ERNIE'S STORY
Chapter Four "A Prisoner of War"
Burying the dead. Some terrible sights. Conditions are
awful. Dead bodies lying around all over .... The stench is
terrible. We put earth over some of the bodies.
These words are from the diary of Corporal Lance Ross of the
Royal Rifles recorded during his first days at Sham Shui Po
P.O.W. Camp.
It was into this hell that Ernie arrived on January 21, 1942.
Only a month ago he had had surgery to remove the shrapnel that
had pierced his side and lung at the battle of Wong Nei Chong
Gap. Instead of recuperating in a warm hospital with good food,
he was now facing a cold damp hut and near starvation rations as
well as filth and very limited medical attention. After only two
days, Ernie was moved to North Point, another P.O.W. camp. He
recorded in his journal that he stayed there until September
1942.
North Point was on the waterfront of Hong Kong Island. It
was built in 1937 to house Chinese refugees fleeing before the
advancing Japanese. Due to heavy fighting in the area, the camp
was almost destroyed. Some huts were completely demolished,
others had missing roofs and broken windows, and there was no
running water. In one part of the camp there were decomposing
bodies of dead Chinese and animals. A garbage dump was breeding
millions of flies. To the agony of cold and starvation was added
lice, fleas and bedbugs. (Dave McIntosh, Hell on Earth, pp.
15-16.
It was a wreck.... It was as if they wanted to completely
humiliate us. They told us quite bluntly that we had no honour,
otherwise we would have commited suicide instead of
surrendering. (Angus MacMillan in the 1987 submission to the
U.N. Commission on Human Rights by the Hong Kong Veteran's
Association of Canada)
Ernie had traded one hell for another that was just as bad if
not worse. The poor food and lack of sanitation began to take its
toll during the next few months. The food at North Point was
described by various prisoners in Hell on Earth:
"The amount of rice at each meal was a cupful .... a teacup.
It was usually crawling with maggots." "There was never enough
food and you had to eat every bite or you wouldn't live. If you
missed just one meal, it would knock you out .... We ate rats and
we ate snakes too." "Once I remember we had a horse's head ....
the cooks cleaned it all up and cooked the whole thing in a soup.
It certainly provided a lot of grease that we needed, but I can
remember one man going hysterical because he found a horse's
tooth in his little bowl of soup." "The vegetables comprised a
few dandelions, grass and weeds. It was common to see maggots in
the rice and all kinds of little bugs." "It became a joke that
the maggots were at least protein."
Another prisoner who wished to remain anonymous told a
horrible tale in Hell on Earth:
We all had diarrhea or dysentery or both a good deal of the
time and knew that rice or barley could go through practically
untouched. One day I was in such bad shape that .... I cupped my
hands under a man squatting with diarrhea, caught the barley
coming through, washed it off as best I could and ate it.
It is hard to imagine Ernie in these brutal and primitive
conditions. He had always put great emphasis on order and clean
living as a young man in Scouts, the Church and the Militia. The
pictures from Jamaica show him dressed in a neat spotless uniform
at all times. But here he was a young officer, and a husband and
a father of two sons, surrounded by filth, starvation, and
disease. How he survived all this is the second story of his
bravery. It was not the same kind of courage as he showed at Wong
Nei Chong Gap. Perhaps it was an even greater test of his
strength and spirit.
Among those who died at North Point was Colonel Sutcliff, a
man Ernie had admired since his cadet days in Winnipeg. He died
of dysentery on April 7, 1942.
Ernie's love for Irene and his hope to see his family again
played a great part in keeping him alive. From December 25, 1941
until May 9, 1942 the prisoners were not allowed to send or
receive mail. The Japanese did not co-operate with the Red Cross
so that no one knew which Canadians were dead or alive.
Finally in May 1942, Irene received the first news that Ernie
might still be alive. It came in a telegram from the Canadian
military saying:
The name of your husband Major Ernest Hodkinson, of the
Winnepeg Grenadiers, is included in a short list of Canadian
officers reported unofficially to the British Ambassador at
Chunking China as being held at North Point internment camp Hong
Kong. (Telegram from I/C Records)
Among Ernie's papers is a large collection of letters, cards,
and telegrams both sent and received from May 1942 until
September 1945. Irene's letters are full of everyday events about
the boys' school and music lessons as well as news of other
relatives. Just to know that normal life still existed must have
been a great comfort to Ernie -- a reason to go on living.
