A (66:52)
A few words on the pride and self respect of the men, no matter what their original background or the results of the degradation and environment in which we existed. I was far from being the ideal prisoner. And when one of the Japanese guards consistently beat up the very sick prisoners, I went after him and beat him into the deck. I shall not go into the aftermath of that affair. Suffice it to say I was extremely lucky to barely survive the the punishment and not be killed. When the beatings of the sick turned started up again, the men said I should try something else as we would never live through that punishment again. So we held a sit down strike and after I had received a terrible beating, but also the insurance that the sick would not have to go to work, did I give my order for the men to go to work? My hour of glory was very short lived and that I was removed from that camp within an hour and sent to a severe discipline camp at Omori, Tokyo to show me the error of my ways. There I was set up as a very bad example. And it was the kiss of death for any prisoner to even look at me in front of the specifically selected sadistic guards. For the first two weeks I worked all day sewing bits of fur together and then all night in the cookhouse here. The punishment was to stand on the hot brick ovens in bare feet and holding two large buckets of water with our very painful berry berry feet. This was sheer hell. I slept in little short naps wherever I could out of the sight of the guards. About this time the POW camp of can Canadians in Yokohama, which had no doctor and who senior POW was an rsm, ran into a bad session of sickness. A group of the sick were moved to another camp, but en route they stopped off at the Discipline camp for a few days. The day they arrived, they heard that I was in the camp and the Canadian sergeant in charge of them came to me in the shop where the officers were sewing the bits of fur together. He threw the first salute between POWs that I had that had been seen in that camp and explained that the Canadians had heard about my efforts on behalf of the POWs. And I was, and as I was the first Canadian officer they'd met since leaving Hong Kong long, they would like to hold a parade for my inspection. I tried to explain what this would mean, but to no avail. Reluctantly, I agreed and he said they would be formed up in a few minutes. They formed up in the open dirt area which we use for roll calls, parades and forming of work parties. They were dirty, sick, ragged, starved. Some had to be held up by their comrades. But they were all there. As I expected. No sooner had we got started than the storm broke in all its fury and the guards came charging into us like a bunch of raving maniacs, swinging fists, clubs, rifle butts and kicking the daylights out of those who fell down. None of us minded. And when it was all over we crawled back into our huts to lick our wounds and to have a damn good laugh at the Japanese. I guess one interpretation would be that it was an act of defiance. And that may be right. Bear in mind that these men were from the reserve units out of Montreal and Winnipeg. And in a majority of these cases their military background was practically nil. All had been reduced to the lowest state of civilization by their maltreatment and horrible environment. And yet there was a, a pride in each of these men such that I had never seen before or expect to see again. It made me proud to be admitted into their ranks. I might add that news of this parade spread like wildfire throughout the working camps in Japan and the rise in Morale amongst POWs made life hell for the Japanese guards. So epic. Epic. And this is kind of portrayed, you know, a lot of the stuff. Have you seen the movie Bridge on the River Kwai? It's a great classic movie. It was one of my favorite movies as a kid. There's commando activity happening. There's, you know, British soldiers in this, in, in that movie. It's British soldiers for the most part. And they're doing this, they're, they're doing this type of behavior, you know, falling out, showing the proper military respect. And they're just catching beat downs from the Japanese guards and whatnot. But this is a just heroic effort. And you can see how important it is to the troops that they just wanna, they wanna be inspected by the officer, you know, like that's what we're doing. You can't break us. The Ormori discipline camp was on a small island out of the Tokyo harbor, made from the silt and sand dredged up from the Tokyo harbor and was about 50ft, 50ft from the mainland. There was an anti aircraft battery battery on one of the on one end and a searchlight battery on the other, with our camp sandwiched in between. We were housed in the standard prefabbed single story wood buildings used by the Japanese military. And we were right opposite the main fighter base at Hedina Airport, which protected the Tokyo, Yokohama area with no markings whatsoever to Show we were POWs. We were extremely vulnerable. And so whenever a single B29 came over, obviously on a photo recce, we would run out into the open parade area and unbeknownst to the