He was among 1,975 Canadians who had volunteered to fight the Nazis but ended up bolstering a British garrison in Hong Kong. 

Nathan Greenfield, author of The Damned, a book about the Battle of Hong Kong, said it was never expected that they would be able to fight off a determined attack by the Japanese.

“It was understood they could not be re-supplied, they could not be relieved, and they could not be evacuated,” Greenfield said, “but it was hoped that by showing some more steel... the Japanese would be dissuaded from attacking Hong Kong.”

The strategy did not work. After 18 days of fighting, during which 290 Canadians died and 493 were injured, the Allies surrendered and unimaginable horror began.

“They were bayoneted after they raised their hands in surrender,” said Greenfield.

“In the prison camps they were fed 900 calories when a grown Canadian man of that age would need approximately 3,000 especially when doing hard labour.”

Greenfield said Canadian prisoners were forced to work as slave labourers swinging heavy sledge hammers in well over 100 F degrees heat for twelve hours a day in shipyards.

“They worked under Japanese fists in coalmines. They were executed for exercising their Geneva (convention) right to try to escape. They were beaten, starved and tortured.”

During the four years in Japanese custody 267 Canadian prisoners died. Many of the PoWs who survived returned to Canada with serious disabilities and several died prematurely. 

The veterans sought compensation and an apology from Japan almost as soon as they were released. In 1998, they got compensation not from the Japanese government but from the government of Canada.

And the apology from Japan only came this week.

Four veterans of the Battle of Hong Kong went to Tokyo accompanied by Canada’s Veteran Affairs Minister, Steven Blaney. They received an official apology from Toshiyuki Kato, Japan’s vice-minister of foreign affairs.

“It was simply a living hell for anybody who had to try to survive it,” said former prisoner of war George MacDonnell. “Their apology doesn’t mean a thing to us really and that’s because it’s 70 years too late and there are about 30 of us left. But I believe it means a great deal to Japan and it’s my hope that this apology will open up the secrets that they’ve kept from their people by denying completely that any of this took place.”

Greenfield is doubtful the Japanese people will hear much about the apology to former prisoners of war. The Japanese media have been mum on the subject.

Fredette said most of the people who mistreated the prisoners are dead and gone so he doesn’t see the point of an apology. Can he forgive them?

“(It’s) very, very hard and I can’t talk much about it because I break down.”

Websites:

Government of Canada news release: http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/department/press/viewrelease/1300

The DamnedBook about the battle of Hong Kong http://www.harpercollins.ca/books/The-Damned-Greenfield-Nathan/?isbn=9781554682195