Laurens Van der Post, who was a P.O.W. in Java, writes in The
Night of the New Moon: The greatest psychological danger
threatening men in the condition of imprisonment we had to
endure, was the feeling that imprisonment was a complete break
with their past and totally unconnected with their
future.
Ernie's letters and later on the small cards allowed for
P.O.W. correspondence say very little, probably due to
censorship, but at least Irene knew he was still alive and well
enough to write.
Ernie's records show he arrived back at Sham Shui Po on
September 26, 1942. Dr. Stanley Banfill wrote in Hell on
Earth:
We left North Point on the old Star Ferry. Those in the know
must have been apprehensive because somewhere in our luggage was
hidden a forbidden radio but we also carried something far more
dangerous. Several of our men were complaining of sore throat;
this was the beginning of a severe diptheria epidemic.
Sham Shui Po was still a miserable place but it had one huge
advantage over North Point as told by Lt. Tom Blackwood:
I have always said that the thing that made life tolerable in
Hong Kong was the fact that we had a bountiful supply of good
potable water for drinking, cooking, and showering. (Letter
of September 17, 1997)
At first the Japanese tried to make the P.O.W's work building
a runway at Kai Tak airport but it became obvious that they were
too ill.
"As more Canadians began to die of diptheria, the Japanese
becamed alarmed. After all, their soldiers might catch it! They
began swabbing throats - and insisted that everyone wear a face
mask day and night." (Dr. Stanley Banfill, Hell On Earth)
The diptheria epidemic ended in early 1943 and also by then
most battle wounds had healed. There remained the diseases of
malnutrition - beri-beri and pellagra - as well as dysentery and
malaria. Corporal Lance Ross writes about these diseases in his
diary:
4 Oct. 42 - Another death in our company.... diptheria. The
Japs won't give us any serum or medical supplies.
17 Oct. 42 - 6 more died last night and the Japs beat up about
40 of the orderlies, also Major Crawford. Made them take off
their shirts - beat them with a wide rubber band.
18 Oct. 42 - The suffering is getting worse, men cry with
painful feet, they cannot walk.
Morale was very low but slowly things began to change in the
camp. The desire to rekindle their pride as soldiers and
Canadians began to be felt amongst the P.O.W.'s. It was at this
point that Ernie's strength and courage and all that training to
be strong in adversity stood him in good stead.
The first thing that had raised morale was that the Japanese
had allowed the men to send and receive mail. As the men once
again began to feel a connection with their previous lives and
also to hope for the future, they reinforced these attachments by
organizing recreational and education programmes.
Ernie's first letter is dated June 3, 1942:
Dearest Irene and family,
I am very happy to be able to end your period of suspense by
writing with some good assurance of you receiving my letter. I
feel sure something inside you assured you my silence was only
temporary.
I would like to have a snapshot or two of you and the
children.... Filling time is quite a problem but I am learning
French and taking lots of exercise. Do not worry about my health
which is excellent.
All my love,
Yours
Ernie
The P.O.W.'s certainly did get lots of exercise especially
those who were forced to work enlarging Kai Tak Airport.
We chopped down bloody mountains with pick and shovel and a
wheelbarrow.... They shipped us over there in work details at
seven in the morning. And we'd stay over there until six at
night. (Bob Manchester, The Valour and the Horror)
Even though the Canadians had no choice but to help the
Japanese build Kai Tak, they found a way to sabotage it by
putting too much sand in the concrete which made it brittle.
The first Japanese aircraft to use the runway, a large
fighter filled with dignitaries, crashed on landing. The Japanese
engineer in charge of the project was decapitated. It was a sad
victory in a long defeat. (The Valour and the Horror, p.
44)
The following is part of a song from Ernie's papers and shows
the efforts to keep up morale:
The Road to Old Kai Tak
(to the tune of The Road to Mandalay)
By the hazy hills of Hong Kong
Looking down upon our guilt,
We are working on the airport
That the British should have built
For the wind is in the air sock
And the bombs are in the rack
Come and take old Kai Tak back.
Cutting grass and mixing concrete
Is the fate of slow Canucks
Who get trampled in the stampede
For a job on gravel trucks
When the casualties are counted
The remainder grimly hack
At the grass that grows profusely
On the field at old Kai Tak.
Besides learning French, Ernie was also learing Cantonese and
Japanese. Lessons in both languages were printed in the Hong Kong
News. Many neat clippings of these lessons are in Ernie's papers.