Japanese, we would form the letters POW in hopes that this would show up in the photos. Fire bombings and firestorms wiped out the entire area around our camp and the only thing that saved us was the 50 foot of water separating us from the mainland. The whole area around us was flat as a pancake, exactly like our Northland after a big forest fire with no food, water, electricity or places to work. The Japs started to move some of us out into the outlying areas and I was the. And as one of the bad actors, I was one of the first to go. They took a bunch of us from various camps in the Tokyo area and put us into railway base box cars. We were jammed so that we had to take turns standing and sitting. It was cold, no food, water or sanitation facilities. And we were there for over 48 hours, bro. 48 hours in a box car where you're packed in like sardines and there's no bathroom. No food, no water, no bathroom. Many of us had amoebic dysentery or diarrhea and life soon became grim, to say the least. We were taken up into the mountains northwest of Tokyo and here we ended up on a sighting where we were able to get out and lie down on the ground. This was the first opportunity I had to see what prisoners were there, their physical condition, and then the sad realization that once again, I was the senior POW. There was a total of 280 POWs, a real mixed bag, and the physical condition was the worst I'd ever seen. Some were blind from a lack of vitamin A, some had lost a hand or a foot from berry Berry, followed by gangrene. All were skin and bones from prolonged malnutrition. As we were the first batch out of Tokyo camps, the commandants had unloaded all their sick invalids and misfits. We were now jammed onto flatbed trucks and taken off to our camp in the mountains at a place named Suwa. As it was high in the mountains, it was cold, especially at night when we might even have a thin coating of ice on any open water. The camp was only half built. Some of the buildings had no roof. Some had no side walls. There was no kitchen, cooking or sanitation facilities. The wiring consisted of a single line running through the camp with one or two 40 watt block bulbs in each building. It was pouring rain. Everyone was soaked, cold, miserable, starving and filthy beyond belief. The barracks were of little protection and there was no straw on the bare boards for us to lie on. The floors were just mud. The next day we tried to fix up the camp. We found that we were on the side of a mountain which was all terraced with rice and vegetable patties. Our water supply was a small creek that ran down through the patties and then through the camp. Since the fertilizer they used was human excreta, we had to set up a system that would at least boil our drinking water. We tried to make our barracks as airtight as possible with mud, strong grasses. We had no heat whatsoever and we set up the most basic washing and latrine facilities. The work details started at once. The prisoners left at camp at 7am each morning, walked down to the side of the mountain and up the side of the next one to get to an open faced mine where they dug out ore which was some kind of white metal. The path between the camp and the mine was all broken, rough stone and with no shoes, only wooden clogs. The number of our seriously infected feet went completely out of control. Our food ration was the lowest I had encountered and with no medicines or medical treatment, this was indeed a death camp. The first week three men died and our number of seriously ill doubled. It was our conservative but well considered estimate that we would be extremely lucky if just one of us would survive the coming winter of 1945. As the war started to go against the Japanese and the Allies began their island hopping campaign toward Japan. The orders had gone out from Tokyo headquarters to all military that they were never to retreat, but rather fight to the last man, even with suicidal attacks. The Kamakazi aircraft was a good example of this philosophy. Also the orders were that at the first sign of a landing and attack on their area. They were to kill all POWs, internees, sick, wounded, incompetence, etc so that every able bodied Japanese could fight to the death without hindrance. In the POW camps we had to dig trenches and machine guns were placed at each end. We were then to be marched into the trenches, doused with gasoline and set on fire. Anyone trying to escape would be killed by machine guns. Proof of this policy was more than evident in the Japanese occupied islands where overrun that which were overrun by the Americans where they found all the POWs sick and wounded, captives and Japanese all massacred by the Japanese as they retreated. With the Japanese surrender we took over our camp to ensure our survival and concentrated on getting ourselves physically fit enough to get out of there and into the hands of the Allies. We took over all the food we could find and ran a kitchen on a 24 hour basis. We bought a pig, a horse and a cow which we slaughtered and put into the stew pot. Believe me, everything went in with the possible exception of skin and hooves. We scoured