by Len Cotton
When Dad died in March of 1999, we had already started talking about the rumours concerning this pilgrimage. I could tell he was quite pleased with the thought of my going on the pilgrimage, perhaps of my being able to learn about what he endured without his having to dredge up old memories to tell me. Anyway, even though I didn’t have the chance to tell him I’d go anyway, I went anyway.
Folks, if you think the flight across Canada to Vancouver is long, you’d be amazed at the stamina it takes to fly across the Pacific from Vancouver to Tokyo, not to mention its taking place between the flight to Vancouver and the flight from Tokyo to Hong Kong. Talk about cabin fever! Even on the big Airbus and the 747, there were a few times when I was feeling this almost uncontrollable urge to step out on the wing just for a minute to stretch. I had an aisle seat. People kept pulling me back and clamping their hands over my mouth until I settled down. Sure, they’re big planes - but you don’t have them all to yourself, y’know. I can’t imagine how long the trip was for those in the “armpit” seats (the middle of three)!
Passing through Narita airport in Tokyo on the way to Hong Kong, we didn’t get a chance to do much more than find a coffee shop and then head on to Hong Kong International Airport at Chek Lap Kok. On the one hand, it’s a new airport with many of the newest features. On the other hand, it’s awfully large! By the time we got to the buses to take us to our hotel, I had almost forgotten why I had left home, and I’m pretty sure I had to shave again! However, the tour guide team waiting for us at the airport were an excellent group and soon had us all herded together again (after finding where the smokers had sneaked off to) and had us boarded for the trip to the hotel.
The hotel? The Shangri-La Hotel in Kowloon. It is an excellent place to stay! It had every amenity and the staff and management often went out of their way to ensure our stay was a pleasant one. Language was no problem because of Hong Kong’s history under British government over the past 99 years. In fact, the hotel was one of the major pleasures of the trip, once you get used to the idea of paying $44.00 for a cup of coffee, that is! Well, ok, that’s in Hong Kong dollars, so a rough translation would be to divide the amount of Hong Kong dollars by five. This meant that our coffee cost us about $8.00 Canadian, which is not that far off the standard for that kind of hotel in other major cities. It was a special treat to see the female waitresses and hotel staff dressed in their traditional Chinese dress in the hotel. To be frank (and you can be earnest), I’m now wondering if my buddy George even likes coffee, or whether he just wanted to have those waitresses coming back to our table every 15-20 minutes. I know it’s a wonder I slept at all with all that caffeine in me!
And that’s not to mention the wonderful people I met outside the hotel on my evening walks. I can’t tell you how many people so kindly invited me to their place, or offered to come to my place, for the evening. Most of them women. (Actually, they were all women now that I think of it ... )
The high point of my trip was meeting and hanging out with George. George Harbour, that is, of the Winnipeg Grenadiers. We hit it off very quickly ... right after we exchanged our first jokes, I think it was. And that took less than ten minutes. We had a great time together throughout the whole trip! We even got ourselves posted to the same tour bus eventually so we could ride together as well. I learned quite a bit from George about his experience as a Hong Kong PoW, as well as just listening whenever he and others of the vets would start talking about their experiences and memories. As a matter of fact, I made it a point to just shut up and sit still whenever Harry Atkinson, Larry Stebbe and some of the other vets came by to sit and chat with us ... actually, with George. Harry is the National President of the Hong Kong Veterans Association and a great source of information about the veterans and their experience in Hong Kong and Japan PoW camps. And Larry Stebbe, surprisingly to me, was even able to meet and spend some time with one of the Japanese military interpreters from one of the camps he was in. I found that an extremely interesting development.
For balance, I’d also try not to talk too much when George and Claude Petit (President of the National Aboriginal Veterans Association) got together. George and Claude soon realized they had the same sense of humour, I think, and that rounded off our threesome. Thanks to them, I am now well primed with some new material for my friends back in Ottawa.
I got to spend an evening with some of the children of the vets - Bill Atkinson, Nancy Dodderidge and Wayne Stebbe - when we went out “on the town” in Kowloon. I still maintain, folks, that a burger at MacDonald’s and a beer at an Irish pub are not the way to sample the cultural pearls of Kowloon! Mind you, that trip down the back alley was an experience. I can tell you for a fact, that at the mention of “rat”, Nancy can jump like a cat, though not nearly so quietly. My thanks to Bill and Larry for pointing out all the possible hidey places for the rats (yeah, right!). Next time, I lead.
