Hospitalized Under Japanese Supervision

Heroes Remember

Hospitalized Under Japanese Supervision

Transcript

So we came into a hospital, a hospital in Garut in the middle of Java, pretty well. The same time as the Japanese came in, we came in the morning and was thrown out of the hospital in the afternoon. I don't know very much about that because by that time we were pretty well out of it. There was a Norwegian Salvation Army nurse there. She told us when we came in, the, the rest of the patients, which were mostly British soldiers they said get these guys out of there they stink like... We were rotten you see, because after the bombs we're full of maggots, we were in a hell of a shape. I used all my clothes to bandage my friend Harpester. So I was naked from there up and the burnt, the sun burnt, and the skin was rolling off your body. Interviewer: So five days... We didn't look like human beings. So apparently we were not a very nice sight. The Japanese then took the British soldiers out of there, what happened to them I don't know, concentration camp I guess. We were put in the back of the hospital and taken care of more or less, by the Salvation Army. Later on we were transferred, we were allowed to go into private homes, you know, with better care. With the Japanese threat at all times, you know, we were spies, we were spies, and we were spies... As soon as we were able to walk, actually before we were able to walk we were taken down to Kempetai, you know the Gestapo. Interviewer: So the Japanese were there? The Japanese were there. They came the same day as we came into the hospital. We came in the morning, they came in the afternoon. Interviewer: So what happened? Where did you end up? Well right then I ended up with a home, with that the Salvation Army nurse, she took us home to her, her home. We, Harpester, the friend of mine, and I we lived there for a while. And later on, we were actually not taken prisoners then because we were not at war. Norway was not at war with Japan. But they wouldn't believe us, you know we said we were Norwegian, they said no you're a British spy, you know and all that sort of bologna, which... We didn't have any papers. So, but after awhile, all the Norwegian were more or less collected up in one bunch and we were given flags to mark that we were Japanese, early Japanese orders you can say, or jurisdiction, but we had all our identity as well. So we had a curfew but we were not prisoners, not before in 1943, then they came. Norway had declared war on Japan and that was the end of the... We were taken into a back of a truck, full up of Armenians and people who had been hospitalized. Well actually there was a couple, which were, been in bed ridden you could say for eight years, had never been out of their bed. All of a sudden they were thrown out of their bed and thrown into the back of the truck you know. There was no nice treatment anymore. We came down to the police station and as I told you earlier that the second mate jumped overboard, the one who lost a leg. He was on there, I thought he was dead, I didn't know he was alive. He was there minus a leg. It was off up here and above the knee and he was in bad shape. The Japanese had kicked him on the, on the stump with the, with his gun and he fainted and he was laying there on the, on the floor in agony you know. So we picked him up and helped him best we could and from then on, we were put in concentration camp and that. And the hell we got, you can say, you know it was...

Description

Mr. Maro describes arriving at hospital in Java, Indonesia, just as Japanese troops were invading. He recalls being cared for in civilians homes, and being restricted by the Japanese for quite a while before being officially taken prisoner.

Harold Maro

Mr. Maro was born in Norway in 1917, and had begun going to sea with his father at age 15. During the Second World War, Mr. Maro sailed with two Norwegian Merchant Navy ships; the Atesbull and Prominence, both of which were sunk. Mr. Maro and other crew members washed up on the beaches of Indonesia five days after the Prominence was sunk and were placed under Japanese supervision; however, they were not taken prisoner until Norway declared war the following year. Transferred from camp to camp over the course of 3 ½ years, Mr. Maro was interned in Chang, Singapore when he was liberated in 1945. As the war came to an end, Mr. Maro eventually returned to Norway, but was soon lured to Halifax, Nova Scotia, for work , moving with his wife. They both soon became Canadian citizens. Mr. Maro continued to sail until his retirement in 1976.

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