the countryside for all medical supplies we could beg, borrow or buy just to or just expropriate so that our doctor and his helpers could work day and night to bring seriously ill back to as good as health possible. We got yellow paint and painted big POW signs on the roofs of our buildings. We made flags out of old bag sheets and colored them with crayons. We put these up on flagpoles and we waited. The US Navy planes soon found us and we were showered with bundles from heaven containing clothing, food, medicines and goodies such as cigarettes and chocolate bars. When the doctor felt we were as fit as he could get us, we made our move and came out overnight by train to Tokyo. When we couldn't find any allied forces near the Tokyo railway station, we moved over to the station for the electric train and went to Yokohama. Here we went outside the station, sat down and flew our flags on some bamboo poles we had liberated. It was not all that easy. You must remember that we had some prisoners who were blind, some minus a foot or a hand, some unable to walk on feet, painful from beriberi and all of us at the end of our endurance. Thus we had to commandeer trucks, wagons, bicycle trailers, anything that we could lay our hands on to carry our sick and invalids. The healthiest POWs carry the Japanese guards rifles just in case we met up with trouble as once we left the relative safe confines of our camps. We are on our own and God help us, we didn't have to wait Long outside the Yokohama station before a jeep came by with a U. S. Army officer and a big radio on it. We identified ourselves. The chap got on his radio and we were soon inundated with buses, trucks and ambulances which took us down to a reception center set up in Yokohama docks. We were then told to get out and go into the dock area. The next thing I knew, our senior POW NCO called the troops to attention, formed them up into marching order, turned the parade over to me and we marched into the dock area with our homemade flags flying. We were dirty, tired, clothing in rags and tatters. Many of the men had to be supported or semi carried. But they were all there, all those who could possibly walk. As defiant, proud, a force that could never be beaten. The first thing was to strip of us of all our clothes and throw them into an incinerator. Next they removed all our body hair and put us through a delousing station. From there we got into a hot shower with lots of hot water and soap. While stark naked we were confronted by a horde of doctors and nurses who segued, segregated us into groups depending upon our medical condition. Then into a room with all the clothes in the world where we could take as much of everything we wanted. Finally, we were given a thorough intergate interrogation by a team of intelligence and war crime officers. All this time this was going on, there were Red Cross girls going around dishing out cigarettes and chocolate bars. I was taken to the hospital ship USS Marigold. As I was on my feet and don't even remember going on board. I do recall that I was taken into a cabin which I had all to myself. This is the first time since being captured that I was all on my own except when I was in solitary confinement. I had pajamas and clean ones too. The first time in three and a half years I was clean, really clean and clear of lice, fleas and bed bugs. For the first time in three and a half years. And finally I had absolutely no responsibilities for anyone other than myself. For the first time in three and a half years. Our camp was unique in having 100% survival from the instant that the war ended until we were recovered by Americans. This was only due to the full cooperation and self discipline of all the men in that camp. By way of explanation, the Americans were very cautious and stayed in the Yokohama dock area until they were certain the Japanese military and civilians would accept the surrender and not kill POWs and internees as they had been ordered to. A large part of the Japanese military would not accept surrender and vowed to fight to the finish, while a tremendous number of civilians who had lost members of their families, especially in the firebombing, were very hostile. For those POWs who were inland, such as ourselves, you either had to wait a long period of time to be recovered or try and beat your way out. I'm afraid that in the majority of camps, it was every man for himself, and in a lot of cases, this was fatal. The civilians retaliated as they did, as did the military. Some POWs ate poisonous food or drank wood alcohol and died. Others started out on journeys far beyond their physical capability and died en route to freedom. You must remember that it was most difficult, if not impossible, to control men who had been through four years of sheer and utter hell, especially when there was absolutely no way of enforcing any discipline. During the war, over 30% of all the POWs and internees taken by the Japanese were either killed or died in the prison camps and thus never did make it home Here. I think the epitaph on the memorial in the Allied war grave cemetery in Kohima, burma, where over 1500 allied