When I felt that warm hand of lifelong friendship on my shoulder during my time in the lounge, I turned to meet Lori Smith for the first time. She’s Harry Atkinson’s daughter, and her husband Doug was just a-tryin’ to keep up with her. What a warm, friendly person she is! You’re some lucky, Doug! (But you were off again before you had a chance to buy me a drink. Maybe next time ;^)
Our trip to Yokohama and Tokyo was somewhat shorter in that we had only one full day there. But I was again struck by another set of customs that are so completely different from ours. My first surprise was the room at the Shin Yokohama Prince Hotel! First of all, it seemed like we were too big for the room. Either because it was built with Japanese people in mind, or perhaps because it is a business hotel and meant to be useful for sleeping only, the room seemed to be about 4/5th’s the usual size of western hotels. Everything seemed to be just ever so slightly undersized in comparison to what I am used to and I suddenly had more stuff than I had place to put it - and that was only on my side of the room. The bathroom reminded me of a cockpit control module - I could reach everything from where I was sitting - flush, run the shower, fill the sink, open the door and yell to George to come see this ( ... oh, wait, George ... just give me a minute before you come in!). One of the particularly scary observations up on the 16th floor was that, because the hotel is naturally (for Japan) built to withstand earthquakes, I could watch the water in the bowl swaying from side to side as the hotel swayed in the wind. I could even feel the floor moving slightly underfoot. I was really moved by that hotel!
Because of the extra politenesses built into the Japanese customs of human interaction, the people seemed so wonderful - a stark contrast, as George pointed out, from his first visit back in ‘41. Ordering a coffee in the hotel cafeteria invited a bow and a smile. Paying for the coffee invited a deeper bow and a smile. Leaving a tip invited several bows and big smiles. You wouldn’t believe what George’s buying an armload of souvenirs at one of the hotel’s shops invited! I thought we were going to get followed home! But it sure made us feel good, didn’t it, George?! I wish I could have known how to properly return the custom and I can only hope I didn’t do anything too far out of place for them. Everybody certainly seemed to like George though!
The British Commonwealth Forces Cemetery in (or near) Tokyo was another forceful reminder to me of the veterans who didn’t make it home. I had the privilege of delivering part of the ceremony and I’m very grateful to Claude Petit for sending me a copy of the photo of my part in it; and to Derrill Henderson (President of the Hong Kong Veterans Commemorative Association) for including me in the agenda. It was an honour to stand for the veterans and I hope I did it well enough to meet their expectations.
Throughout all of our trip, Bob Demmery of MKI Travel in Ottawa and all of our local tour guides in Hong Kong and Japan did a fine job of keeping us patiently herded together, and keeping our luggage together in the same places as we were, at the same times as we were. It was through our local guides that we got our first tastes of the local culture and customs to prepare us for our visit and, through them, our first impressions of how nice the people in Hong Kong and Japan could be. These first impressions layed the groundwork for our being able to relax and thoroughly enjoy our visits to these, for us “newbies”, oh so exotic places! The quick reception procedures extended to us by the government immigration and customs agents at the airports added immensely to our appreciation of these places, and our thanks go out to those people who made that happen for us.
More pertinent to my reason for joining the pilgrimage, I attended every dedication ceremony in honour of my dad, Pfc. J.L. Cotton, Reg. No. E30603, RRC, as well as of all the veterans of the battle of Hong Kong and its aftermath. The ceremonies on the east side of Hong Kong, especially at Repulse Bay, were particularly meaningful for me because my dad was a veteran from the Royal Rifles of Canada. He would have been with “B” Company in the battles at Sugar Loaf Hill and Stone Hill, then on past Stanley village to the point at Chung Hum Kok when the surrender was ordered on December 25th. Senator Molgat’s words set the tone for each of these dedication ceremonies. The words by Robert “Flash” Clayton meant a lot to me, as did those of Harry Atkinson in their remembrances and clarifications. And I am very grateful they could stand and deliver those words on behalf of Dad and all of the vets, many of whom didn’t make it out of there or the next three and a half years in the PoW camps.
It was a pleasure and an honour for me to accompany George Harbour throughout the trip as he, too, touched base with those memories from the past, and shared some of them with me. Those memories filled their lives day in and day out, every single minute, for some four years, and then stuck in patches large and small on their lives ever since. Some of those people could lay them to rest after a while, and for others it has stayed vividly in their minds ever since, or continues to play itself out in the illnesses and maladies that have remained with them as a result. I don’t think I want to know all of the lurid details of the sadness, tragedies and humiliations they were forced to endure and the shoulda-coulda’s that they may have been carrying around with them ever since. I have some memories like that, that just won’t seem to go away and stay away, but I sure as hell wouldn’t easily trade mine for theirs.
Thanks again for letting me hang out with ya, George, even though I’m just a young fella. ;^)
I was told this was going to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Well, so far anyway. But, if this happens again in 2005 ...