By Kate Winquist
KINDERSLEY – Henry Andrew Hladych was 22 when he sailed out of Vancouver in October 1941. He would not see Canada again for four years.
Born March 27, 1919, Hladych enlisted from Kindersley. As Private Henry Hladych, regimental number L41344, he served with the 1st Battalion of the Winnipeg Grenadiers. The battalion was part of C Force, the 1,975 Canadians sent to reinforce the British garrison at Hong Kong.
Far from home: Private Henry Hladych of Kindersley in his Canadian Army uniform. He served with the Winnipeg Grenadiers and spent nearly four years as a prisoner of war.
The troops left Vancouver on Oct. 27, 1941, and landed in Hong Kong on Nov. 16. On Dec. 8, Japanese forces attacked. Hong Kong surrendered on Christmas Day. Hladych became a prisoner of war.
He spent the next year in camps at Sham Shui Po and North Point. In January 1943 he was shipped to Japan and put to work at a shipyard in Tsurumi, near Yokohama. In May 1945 he was moved to a camp at Yumoto, where prisoners worked in the coal mines.
He was freed after Japan surrendered and reached Oakland, Calif., on Sept. 25, 1945. Of the Canadians who went to Hong Kong, about 550 never came home.
His war did not end with his release. Hladych was one of 16 Canadian Hong Kong veterans whose sworn statements helped convict three Japanese mine overseers for brutal treatment of prisoners. The chief overseer, known to the prisoners as “Bulldog,” was found guilty of 33 charges, including beating men with a hammer, a shovel and a pick handle. He was sentenced to 25 years.
Hladych later settled in Edmonton. He and his wife, Rozelle, raised two children.
For decades, Hong Kong veterans asked Ottawa to compensate them for their forced labour. In the late 1990s, at 78, Hladych told the Edmonton Journal the money had come too late to matter to him. Years earlier he had mortgaged his house to put his children through college.
“There’s veterans dying almost every day now in old age,” he said.
In December 1998, the federal government paid $24,000 to each surviving Hong Kong veteran or widow.
Henry Hladych died in Edmonton on Oct. 22, 2000, at 81. He is buried in Beechmount Cemetery.