servicemen are buried, sums it up very well. When you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow, we gave our today. Yeah, even. Even the fact that, you know, he doesn't explain it in too much detail, but the fact that when they were done, when the war was over, they stayed there, they got food, they got healthy, they got checked by a doctor, and then they moved as a unit with. With their own people, with guards to get out. But a lot of the other prisoner camps, he's talking about, like, oh, the war is over. It's every man for themselves, and they're just gonna go for it. They're not healthy enough, and a bunch of them died. So that dissonance, that's like the law of the jungle versus the team law and the leadership law, and trying to do things together because we're stronger together now he kind of gets into the leadership portion of this. Catchphrases are wonderful things that by way of trying to summarize this whole thing, if I had to use one to define my concept of leadership, it would be the three Cs. Character, character, competence, and comradeship. First is character is my firm belief that the true and solid foundation is integrity. Or as Shakespeare had Polonius say in Hamlet, this above all else, to thy own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. Say what you mean, which is telling the truth as against the Telling of lies and mean what you say, which is integrity. Having the moral fiber to face the issues of right and wrong. And then the courage to stand up firm and strong regardless of consequences to yourself. That's character. That's number one. The second, competence. Having the necessary knowledge, education, training and judgment to make and to make the full use of them, no matter how large or small the problem, to ensure that you have given it your fullest consideration. Once you have done this and made your decision, then to carry it out with the very best of your ability. Know what you are doing and how to do it. Number three. Comradeship. Taking a full interest in your subordinates. Having true respect and concern for them to the extent that it all, all times and in all circumstances, you put their welfare and their well being ahead of your own, regardless of the cost or inconvenience to yourself. Those are the three Cs. Once these are firmly in place, then those other important aspects such as discipline and self discipline, pride in yourself and your unit, self respect and respect for both your superiors and subordinates. Proper dress and deportment at all times. All these will develop and strengthen as they feed on one another until what I call true leadership emerges. Live by these precepts and as a member of the Canadian forces, devoted to the well being of your fellow Canadians and the preservation of our Canadian way of life. You will not only only attain true self respect, but also the respect of everyone with whom you associate. You can never have a better goal in life. Canada needs you. You who will be the leaders, the protectors and defenders of our country. And in the years 2000 A.D. it needs to. It needs your youth, courage and energy. But there is also a desperate need for your self discipline. Your discipline of the mind, your character, your integrity. In short, your leadership. As I look around this room, I have absolutely no qualms about the future of our service. Admiral Bull Halsey, the famous World War II admiral of the fleet of the US fleet in the Pacific, once said, quote. There are no great men. There are only great challenges. Ordinary men are forced to buy circumstances to meet. End quote. As the history of our service shows, there has never ever been, nor will there ever be any shortage of ordinary men and women such as are gathered here who are ready, willing and most capable to take up the challenge. Challenges they will be forced to face per ardua adastra through adversity to the stars. This is the heritage which has been entrusted into your hands. Guard it well, as I have every confidence you will. Ladies and gentlemen, it has been an honor and privilege to have shared these thoughts with you. Bon chance. So, as I said, lots of. Lots of very good lessons in there. Lots of reiterations of principles you heard before. True leadership, the three Cs, character, competence, and comradeship. I also find it interesting that he quotes Admiral Halsey. There are no great men. There are only great challenges. Ordinary men are forced by circumstances to meet. And it kind of reminds me that if you're not like, in many cases, we will not reach our potential unless we're forced to do it. You know what I'm saying? Like, that that's unfortunate, unfortunately. Like, what are the chances that you, echo Charles, are going to get put in some circumstances that are so dramatic and so severe that you are forced to rise to a level that. That is imperceivable to you right now? Yeah, you know, I talk about, you know, we had Alex Honnold on the podcast, and he climbed El Cap with no ropes, right? Free solo. And for a while, I was saying that that was the greatest feat that any. Greatest physical feat that any human has ever accomplished.
