Making Kai Tak Airport

Heroes Remember

Making Kai Tak Airport

Interviewer: What happens next? Well from when we finally got down to the harbour, they took us to, our camp was camp Sham Shui Po, then we did the walk from Kowloon to Sham Shui Po. That was the eight mile march we, and we did it so many times during the, after we were in the, on the way to work parties. Kai Tak airport. I'm sure everybody's heard about the, we built the, we did the groundwork for it. There was two mountains and they took 1,800 of us out there and an officer got up on top of the back of the truck and they shouted out to us in Japanese, and then the little guy had to interpret it and he said that we are going to take those two mountains and dump them in the ocean. Well that was our laugh for the day, you know, who the hell is... and 18 months later it was as flat as that table top. We had carried it on our backs and dumped it in the ocean Interviewer: So your march you were always carrying heavy... Yeah, we had a big, long bamboo pole, one guy in the front and one guy in back and the bag of rice, rice bag and they throw three and a half, two and a half shovels of dirt on this bag and there were strings from end, like this and then we'd put a bamboo pole through it, put them on our, and march, dump them in the ocean, march back. And we were alright as long as we kept moving but if we stopped... Interviewer: What would happen? Well, they had bamboo, the guards, especially the officers or the NCOs would have a bamboo about 4 feet long, bamboo stick, and they'd love to crack you on the back of your ankles or your rear end but they know.... and it would sting. Interviewer: So did you get the crack? I got a few of them yeah, everybody did, you know. Interviewer: You had to rest. It depended when, we knew when we went out there in the morning how bad it was going to be, which ones were the bad ones and which ones were the... some of them were good enough that they'd even look away, if we were doing something that we shouldn't be doing, but most of them were, the officers were the worst.

Mr. McGee describes how 1,800 POWs had to take down two mountains with shovels and march to the ocean to dump each load.

John McGee

Mr. John McGee was born in Saskatchewan, on May 3, 1923, and comes from a family of two brothers and three sisters. He now resides in Edmonton, Alberta, with his wife and family. Mr. McGee joined the army and left for wartime service with a group of thirteen men. Although very excited to be going overseas, he recalls the sight of seeing young men jumping overboard when the ship began to sail; the fear of the unknown was causing many to turn back and stay at home! Mr. McGee was determined to go and serve his country. Mr. McGee shares with us his personal experience of being captured as a Hong Kong prisoner of war (POW) and hardships he endured at the camp. He considers himself very fortunate to be alive today, as many of his friends were left behind. After six years of serving in the army, Mr. McGee returned home to be what he terms an "Entrepreneur" buying a few hotels and later on getting into the sales business. Civilian life was a very positive outcome for a soldier who had endured such hard times and poor health during his time in the prisoner of war camps.