Should Be Dead

Just in time for Remembrance Day is an amazing account of a Canadian who survived the numerous wounds and maltreatment he suffered during his time in Hong Kong in WWII:

One of the guards was a Japanese Canadian from Kamloops. He was a mean sadist. Any excuse to beat you up. He killed three or four of our guys. After the war, he was hanged as a war criminal.

I spent a few years in Kamloops as a kid. It's a strange feeling to consider that someone who might be your neighbour one day could be killing you the next.

Les Canivet understands that feeling, as do so many other Canadian veterans who served in Hong Kong:

... the Japs stormed the house using hand grenades and a small portable machine gun. The wounded men downstairs were literally murdered in cold blood. Our white flag was torn down and our interpreter was bayoneted and pinned to a door to die. The Japs came upstairs and kicked open the door of the room we were in, there being about thirty of us. First they sprayed the room with machine gun fire and followed it up with a barrage of grenades ... we got as many of the wounded out of the windows as possible then jumped out ourselves.*

Accounts such as this leave me humbled; each time I read them, I feel an increased sense of gratitude.

Thank you, Les. Thank you.

*Excerpt from Not the Slightest Chance by Tony Banham; page no. 220. Read this book.

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