On October 19, 1920, Isaac ‘Ike’ Friesen was born on a farm in the Russian Ukraine. While Ike was still an infant, his father died, leaving his mother to run the farm in the middle of the Bolshevik Revolution. Mrs. Friesen sold the family farm and fled to Manitoba. Ike attended a four-room school where he completed grade eight before becoming a farm laborer to help support his mother. He briefly tried working on a sugar beet farm, but joining the armed forces seemed a better option.
He took basic training as a member of the Eighteenth Manitoba Reconnaissance Regiment at Shilo and was later recruited by the Winnipeg Grenadiers.
When Prime Minister Churchill requested that Canadian troops be sent to defend the British colony of Hong Kong, Ike and other members of ‘C’ Force from the east traveled across Canada by CPR troop train, arriving in Vancouver on October 27, 1941. From there, he sailed on the New Zealand Liner, the AWATEA. After brief stops in Honolulu and Manila, they arrived in Hong Kong on November 16. On arrival, all troops were quartered at Nanking Barracks, Sham Shui Po Camp, in Kowloon.
Many of the soldiers reported that their first three weeks felt like a holiday, except for practice drills in readiness for a Japanese attack. When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, the Battle of Hong Kong commenced. Ike and the others found themselves thrust into a conflict for which they were ill prepared. On Christmas Day, the Allies surrendered. The Japanese Imperial Army took captive the surviving Canadian soldiers. Ike ended up back at the now decimated Sham Shui Po camp and was later transferred to another POW camp in Japan.
In an interview with Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) years later, Ike described some of his experiences.
“If you didn’t want to do what they wanted you to do, they’d make you stand to attention and beat you up and give you a rifle butt in the side of the face or right in the middle of your face at the front. I got my teeth knocked out here with a rifle butt.
“I picked up the language quite well. I could communicate with them by this time. One day they picked on me for some reason and I kind of resented that and let them know. The guy marched me in front of a big boulder … and he bat me in the face with his fist. And then every time I would jar back or get off balance and step back, two other guards would push me toward the rock again. And if I didn’t move, I’d feel the bayonet in my back. So I got beat up pretty bad that day. The guys had to help me back into camp.”
After four years under such conditions, Isaac Friesen joined the ranks of survivors who returned to Canada. He passed away at the age of 80 in 2001. His niece, Anita Gemmell, is a friend of mine. I “stumbled across” Isaac’s story one Remembrance Day when Anita posted a tribute to her Uncle Ike’s memory. I happened to be in search of stories like his for a book I was writing. I’m pleased to tell you that novel, Rose Among Thornes, releases later this summer and is now available for pre-ordering in print and eBook form, from almost anywhere you order books.
The Battle of Hong Kong monument in Ottawa
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