Before we left, some of the boys and I went to say goodbye to those Japs we had found friendly. We gave them the possessions we could not carry with us, an old coat or some other piece of equipment. Some seemed genuinely sorry to see us go. We went around to the cubbyhole and found the Master Painter. He was highly nervous and had difficulty in understanding what we had come to say. “ Tri ana la” Goodbye, Goodbye.” He was not bad as Japs go and we left him as he furtively slipped back into his cubbyhole.
Under the Command of Captain Reid around two hundred Canadians entrained for our journey to Camp Sendai.
Tom Marsh - Chapter 19 - Hospital Treatment
At the time of the bombings in the fall of 1944, while working in the shipyard near Yokohama, I suffered from a mild attack of dry beriberi and then developed jaundice. At this time the Japanese had established a central Hospital camp for prisoners called Shinagawa Camp at Tokyo. Acting on instructions from Tokyo about a dozen of us, too sick to work, were bundled one morning into a truck and driven several hostile miles to Tokyo. A Winnipeg Grenadier named McPhearson, who had been caught in some machinery while working in the yards and broken his arm and several other bones, lay on an improvised stretcher at the bottom of the truck. The road was rough like most Japanese roads and the truck bumped and swayed as it careened along. McPhearson was in great pain and we had trouble in keeping him on the stretcher. We pleaded with the driver of the truck and the guard beside him for more careful driving. They both laughed and paid no further attention.
Going through parts of Tokyo we saw grim evidence of the effectiveness of the American bombing. Whole areas were laid waste, most being burned out. Shinagawa Camp was placed right in the heart of the district and the Japs were using it to protect themselves from American bombs. The camp itself was much the same as the others. A high board fence surrounding a collection of low sheds with tiled roofs and few windows. Here were held most of the medical personal both American and British that the Japanese had captured during the first two years of the war. The medical Officer in charge under the Japanese Commandant was a Commander Surgeon of the British Navy captured at Hong Kong. He was a tall, elderly, distinguished looking Englishman who always wore full navy regalia, gold braided hat and coat sleeves and ribbons were possibly the only clothes he possessed. He did not wear a monocle but it would have suited his facial expressions perfectly. When questioning the patients his jaw would drop, one eyebrow would come down and he would constantly saw “ Haw” He was however a very good surgeon and a helpful, honest and well intentioned man.
He was often in trouble with the Japs, as they hated his type and what he stood for, but they wanted to pick his and other doctors' brains. They had Japanese doctors watching all operations and turned many of them into experimental demonstrations often at the cost of life and limb of the unfortunate patient. The Commander and the other white doctors were in some cases compelled to operate secretly and at night to avoid having the patients experimented upon. As usual there were few Red Cross supplies in the camp and practically no medicine. All the medicine I saw was a few white pills. Most of the operating equipment, surgical instruments and an X-Ray machine had been made or set up by a small group of officers from a Norwegian merchant ship. These men were very clever and seemed to be able to make anything. I believe they had a radio hidden somewhere and the Japs knew it for several times they instigated searches but always without success.
