[PPS]

A bit of an update on progress with Andrew John McKay.

I left a message on the HKVCA site as suggested by Mark and am awaiting a reply to the thread, if any.

Whether or not it was connected to that posting, I received a mail from Vince Lopata that carried quite a lot more information.

The records that Vince forwarded to me included his home town (Lindsay, Ontario as previously stated), enlistment area (East Ontario), his previous unit (the Midland Regiment), and a host of information about the travel from his home base in Toronto to Hong Kong via Vancouver, Honolulu, and Manila.

It lists his camp in Hong Kong (Nanking Barracks, Sham Shui Po.), and his date of capture (26th Dec. 1941).

It also lists his POW camps in Hong Kong (Stanley - to 30th Dec. 1941, North Pont Camp - 30th Dec. 1941 to 26th Sept. 1942, Sham Shui Po - 26th Sept. 1942 to 19th Jan 1943). It shows the transport Hong Kong to Japan as previously found, and it shows that he spent the whole of his captivity in Omine Camp (JP-Fu-5B).

More bits of extra information are given in that it lists the transport and ships that he returned home on. He travelled by train from Omine Camp to Nagasaki on 22nd Sept. 1945, a journey of about 6hrs 30 minutes (I wonder what sights he saw there???). Whilst there he was disinfected, showered and issued with new uniforms. From Nagasaki he was on board H.M.S. Speaker for 2 days arriving in Okinawa at 1630 hrs 24th Sept 1945. He left Okinawa 26th Sept 1945, aboard U.S.S. Renville bound for Manila, arriving 1st Oct. 1945. There he was issued with mail, telegrams, a pay advance, given a medical inspection, and interrogated on POW conditions.

From there the trail goes cold, unfortunately.

Vince also gave me a list of thirteen ships that returned POW's from Manila to Canada and the U.S. Out of the list nine docked in Canadian ports, eight in Esquimalt, B.C. and the ninth in Victoria B.C. Vince stated that a lot of the Canadians from Omine returned on H.M.S. Glory, but cannot find him on the list he has of passengers.

My friend still insists that he was in Limavady at the end of the war, so how did he get here? Did he cross Canada and come across the Atlantic, or did he come the other way back from Manila through the Indian Ocean etc.

Maybe we will never know, but at least my friend now has more information than he ever had about this man, it only goes now to prove the link if he can. It looks as though he is going to have to look at Canadian immigration records.

Anybody tell me the easiest way to go about this please?

In any case, my thanks to those who have made suggestions and passed on information. I still have a couple of queries out in the ether and await possible replies.

One thing I will say is that Canada and some other countries seem to take a lot of pride in remembering their fallen, more so than some others. Congratulations to all concerned for that.

Paul.