Frank Christensen’s Story
(Photo Caption: Hong Kong Veterans Ceremonial Parade Firing Party. Taken in Hong Kong in 1966. Sgt F.E. Christensen RCE, second row left.)
Frank Christensen was one of the two soldiers who were still in the Services at that time, and were chosen (the other one was Chick Query) - to go on the Government sponsored trip in December 1966. Frank fired the Salute at San Wan Cemetery.
I found this remarkable first person account on the Internet about my Uncle Frank Christensen.
Unfortunately, I never knew him as I was only two when his wife, my Aunt Stella, died. I vaguely remember my parents talking about him as his daughter, my cousin Patsy, lived with my Grandmother Hnetka.
His personal account is remarkable and inspiring. In this time of global upheaval and disaster, it is sobering to know that men such as Frank Christensen were instrumental in our own history ensuring that we can enjoy the freedoms we do today.
Born in 1920 near Carberry, Manitoba, he joined the army in 1940 when he was only 19. He shipped out a year later. But he writes he couldn’t even say he was ever “free white and 21.” He had been wounded serving in Hong Kong and woke up in the hospital to find he was a prisoner of war.
Here is one short passage from his account:
“I thought I had gone through hell, but during the following months and years I found that I had only entered the gates of it. During my internment I was subjected to starvation, disease, humiliation, slave labour, bed bugs, lice, fleas, lack of adequate clothing, brutal Japanese guards, and various forms of slow torture .”
He recounts the severe hardships he endured as a POW throughout the war. He also marks the years in captivity with the many serious illnesses he contracted yet survived.
It is a story I never knew until last week. He was a man I wish I could have met, to shake his hand, to say thank you.
His story appears on the Hong Kong Veteran’s Commemorative Association web site. His account, although taken in 1988, was submitted on January 10, 2005.
- For the March 8, 1988 verbatim account of my Uncle Frank Christensen, GO HERE.
Frank E. Urwald Christensen was born on the 28th of December 1920 in the Rural Municipality of North Cypress, Manitoba, (on a farm near Carberry). He was the third of six sons of Carl Christian Christensen and his wife Anna. They also had two younger daughters. In 1922 the family moved to McCreary, Manitoba, where they raised the children. Mrs. Christensen died there in the Nursing Home in 1993 at the age of 98.
In September 1940, at age 19, Frank E. Christensen joined the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders in Winnipeg. A year later he was transferred to the Winnipeg Grenadiers and was shipped out to Hong Kong on November 16, 1941. He was wounded on Christmas Eve of that year, and with the surrender of the Allied Forces the following day, he became a Japanese prisoner of war for four years. During his internment he did slave labour on the airstrip in Hong Kong, in the Yokohama shipyards, and in the coalmine at Sendai. He was liberated on September 10, 1945, and received his discharge the following March. A year later, on May 18, 1947, he reenlisted, this time with the Royal Canadian Engineers. Attached to the RCASC Arctic Platoon he worked for four winters in Churchill with the cattrains. He served one year in Korea (1952/53), and two years in Germany (55-57). His final posting, in December 1960, was to Base Shilo, where he was a Foreman of Works. He held the rank of Sergeant. From there he received an honourable discharge in the fall of 1967 at the age of 46. He lived in Brandon, Manitoba, from 1960 until his death in September 1996. Frank died in the Health Science Centre in Winnipeg, from secondary infections caused by leukemia. He was 75 years old.
On November 9th, Frank married Stella J. (Krumm), nee Hnetka, who died in April 1955. From this marriage Frank had one stepdaughter, Patricia Anne (b.1949). In 1966 he married Renate, nee Rolle. They had two sons, David Andrew (b.1967), and Eric Thomas (b.1968) and were married for thirty years. Frank had one grandson, Lincoln Lane Russell (b.1976) from Pat’s first marriage, and two grandchildren Brian James Stevenson (b.1982) and Lisa Marie Stevenson (b.1984) from David’s marriage to Wendy Lynn (Stevenson), nee deGroot.
Frank Christensen was diagnosed in May of 1990 with chronic lymphatic leukemia. He died from secondary infections caused by this disease on September 8, 1996.