Word Of Surrender

Our Commander, our Commanding Officer at the time, he was in the pillboxes around the mountains from us and he sent a wire. He sent a runner up to tell us that we were, the island commander was going to surrender and he would probably be tomorrow. He was probably going to surrender tomorrow. We knew a day ahead of time that he was going to surrender. Maybe some knew before that, I didn't know before that. I just thought well, it wouldn't be long. I thought we'd be taken prisoner and we're not going to be that long. I thought maybe six months at the most, you know. Six months at the most to be taken prisoner. I didn't, I was confident that we'd, that the war was going to end. I didn't think the Japanese had that much force, you see. Or we didn't have that much force in there either. So after we got taken prisoner, a lot we didn't have. We didn't have the force to even think that the war was going to only last six months.

Mr Lynch tells about the day he got word of the pending surrender and how he felt about it.

Wilbert Lynch

Wilbert Lynch was born in Portage, Manitoba on April 6th 1923 and was raised on a farm with two brothers and three sisters. He left home when he was 13 years old and worked for five dollars a month plus room and board at a few local farms. Three days after turning seventeen he joined the army and trained on the Bren gun in Camp Shilo and became a member of the 18th Manitoba Reconnaissance Battalion.