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Description
Mr. Castonguay describes conditions at North Point, a Japanese Prisoner of War Camp. They were crowded together, and there were a lot of insects and bugs. The little food they were given was moldy and rancid. They contracted diseases from the terrible conditions and lack of food.
Bernard Castonguay
Bernard Castonguay est né à Montréal, au Québec, le 9 février 1921. Il était le quatrième d'une famille de 11 enfants. Son père était monteur de tuyaux à vapeur pour la Canadian Pacific Railway. M. Castonguay a quitté la maison à l'âge de 16 ans, à la recherche d'aventure. Il a travaillé comme bûcheron et à la construction des chemins de fer. En 1940, incapable de trouver du travail, M. Castonguay s'est rendu à Québec pour s'enrôler dans le Royal Rifles of Canada. Il fut envoyé à Gander, à Terre-Neuve, où il fut signaleur et sentinelle. On l'envoya ensuite à Saint John, au Nouveau-Brunswick. À Hong Kong, M. Castonguay fut fait prisonnier par les Japonais et envoyé au camp de prisonniers de guerre (Omeni) de Nagasaki, au Japon, pour travailler dans une mine de charbon. Après son service, M. Castonguay a travaillé pour l'Institut national canadien pour les aveugles (INCA). Il devint par la suite directeur régional de l'INCA. Il fut également bénévole pour le Conseil canadien des aveugles.
Transcription
Interviewer: What were the sleeping arrangements that you men had at North Point?
Well we were piled up one on top of the other. Four or five stack high, that was no fun. And we had bed bugs, lice, and what do you call?
Interviewer: Fleas.
Fleas, lots of fleas but especially bed bugs. And ants, many ants that bite. And body was you know really bit, bitten all over. Scratchy, it was awful.
Interviewer: What do you remember about the diet or the food that you received at North Point?
It was at the beginning, it was a shock to us. Because we had to eat what was had been left in the storage for many years. I saw myself a hunk of beef stamped 1908 on it. And rice was coming in. The bags were all wet and there were more worms than kernel of rice. And the cooks were cooking those in order that we could eat. Awful.
Interviewer: How much rice would you men eat in a day?
Not very much. We, for the first six months, we were six months about in the North Point camp. We were starved and our health went down. And we start having all kinds of diseases. My eyesight started to go. And we had dysentery, all kinds of disease. Pneumonia, you name it. And no, no medication.