Posted Nov 8, 2024 10:14:28 AM.
Last Updated Nov 8, 2024 02:03:00 PM.
A Kitchener woman is telling the heart-wrenching tale of her grandfather’s journey through the Pacific Theatre and a Japanese prisoner of war camp during the Second World War in her new book: The Roll of Honour.
A.B. Reid wrote the story using her grandfather’s journals, and spoke to people who fought with him and others in Japan and Hong Kong.
“He fought in the Battle of Hong Kong, and that battle was overshadowed by Hitler’s war,” said Reid. “The focus was on Europe and Britain at that time. The soldiers that fought in Hong Kong, and were in prison in Japan for four-and-a-half years, what they went through was even more atrocious.”
It comes together as a testament to the human spirit, but Reid says it was a labour of love.
“It was a very emotional journey,” said Reid. “Some of the things that my grandpa talked about were definitely emotional, but to read it and writing about what other men were talking about, some of the atrocities that I didn’t know my grandfather suffered through, was very difficult.”
The cover of the book features a tapestry that her grandfather, Nick Massaro, made from the clothes of his fallen brothers in arms during his time in a prisoner of war camp.
“Because he was such a participant in the Branch 50 Legion in Kitchener, I would go down to the legion, sometimes had to pick him up,” laughed Reid. “I sat with a few of the soldiers, Canadians, he fought beside the Sikhs, and they would tell their tales as well.”
Reid will be bringing that tapestry to McMullin’s Scottish pub on Sunday, a before Remembrance Day.
Find out more and purchase the book at abreidauthor.com.
