The Torture Continued

Heroes Remember

The Torture Continued

They wanted to know, they insisted that I tell them not only how much I knew, but who else I was aware of that was in this chain that was doing this passing of messages and so on. And... Interviewer: They wanted you to expose the other people? Yes. Yes. Yeah. But I, I wouldn't expose them but they, well, it was them, not only up to this time was I badly beaten, and, but they exposed me to their infamous water torture in an effort to make me talk Interviewer: What was the water torture? The water torture is where they put you on the floor or on a board not unlike what you see over there and they put a small piece of rag over your mouth and they continually pour water into it until you can't, you think you're going to suffocate. And then they lay off until you've blown as much water out that you can again talk and they keep on asking the same questions over and over and over and want to, want to know who else is involved, and I was fortunate enough to withstand and I never did tell them. So, but this was, kept on for quite some time, as a matter of fact, and, and when they finally let up on, on me, they sent me into a, a little room and low and behold I met the person who I had been passing messages to in the, in Shamshuipo. And I didn't, he, he obviously was caught, caught before me, or at least he was certainly given the treatment before me because he was in bad shape too. And from there, it was days of periodic beatings and the same sort of thing. Torture.

The treatment he received from his Japanese captors when his activities of passing messages in and out of the camp were discovered was the stuff of nightmares.

Ronald John Routledge

Mr. Routledge was born September 1, 1920. His father, a decorator by trade, was a member of the Regina Rifles and served in the First World War. Mr. Routledge came from a family of four children. He had three sisters, one older and two younger. His father encouraged him to join the Regina Rifles Regiment cadet program when he was 14. After completing high school, shortly before Canada declared war on Germany, he enlisted with the Regina Rifles. He enlisted with the artillery but soon switched to the Canadian Corps of Signals and trained as a wireless operator. In October, 1941, he and 32 other members of the Signals Corp were told they were headed overseas. They boarded a vessel in Vancouver, not knowing until they were near the Philippines that they were heading for Hong Kong. They eventually arrived in Hong Kong and were assigned to barracks at Shamshuipo. Mr. Routledge was wounded when the Japanese made their first attack on Shamshuipo in December, 1942. After spending time in hospital, he returned to continue his service as a wireless operator. He was taken POW on Boxing Day after the commanding officer of the troops on the Stanley Peninsula surrendered to the Japanese. Following his release at the end of the war, he was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM), the second highest award for bravery in the British Empire. Mr. Routledge remained in the army as a career soldier.