There are also homemade Christmas cards and programmes for
amateur entertainments.
Ernie told stories of bridge and chess tournaments and the
compiling of recipe books. Once again all the Scout and Church
activity gave Ernie a pattern that certainly contributed to his
survival.
Another event that improved the lot of the P.O.W.'s was that
the Japanese began to pay the men.
After about a year (end of 1942) the Japs paid us 10 sen a
day which in our money at the time was worth only one Canadian
cent. We never did know what they paid the officers but they did
get paid. We never saw this money as it was pooled to help buy
green tea, horse radish, or anything that put some flavour to the
rice. Very, very seldom could they buy cigarettes. (letter
from Lionel C. Speller, July 20, 1997)
The officers received somewhat more pay and Ernie kept the
lists of the foods purchased for the individual huts during 1943.
The items include:
Yellow Flower Fish
Sardines in Soya
Bean Curd
Lard
Margarine
Milk Powder
Onions
Tea
Salt, Pepper
Noodles
Cheap Cigarettes
Cigars
Matches
Shaving Soap
Razor Blades
No sizes are given, only prices, but any amount of tasty food
would have improved the men's spirits as well as their health.
These supplies were bought from the Chinese merchants in Hong
Kong with permission from the Japanese. No one left camp to do
this. It was done "through the fence".
In spite of the letters from home, recreational activities and
the ability to buy small amounts of extra food, the men were
still receiving little more that survival rations, diseases were
still rampant, and Japanese brutality was a daily fact of
life.
The Japanese code of honour was different from European
ideals. A man who surrendered was despicable and deserved any
amount of cruelty.
Laurens Van der Post, in his autbiographical novel The Night
of the New Moon, describes the Japanese view this way: "They
were instruments of ... revenge of history on the European
invasion of the ancient worlds of the East... They never saw us
as human beings but as provocative symbols of a detested
past." In his other autobiographical novel A Bar of Shadow,
Van der Post puts the Japanese point of view into the mouth of
his P.O.W. Lawrence, speaking about the the brutal guard, Hara:
"As a nation they romanticized death and self destruction as
no other people ... Fulfillment of the national ideal ... was
often a noble and stylilized self destruction in a selfless
cause". Later he has Hara say to Lawrence: "Why are you
alive? I would like you better if you were dead. How could an
officer of your rank ever have allowed himself to fall alive into
our hands? How can you bear disgrace? Why don't you kill
yourself?"
Ernie told his family many stories of the brutality of the
Japanese saying their actions seemed without specific cause -
just the desire to torture and humiliate the P.O.W.'s.
He told of guards coming into a hut and randomnly picking out
a prisoner. This man might be beaten, made to stand in the hot
sun until he fainted, or if the Japanese were really angry for
some reason, he might be put into a small metal-roofed shed and
left to "bake".
A strange bit of irony was present in the person of Kanao
Inouye, know to the P.O.W.'s as the Kamloops Kid. Ernie often
mentioned his cruelty and his hatred of Canadians. Kanao Inouye
was born in Kamloops, British Columbia. He secretly left Canada
and became an interpreter for the Japanese Army. He had been the
victim of racial slurs by white Canadians in Kamloops.
Bob Clayton in The Valour and the Horror says:
We were lined up and all of a sudden this son of a bitch comes
along... He's something new ... So he stops and says, "So you're
Canadians, eh?" Just like that. "I want you to know that I was
born and raised in Kamloops B.C. and I hate your goddam guts." He
says that when he was a kid and growing up there, they'd called
him "little yellow bastard" and stuff like this. He never forgot
that.
Even though the Kamloops Kid was able to revenge his hatred of
Canadians because of the cruel way they had treated him as a
child and young man in Kamloops, he paid for his crimes with his
life. He was executed after the war for his misdeeds which
included several murders.
Other Japanese brutalities included the use of slave labour
especially at Kai Tak Airport. The Japanese threatened them with
starvation if they refused to work.
Many prisoners were carried on stretchers from the camp to the
airport by fellow prisoners and left to lie in the sun (or rain)
all day with little or no food ("No work, no food" was the
Japanese motto) until carried back in the evening. (from Hell on
Earth, p. 29)
After the war ended, many stories were told of beatings,
murders, and the deliberate withholding of medicines. It is hard
to imagine how Ernie survived all this. In fact he almost
didn't.
POW's Garden
Chapter 5
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