The Last Hong Kong Veteran

Dan Thompson holding a plaque given to him by the
Hong Kong Veteran's Association on the 60th
Anniversary of VJ Day. He returned to the site
of the Japanese Prison camp in 1974


The Last Hong Kong Veteran

It’s a story that’s hard to tell but it proves the
resilience of the human spirit, a spirit that
remained hopeful in Dan Thompson, a former
Canadian whose life took a very different turn in 1941.
He became a POW.

Dan Thompson knows war. He tasted four years of
it in Japan during WWII. Imprisoned during the
entire war, Dan had plenty of reasons to be bitter.
But Dan choose forgiveness.
Let’s go back over 60 years.

The Ordeal Begins

Dan enlisted in 1941, lying his way into the
Canadian Services. “I said I was nineteen.
I was only sixteen.” He was sent to Hong Kong
thinking it was paradise. “We were having a ball!
Everything was so modern.” The Japanese were
only 20 miles from Hong Kong. They attacked.
“We were outnumbered 10 to 1. The island
surrendered Christmas Day, 1941.
I turned 17 the day after Pearl Harbor.”

Defending Hong Kong was a lost cause.
Canadians regiments were sacrificial lambs.
Dan said, “It was a regretful error. They’ve
apologized ever since. It happened. We can’t
do anything about it.” 2000 Canadians went
to Hong Kong. The remaining 500 were incarcerated.
Dan was sent to prison camp. Little food.
No medication. Many diseases.
Five POWs or more died daily.
“We’d carry them to the graveyard the next morning.”

Rotation

Hong Kong camp wasn’t the Ritz.
No windows or doors. POWs slept on concrete floors.
“All you had for blankets was whatever you’d been
captured with. Three POWs would make a sleeping bag.
We’d rotate who slept in the middle. It was as
cold as can be.” Every third night Dan had a
chance at warmth. A disease called Pelegra Mouth
closed the throat. His bunkmates died from it.

Dan was transferred to Oeyama August 15th, 1943
and spent 19 days jammed into a ship’s hull.
“You were fortunate to get to Japan without
being sunk by friendly fire.” In 1942, a Japanese
ship known as a ‘hell ship’ carrying POWs from
Hong Kong was torpedoed by an American sub.
1700 of 2100 people died.
The Americans couldn’t have known.
It was unmarked.

Dan didn’t have physical abuse in Hong Kong.
That changed. The Japanese were angry the POWs
hadn’t learned Japanese. POWs learned
quickly or got hit by a wooden sword.
Not exactly the Berlitz method.

Dan did hard labor in nickel mines. No days off.
Not even Sundays. “It didn’t matter how sick you
were. You went even if someone had to support you.”
Twice Dan ended up in isolation, unable to function.
Most came out feet first. Dan was lucky. He lived.
“When you’re sick, they cut your rice in half.
You got hardly anything to start with. When they
cut it in half you almost owed them! New prisoners
didn’t understand why we’d dash for an orange peel.
I had no meat or vegetables for 13 straight months.
Once we were fed rotten fish full of maggots.
It was a treat. Everyone got deathly sick.
I weighed 100 pounds when I was released. Many
weighed 80-95 pounds and went blind because of
malnutrition. Dysentery never left you.”

Hard memories

Some of the brutalities? Prepare yourself.
They took turns beating his head with a Sam Brown Belt.
He got hit so hard with a shovel it got stuck in
his shin. The “Yito” treatment left scars from the burns.
There were many other abuses. Dan never gave up.
“When I got beat, plenty of times, I’d wet my finger,
put a mark on the wall or the air and say,
“One more for my side.” I figured, ‘They beat me up again.
I survived.
One more for me.”

Dan became very close with POWs in his hut.
‘A buddy would say, ‘I’m going to sit down.
Wake me when the rice comes.’
They’d sit down. You’d shake ‘em. Gone.”

Rumors were rampant. “Every day we thought
Chiang Kai Shek would come over the mountains
and rescue us on his white horse. We’d seen
Gruman Hellcats have a dogfight in June so
we knew liberation was close. You survive
on rumors. If you didn’t have rumors you
weren’t getting out. It’d be a pretty dismal
outlook wouldn’t it?”

Two years to the day after Dan went to Oeyama,
the war ended. Three days later, American planes
dropped food supplies. “So much came down you
couldn’t use it all. They welded two 55-gallon
drums together to put on parachutes. When C-47s
dropped them, some chutes tore off. The drums
soared into camp. It was like being bombed.”
These POWs didn’t lose a sense of humor.
Some drums contained ketchup and split open.
“We’d douse ourselves with ketchup and
make-believe we’d been hit.”

