something basic, fundamental that we, we had to hang on. We had to hang on one day at a time.

Description

Mr. Forsyth remembers how the POW’s kept their morale up.

Thomas Smith Forsyth

Mr. Forsyth was born on a farm just outside of Pipestone, Manitoba, on April 26, 1910. He worked on the farm and attended school until grade 11, joining the army the following year when war was declared. After being accepted into the Winnipeg Grenadiers, Mr. Forsyth was briefly stationed in Jamaica guarding German POWs before being posted to Hong Kong. Captured in the Battle of Hong Kong, Mr. Forsyth was interned as a POW in North Point and Sham Shui Po prison camps, before being sent to Niigata Camp 5B in Japan as a slave labourer. After years of heavy labour, physical abuse, and terrible living conditions, Mr. Forsyth was liberated from 5B when Japan surrendered. He returned to his family in Manitoba soon thereafter.

Meta Data

Medium:: Video
Owner:: Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:: 03:27
Person Interviewed:: Thomas Smith Forsyth
War, Conflict or Mission:: Second World War
Location/Theatre:: Japan
Branch:: Army
Units/Ship:: Winnipeg Grenadiers
Occupation:: Garrison Military Police

Language selection

On the Wings of a Mother’s Prayers

Heroes Remember