Google him, I dare you... Or even my great uncle, just give it a try. Gilbert and Verner Wurm of Arnprior, Ontario, Canada, both of the Royal Rifles of Canada and both Japanese POWs in Hong Kong during World War II. If you do, you might just stumble across the great injustice that they, and many others, were dealt by the Japanese and our own government, both during and long after the war ended. The wounds that they received have never healed and they never will... Not until the get the acknowledgement and honor they so deserve.
(See
[link])
Sadly, though, my grandfather and great uncle will never get a chance to see this day, just as I never got a chance to see them. But, hopefully, they will rest more easily when it comes.
Did I lose you there a little? How about I clue you in... During World War II my grandfather and great uncle both joined the Royal Rifles of Canada. Along with thousands of other young men and women, they were sent over seas to fight for the family, home and country.
My mother tells me that one day their group was on patrol and encountered a river. They asked for volunteers to swim across to see if there were Japanese on the other side (even though, as she tells me, those in charge already knew that there were). My great uncle Verner (that's Ver-ner, not Ver-nen) was one of those volunteers. So he bravely swam, but was immediately captured. Everyone, including my grandfather, thought that he was dead for a very long time. That was until the rest of the Royal Rifles were captured when they lost the battle of Hong Kong.
The Royal Rifles and the Winnipeg Grenadiers were sent to Japanese POW camps in Hong Kong, where my grandfather was reunited with my great uncle. But their happiness must have been overshadowed by the atrocities which they faced. My grandfather found my great uncle bound and beaten, broken and starving.
They were all forced to work in a mine at the camp. They were expected to survive on nearly nothing food-wise and their wounds and diseases ignored. They were put in a position where their choices were either work or die. And for my uncle, this was dire.
He had contracted beriberi (
[link]), which is caused by a vitamin deficiency and lead to his feet swelling and turning black. And since my grandfather knew the alternative to not working, every night when they returned from the mine he would rub my great uncles feet so that he could work the next day.
Sadly, I do not know much else. Other then the fact that they both survived the horrors of the camp and both came home to marry and start a family. I also know that it left my grandfather in such poor physical and emotional shape that he passed away from a heart attack when my mother was still a kid.
I don't know what to say... I wish that I could have met my grandfather... I wonder what he would have thought of me and my drawings and stories... I wonder if we would have gotten along, as he drew and wrote as well... I wonder if he would be going with my mother and I to the War Museum here in the Capital to listen to my cousin sing... To see the non-existent memorial to the men that our country forgot... To see the little blurb about the POWs and the long speech about how the Japanese were treated here... But, I cannot hold this darkness with me... Just the wonder and the hope that the future will be better and the knowledge that the past will not be forgotten.
Angsty
Dumbfounded
Unhappy
Optimism
Miserable