Dan said POWs would never throw away another
cigarette butt in their life. They got 10
cigarettes every 10th day. POWs bartered rice
for cigarettes depending if they wanted to
smoke or eat. “The first night, you’d see
the glow of cigarettes and the butts flying
through the air,” said Dan. “It doesn’t take
long before you forget you were ever in there.
We ate so much food, we put on 2-3 pounds
a day. Beri-beri made us look like balloons.
Everybody had stomach problems.”

Home

Dan’s group left Sept 9th and was met by the
Marine band in Yokohama. Dan’s ordeal didn’t
end yet. He had interrogations, delousing and
months of hospital stays along the long route
back to Canada. Just when things seemed better,
a terrible typhoon hit on a harrowing flight to
Kwajalin. “The pilots wanted us to jettison
our souvenirs to lighten our planeload. We only
had a couple engines working by this time. We
said ‘No way. We’re going to keep our stuff.’
He said, ‘I guess after what you guys have been
through, what difference does it make? Hang
onto anything you want.’”
They landed safely.

Dan took a true hero’s journey. Real heroism
isn’t in places, surviving beatings, disease or
lack of food. True heroism is in the heart.
The day of the interview, Dan’s only granddaughter
arrived in Hong Kong with UNLV. Dan told her to
go to the graveyard of the Allied POWs. In Japan,
POWs were cremated. There were no graves.

Dan and his wife Fran, went to Japan and Hong Kong.
“There was one building left. You could see where
the perimeter of camp had been. The smelter had
grown. They had a big get-together with dignitaries.
There was one elderly gentleman who started working
in 1941 and another in 1945. I started in 1943.
They introduced us and asked why I returned. I said,
‘I wanted to show my wife what a beautiful place this
was.’ The spokesman said, ‘You started in 1943.
That makes you second senior man in the company.’
I replied, ‘If that’s the case, what’s the
chance of getting all my backpay?’
That cracked everybody up.”

Dan feels a closure. “It used to bother me about
going back. I wanted to see what the place was
really like. “You can’t go back with a chip on
your shoulder. You make light of it. I know a
lot of people couldn’t do this.
Their hatred didn’t leave. My best friend was
shot and killed. We enlisted together. I have
as much right to be hateful as anybody. It was
a big thing in my life to say, ‘This is done.’
Especially when I think back about the first
200 guys that went there.” In 5 months, 46 guys
died of starvation. What got Dan through? “Luck,”
he says, “and determination. Other guys had
determination too. They just didn’t make it.”

“Most everybody was older than I. There aren’t
many of us left. It’s just a matter of time now.
But I’ve always said I’m going to be the last
surviving Hong Kong veteran.” Dan was willing to
talk about his experience. That kept his outlook
positive. Some POWs remain imprisoned in the
long ago past. Dan opened the door of war,
walked through, and moved on.

Live like a hero!

Terri Marie
Award-winning author of “Be the Hero
of Your Own Game”

Dan’s Life Lessons

• Positive Attitudes Don’t Change When
Circumstances Do

Fran said of her husband. “It didn’t change him.
He’s always had a positive attitude.” Dan said,
“I’m still the same person. I enjoy being with
people and like to help people.
You have to enjoy life.”

• Don’t generalize and hate all

Dan understands it was a few people and a
war situation. I don’t dislike the Japanese
people at all. Some POWs are released from
camp but not from their anger.

• Don’t Give Up Hope

“In Japan we lost everything. My mother
didn’t know I was alive until July of 1942.
You survive on rumors. But don’t give up hope,
just because they don’t come true.”

• Be Resourceful

Dan hid bean curd paste under his hat to
get extra food. To try to keep their feet warm,
POWs hid coal in their boots. The Japanese
had shakedowns looking for coal. Dan’s
friend threw a coat over his boots while Dan
buried the coal in the snow to avoid another beating.

• Try to Stay on Your Feet

Dan had a rifle barrel jammed in his mouth,
spent 10 days in solitaire, and was horribly
tortured. Dan’s advice “Stay on your feet.”
Good advice for anyone.

• Help Out Weaker Guys

The POWs helped other POWs who were too
weak to work. Once while guards were working
someone over, Dan stepped in and got hit across
the back with a shovel. It broke his 7th cervical.

• What Does Dan Teach His Children and Grandchildren?

His first answer “Save money.”
Then, “Have good work ethics.”

• Forgiveness Works

One POW told Dan, “Don’t ever ask me about Japan.”
That man died at 43. Dan let the bad experiences go.

• I asked Dan why he retired in San Clemente. His answer?
“Because it was nicer than Burbank.”
There’s more to that story…!