Ford Jack - The Jack Ford story: Newfoundlands POW in Nagasaki

The
JACK FORD
Story

Newfoundlands POW in Nagasaki

Jack Fitzgerald

Other Jack Fitzgerald books

Newfoundland Adventures In Air, On Land, At Sea
Ten Steps to the Gallows True Stories of Newfoundland and Labrador
Treasure Island Revisited A True Newfoundland Adventure Story
Newfoundland Disasters
Untold Stories of Newfoundland
Ghosts and Oddities
A Day at the Races The Story of the St. Johns Regatta
Beyond the Grave
Jack Fitzgeralds Notebook
Beyond Belief
The Hangman is Never Late
Another Time, Another Place
Where Angels Fear To Tread
Newfoundland Fireside Stories
Strange but True Newfoundland Stories
Amazing Newfoundland Stories
Up the Pond
Stroke of Champions
Too Many Parties, Too Many Pals
Convicted
Rogues and Branding Irons

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Newfoundlands POW in Nagasaki

Jack Fitzgerald

2007, Jack Fitzgerald

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of The Canada Council for the Arts, The Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP), and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador through the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation for our publishing program.

All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyrights hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means graphic, electronic or mechanical without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any requests for photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed in writing to the Canadian Reprography Collective, One Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, Ontario M5E 1E5.

Cover design by Maurice Fitzgerald
Layout by Joanne Snook-Hann
Printed on acid-free paper

Published by
CREATIVE PUBLISHERS
an imprint of CREATIVE BOOK PUBLISHING
a division of Transcontinental Media
430 Topsail Road, St. Johns, Newfoundland and Labrador A1E 4N1

First Edition
Printed in Canada by:
TRANSCONTINENTAL PRINT

Fitzgerald, Jack, 1945

The Jack Ford story : Newfoundlands POW in Nagasaki / Jack Fitzgerald.

ISBN 978-1-897174-23-4

1. Ford, Jack, 1919-. 2. World War, 1939-1945--Prisoners and prisons, Japanese. 3. Prisoners of war--Japan--Biography. 4. Prisoners of war-

Newfoundland and Labrador--Biography. I. Title.

D805.J3F58 2007 940.547252092
C2007-906203-2

Dedication

I dedicate this story of my experience as a Japanese Prisoner of War and my witnessing of the atomic bomb attack on Nagasaki to my wife Margaret, my son Robert, my grandchildren Stephen and Heather and great-grandchildren Stephanie, Benjamin and Jamieson Clarence.

Jack Ford

Most of us are ordinary people who, despite our efforts, live ordinary lives. Jack Ford has the appearance of an ordinary man. Pass him on the street or see him in a crowd hes a regular person, just like the rest of us. Ask him about his World War II experience as a POW (Prisoner of War) in Japan, and he instantly becomes larger unintentionally but dramatically.

Jack Fitzgerald has taken Jack Fords story and exposed the savagery inflicted on Ford and his fellow prisoners in detail. Camp Fukuoka, the prisoner of war camp where he was held, was rampant with rodents. The POWs were infested with lice. Guards constantly taunted them. Long hours of labour in the Mitsubishi Shipyards exhausted their bodies and spirits. A diet of meager rations of rice reduced healthy men to mere skeletons. Those of us who have grown up in a civilized society will find it difficult to understand the physical and psychological assaults endured by these men.

This is a story of determination, of perseverance. It is a dramatic accounting of events which demanded unusual strength of character. The story of Jack Ford and his comrades in one of Japans wartime prisons will live long in the memories of its readers.

BOB RUMSEY
RETIRED SCHOOL TEACHER
ST. JOHNS, NL

The Kamakura Maru struggled through the China Sea on its way to deliver fifteen hundred POWs to Japan. These prisoners were destined to work as slave labourers, replacing Japanese workers being conscripted into the maw of the powerful Japanese war machine. This former Japanese passenger ship, now turned into a POW transport vessel, was tossed from side to side, rode the tip of a giant wave and crashed downward into the sea only to resume the same motions repeatedly. Unlike some of the other Japanese carriers which forced POWs to remain in the ships holds for the entire trip, the POWs on the Kamakura Maru were crowded onto the decks and kept there for the two-week trip that took them from Singapore to Formosa, then to Japan. It proved to be a tormenting and stressful ordeal for the prisoners.

The POWs had very little room to rest. There were no sleeping quarters; prisoners had to lie down on the deck to sleep. There was nothing except the railings of the Kamakura Maru, and the tattered and worn, discarded Chinese Army uniforms they wore to shield them from the biting cold wind sweeping in from the China Sea. The swift change in temperature encountered on the trip caused many prisoners to become ill, and many of them died. The temperature was 100 degrees Fahrenheit when the ship left Singapore in late November 1942. As it sailed north into the China Sea, temperatures dipped to winter levels, and the POWs huddled together to keep warm. It was absolutely forbidden for a prisoner to go inside the ship, even for toilet needs. Their captors had constructed wooden, scaffold-like latrines on the sides of the ship for the POWs to use. One of those prisoners was Jack Ford from Port aux Basques, a small community on the west coast of Newfoundland.

When Ford joined the RAF in 1940, the Pacific War had not yet started. Jack had never heard of a place called Singapore even though he had monitored the radio at home and at work for every mention of the war that was raging in Europe. News from the battlefront was not encouraging. Hitler was invading country after country and England was in a precarious situation. The United States was still a neutral country. Ford knew deep inside that the day would come when he would have to take up arms and fight to defend his country. Not that I was looking forward to it, mind you, Ford explained, but when your country calls you, then the cards are on the table. You either volunteer or you stay home.

Although only twenty-one years old, Jack already had three-and-a-half years experience behind him as a machinist with the Newfoundland Railway. It was a job that offered security and a good future. One day, Jack was on a lunch break from his job and had gone to the local post office to pick up the family mail. As he was leaving, his attention focused on a proclamation being put up by Magistrate John Pius Mulcahey from St. Johns, who had come to Port aux Basques that day to conduct the circuit court proceedings.