Search This Blog

Welcome

Hello and welcome to my blog about men in battle mainly revolving around the battle of Hong Kong.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Remembering Life in Internment Camps

The afternoon of December 25th, 1941 marks the day a whole new chapter in my life happens. On December 19th, I was hurt by a Japanese soldier. I was shot in the leg and went to St. Stephen's College. I thought I was going to get well then fight again. Unfortunately, on December 25th, 1941, Japanese troops successfully breaks thru our defensive line and reaches the hospital and starts to rape the nurses and kills a lot of the wounded.

I was "luckily" not killed before we surrender. Once we surrendered, the Japanese troops lined us up to march us to ships to deport us for internment camps. Remember how I said I was "luckily" not killed, well that's because I would've preferred to be killed instead of living in internment camps. Internment camps were torture, they felt like Hell on Earth. The Japanese hated people who give up because they show no respect for people who would surrender since it brings shame to you and your family. When what was left of the allied troops were in internment camps, a lot of them died because of the harsh conditions we had to face. We were barely fed and were treated like slaves to the Japanese.

So what memories of internment camps do you guys have?

8 comments:

  1. Wow, I don't know what to say. Though I have heard of those dreaded camps before, I never knew of the extent of the atrocities that occurred in those camps until I read this post. I never thought they would put POWs in there too..... Well fortunately for me, I don't have any experiences in concentration camps.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You should be lucky since you didn't have to witness or experience some of the torture I had to in those internment camps.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I am so sorry to hear that. All I had to deal with was the fear of being shot and dying quickly. The pain and torture you went through must have been unbearable. As a paratrooper, the only parts of the battlefield that I see are German batteries and trying to neutralize them. I usually just stay there hold the area until the main force arrives.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh my gosh, that's awful - and that picture just puts the final touch to my gag reflex. Death would be what was feared most at Dieppe, but come to think of it, torture would be the fear of all fears...I may have been nearly bombed to pieces during Operation Rutter, but what you must've gone through must be so...so much more... I'm so sorry for what happened to you and your friends.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I completely agree with Pt. Eddie. Your shared experiences at the concentration camp made my fear of dying in they sky minuscule. I am abhorred that Japanese would even allow this.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Not only did the Japanese allow this, they also encouraged this since they hated people who surrender.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Heh, its ironic how the Japs surrendered after we dropped the atomic bombs on the them. So much their little "way of the samurai" nonsense.

    ReplyDelete
  8. They had no choice. The emperor finally admits defeat after the U.S. came up with a superior weapon. Good thing they came up with the nuclear bomb quickly because the Japanese's initial plan was to kill all of us P.O.W. if they were invaded.

    ReplyDelete