A Colonel of the Royal Rifles, who was acting Brigadier, was in charge. Under him was Major, later Lieutenant Colonel, G. Trist. The Medical Officers in charge of the hospital huts were Major J. Crawford, now Lieut. Col., Capt. J. Reid, and Capt. Banfield.
The Japs left us mostly alone outside of a few work parties they requested to enlarge a nearby airfield. There were fatigue parties to look after the sanitary and other arrangements of the camp.
The food was terrible. A handful of rice twice daily was our main ration. Dysentery and beriberi were now common. This was followed by an outbreak of diphtheria. The hospital huts were full of patients and deaths from disease and malnutrition were every day occurrences. Our cooks did the best they could but had little with which to work. The rice was evidently sweepings from the warehouse floors and contained mouse and rat dirt. Few of us could say we liked rice but as we got hungrier we ate snakes, grass and seaweed. Rice became a delicacy, eagerly sought; it tasted like cake to us. On my return to Canada, while visiting friends, my hostess remarked, “I had better not give you rice. I guess you are sick of it.”
I replied, “Lady, we didn’t get enough rice.”
I remember some of the men of the Royal Scots at Sham Shui Po Camp had a mascot, an Airedale I believe, as I never saw the dog around, but I was invited to a special feast one night and we ate the dog. It tasted very good. At North Point I received, without soap, my first haircut and shave since my capture. I presented a little less wild appearance.
Major Crawford, the Grenadier Medical Officer, stated that one hundred and fifty Canadians died in the camps in Hong Kong. So many died that at last the Japs took notice and a Jap official appeared and had Major Crawford and his aides before him. He asked the cause of so many deaths. On receiving the reply, malnutrition and starvation, he slapped the Major across the face. Major Crawford and his aides did splendid work prolonging many lives and saving others. Without medicines and little equipment they labored at their job of mercy. Often sick themselves they continued to minister to others.
The Officers received a little better treatment then the men. They did not have to work and got first choice of the meager rations. They were paid about 100 sen a day, with which they could sometimes buy, at the camp canteen a few extras such as cigarettes. The men, when they worked, were paid 10 sen a day, but as it cost three yen, which was about 300 sen, for a packet of Japanese cigarettes, the money they received was deemed almost worthless. The canteen, which opened occasionally, contained a few cigarettes, a few bottles of soy sauce, some salt and once a couple of tins of Australian jam. Who got the jam I don’t know but it certainly was not the men. The Officers shared what little extras they could with the men of their platoon or Company. Some almost lived with their men in their eagerness to ease their lot. A few, a very few, kept their extras to themselves and on occasions when they bathed they were ashamed to be seen by the men as they had flesh on their buttocks while the men were mostly bones.
Such is humanity, conforming to the first law of nature, Survival. Can one blame a hungry cook if he dips his fingers into the cauldron of rice, or picks a piece of meat out of the small quantity in the soup? We were fast learning the primitive law, “Man, mind thyself.”
Use what strength, what wit, what cunning you may have for your own survival. Hang on to what is yours, your tattered clothes, your ragged blanket, and your meager ration of food. Never give away anything. Always trade and bargain. If you do not smoke trade your ration of cigarettes for rice. He, who prefers smoking to eating, let him eat less and starve the quicker. Lay awake at night scheming to conserve your strength by avoiding labor
