Killarney Guide

This story originally ran in the November 11, 2005 edition of The Guide.

Nearly 2,000 Canadians fought in the Battle of Hong Kong, which began December 8, 1941. 

On Christmas Day, the Governor of the Crown Colony of Hong Kong surrendered, and so, after 17 days of battling with inadequate arms, supplies, rest – and troops – the surviving Canadians were taken prisoner. 

The fighting claimed the lives of 290 Canadians. For the survivors, nearly four years in POW camps and forced labour in mines, shipyards and other industries followed. Another 264 of them would die in these camps. – Veterans’ Affairs Canada

BY MANDY MORAN

Tucked away in drawers of his small apartment at Lakeview Gardens, Andy Poquet keeps the few items that honour the 1,300 days he was held captive as a Hong Kong Prisoner of War during WWII. His service medals, a plaque, a clock and pins are all meant to acknowledge the sacrifices made by Poquet and his comrades, the Winnipeg Grenadiers.

But Poquet wants as little to do with reliving those memories as possible.

“The further I can get away from it the better,” said the 88-year-old veteran who moved to Killarney a year ago. He followed his long-time friend and business partner George Bazin to town. The two of them relocated from Rathwell, where they were in antiques for a number of years.

Recalling those tortuous times is difficult and unpleasant. Poquet chooses not to participate in Remembrance Day services or reunions for that reason.

But even though it was more than 60 years ago that he was captured as a member of the Winnipeg Grenadiers, his memories of that time are quite vivid.

Poquet is clear on why he enlisted during the Second World War.

“I didn’t want Hitler to take over,” he said. “There’s no doubt about that in my mind.”

He never imagined that the military would take him to Asia, where he would wind up a prisoner for nearly four years.

Poquet trained for nearly a year at Winnipeg’s Fort Osbourne Barracks.

“I wanted to be trained really well,” he said. “I was tall, clumsy looking and clumsy acting,” said Poquet. “They really sharpened me up.”

He shipped out from Vancouver Island as a Lance Corporal aboard an Australian ship crossing the Pacific Ocean. Nearly three weeks later they docked in Hong Kong 

“It was pretty rough on the mainland,” said Poquet. “It was a shock. When you join the army you don’t know what to expect. At least I didn’t.”

Poquet was stationed on the island, with the Japanese only a half-mile away on the mainland.

“I heard 300 of them swam the channel to get a foothold on the island,” remembered Poquet. “They were trained for guerrilla warfare. They were deadly with their mortars that way.”

There was 17 days of heavy fighting with the Japanese before the two Canadian regiments, fighting alongside Punjabis and Hindus, was no longer able to defend Hong Kong.

They were taken prisoner on Christmas Eve, 1941.

This would mark the beginning of nearly four years Poquet would spend held captive by the Japanese.

He was first treated for wounds and then taken to the Sham Shui Po POW camp. 

Here the men worked at the Kai Tak airfield, doing manual labour moving dirt, cutting out the side of a hill. Poquet was then moved to another camp about 40 miles from Nagasaki where he worked in the mines.

And even though he has difficult memories of a bitter time in his life, Poquet learned a surprising lesson.

“I learned one very important thing while I was a prisoner,” he said. “I learned not to hate.”

The Japanese were struggling too, and it showed in their children, he said, with their emaciated bellies and toothpick-thin arms.

“I always really liked kids and it was terrible to see them suffering,” said Poquet. “That’s where I learned not to hate.”

The worst part of being a prisoner, where military men worked in forced labour camps for the Japanese, was the constant hunger.

Constantly being fed rice filled with maggots, Poquet nearly starved nearly to death. He watched healthy 20-year-old men die after three days of dysentery.

“I was lucky to get out of there,” he recalls.

Poquet says the only reason he didn’t starve to death was his decision to trade a treasured watch for some Japanese food rations.

When Poquet left the camp he weighed only 110 lbs. – skin and bones on his six-foot frame that weighed in at 197 lbs. when he enlisted.

“I guess we were all friends, we were all in it together,” said Poquet of his fellow prisoners. “I sure didn’t make any Japanese friends.”

In May of 1945 the Allied Forces pronounced victory in WWII, but it was fall of that year before many of the POW’s returned home. During that time he survived by trading blankets he took from the camp for eggs, potatoes and chickens.

Poquet was gone from Canadian soil for exactly four years, returning to the country in the fall of 1945 on the aircraft carrier ‘The Glory.’

During those years he had received no news from home, but a girl in Ottawa had let his family know he was alive.

The next year he bought a farm near Rathwell, and in the early years he spent his winters working away in the bush or the mines. He had arrived in the area before the war, looking for work after the Depression.

With $3.50 in his pocket Poquet had hopped a train in Saskatchewan and got off in Portage, where he walked to St. Claude. Aside from his time in the military, this area would be his life home until he moved to Killarney last year.

WWII P.O.W. – Andy Poquet, photographed here in 2005 by former Guide reporter Mandy Moran, displayed medals and reminders of the time he spent as a Hong Kong prisoner of war. This story is contained in the killarneyguide.ca archives under the heading: STORIES OF WAR AND REMEMBRANCE.