Obituary: Burlington veteran Adam Houston was last survivor of Japanese prison camps in Taiwan
Adam Houston was a hardworking Canada Post worker and an active member of many Burlington clubs, but he could never forget his time in a Japanese prison camp during the Second World War.
The former British soldier talked of having nightmares about his experience working in a copper mine in Taiwan, including the time he received a beating from a guard and was left for dead because he was too weak to work.
He spent 12-hour days toiling in the cold, dark mines, scrubbing the wall for copper in 1943 and 1944. He and other prisoners dug the copper out with small shovels and put it into bamboo baskets. Many dropped half their weight.
After the beating, other PoWs carried Houston over a mountain and back to the camp. He spent months in a coma and was moved to two other camps before the war ended.
It's very hard to talk about what happened in the mines," he told The Burlington Post in 2005 after he visited Taiwan to take part in the dedication of a PoW memorial park. I nearly broke down. Too many memories come back . . . the memories are difficult to forget. I think people need to know these sorts of things happened."
Still, he counted some good fortune out of it. I think I got off lightly being out (of the mine) after a year," he said.
Houston - who died April 13 at age 100 - was part of the British force in Singapore that surrendered to the Japanese on Feb. 15, 1942.
Canadian historian Michael Hurst, who has written extensively about the camps since 1997, said Houston was the last remaining Taiwan PoW.
He was a wonderful man and a dear and longtime friend," said Hurst, a Taipei-resident who is director of the Taiwan PoW Camps Memorial Society and whose book Never Forgotten" came out in 2021.
Houston was born May 22, 1921 in Selkirk, Scotland. A mill worker, he joined the Territorial Army in 1939 and, after war broke out, he trained as a signalman. He was posted to Malaya in August 1942.
The British had more than 80,000 men to defend Singapore and Malaya. The Japanese invaded with 36,000 men. Winston Churchill called it the worst disaster" in British history. Houston recalled seeing orders from a general telling British soldiers to fight to the last man.
More than 4,300 Allied prisoners passed through 14 camps in Taiwan. Houston's camp saw 1,100 men. The camps were some of the worst in Asia where men died of starvation, illness, overwork and beatings.
After the war, Houston returned to Scotland. His family came to Canada in 1956. He got a job as a sorter with the post office in Toronto and retired in 1981 as a senior executive. His family moved to Burlington in 1975.
Dad worked hard at whatever he did," said his daughter Marie Smith at his April 29 funeral service. He was never content to be a member."
Among the clubs he joined were the video clubs of Burlington, Toronto and Buffalo. Ken Davy, a retired advertising general manager at Stelco, had known Houston for years.
He was kind of soft spoken and self-effacing," said the 95-year-old. There was just an air about him, that you were talking to someone as straight as an arrow."
Davy said Houston did not want his family to serve him rice because that is all he ate in the camp. Another story he told was about the sea trip to Taiwan under Japanese guards, A guard slapped a British soldier and a British officer slapped the guard back.
They beat the hell out of that officer," said Davy. It was a hell of a trip."
Houston didn't demobilize properly when he got back to Britain in 1946, so he missed out on medals. His daughter rectified that with help from the British government and Houston received four medals in July, 2021: the 1939-1945 Star, The Pacific Star, The War Medal 1939-1945 and the Efficiency Medal for Territorial Army Service.
Houston is survived by his daughter, a grandson and a great-grandson. His wife Agnes died in 2015.
Daniel Nolan can be reached at dannolanwrites@gmail.com