Nova Scotia/Nunavut Command of The Royal Canadian Legion www.ns.legion.ca 47 continued ... to evade capture in hopes of escaping the island. Rifleman Fredette hid amongst an outcropping of rocks during the surrender of the last remnants of the Royal Rifles of Canada that day. Later that night he noticed that there were no sounds of battle, that the streetlights were back on and that cars and trucks were driving around with headlights on. All indicators that the battle was over, and things had settled down. He decided it would be safe to surrender peacefully and avoid a potentially violent capture by the IJA. Two hundred and ninety Canadians were killed during the Battle of Hong Kong and 493 were wounded. Another 272 would perish from disease, malnutrition, physical abuse and murder, while being held as prisoners of war (POWs). Hormidas was kept in the North Point POW camp, on the island of Hong Kong, until 26 September 1942. Then he was transferred to Shamshuipo POW camp in Kowloon on the mainland of Hong Kong. There was a notoriously cruel and brutal IJA sergeant at that camp. The “Kamloops Kid” took great delight in beating and abusing Canadian POWs. Sergeant Kanao Inouye was born in Canada in 1916 and had grown up in Kamloops BC. In 1938 he traveled to Japan to continue his education. Inouye was conscripted into the IJA in 1942 and served as an interpreter/prison guard for the IJA and for the notoriously cruel Kenpeitai (political police). Fortunately, for Rifleman Fredette, he only had one run-in with the “Kamloops Kid.” Sergeant Inouye warned Hormidas to “just play the game.” Kanao Inouye was executed for war crimes in 1947. JAPAN In late December the Japanese war machine needed to rapidly increase output. POWs were seen as a cheap source of labour. To that end, POWs from various camps in the Pacific region (Singapore, the Philippines, Malaya, Thailand, Java, Hong Kong) were sent to Japan. At 5 AM, on 19 January 1943, the Tatsuta Maru left Hong Kong with 1180 Allied POWs; 663 of them were Canadians, including Rifleman Hormidas Fredette. The POWs were herded into the hold of the ship and each prisoner was given a small box that contained his food and water for the trip. There was no room to lay down and the vessel became known, amongst the POWs, as the “hell ship”. The ship arrived in Nagasaki, Japan, at 4 AM on 22 January. Hormidas was amongst a group of POWs who then boarded a train for the 10-mile journey to the Tsurumi-ku POW camp near Yokohama. Hormidas worked at that location for Nippon Steel Tube Company in the Tsurumi Shipyards. While he was employed at various jobs in the shipyard, his primary task was sitting for hours on a block of wood sorting large nuts and bolts for defects or damaged threads. Once, while working inside a ship, Hormidas realised that the scaffolding he was standing was shaking violently. He looked around, and to his surprise, he saw that the Japanese workers had run away. The shipyard was being struck by an earthquake! He exited the ship quickly. On 16 April Hormidas was transferred to the Ohashi POW camp to work for the Nippon Steel Company. The POWs were already suffering from the effects of a poor diet; when the winter of 1944-45 came, there was an even greater lack of food for the prisoners. Rations were reduced to 3 small bowls of rice per day. One night he was assigned the duty of ‘fire picquet.’ That night he made his way into a storeroom and found a box of daikons - a large winter radish. He pulled one from the box, peeled it and ate it quickly. It did not agree with his stomach, but he could not tell the guards that! It was around this time that Hormidas Fredette and Joseph Cardin, of Drummondville, decided that they had had North Point POW Camp, Hong Kong Sgt. Kanao Inouye – “Kamloops Kid” continued ... The Tatsuta Maru – “Hell Ship”
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