Canadian Military History Volume 13 Issue 3 Article 5 2004 The HARIKARI Club: German Prisoners of War and the Mass Escape Scare of 1944-45 at Internment Camp Grande Ligne, Quebec Martin Auger Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh Part of the Military History Commons Recommended Citation Martin Auger "The HARIKARI Club: German Prisoners of War and the Mass Escape Scare of 1944-45 at Internment Camp Grande Ligne, Quebec." Canadian Military History 13, 3 (2004) This Canadian War Museum is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Canadian Military History by an authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact [email protected]. : The HARIKARI Club: German Prisoners of War and the Mass Escape Scare The HARIKARI Club German Prisoners of War and the Mass Escape Scare of 1944-45 at Internment Camp Grande Ligne, Quebec Martin F. Auger t approximately 0200 hours on and that the objective of the prisoners ASaturday, 5 August 1944, a strange was to overthrow the camp and commit bugle sound resounded in one of the mass suicide.1 compounds of prisoners of war (POW) Camp No.12 in Cowra, Australia. Almost German POWs planned a similar mass immediately, more than 900 Japanese escape in Canada. This little-known prisoners of war rushed from their incident is almost completely ignored living quarters, which they had set on in the historiography. In early October fire, and ran for the barbed wire fences. 1944, Canadian intelligence officers at Most of them were armed with an assortment POW Camp No.44 Grande Ligne, in southern of hand-made weapons, which ranged from Quebec, learned that a secret organization known improvised bats and clubs studded with nails as the HARIKARI Club had been created by some to crude swords fashioned from dismantled of the camp’s more ardent Nazi sympathizers. bread-cutters and knives stolen from kitchens Their goal was to prepare a suicidal mass escape and mess halls. Using gloves and pieces of cloth that promised to wreak havoc on the region to protect their hands and bodies, the inmates surrounding the camp. They sought to break climbed over the fences with the help of ropes free in order to slaughter as many Canadians that they had manufactured from rice sacks. and inflict as much sabotage and destruction as Blankets and towels were then thrown over the possible before being killed. This rampage was wires to facilitate the cross over. Despite the use to be launched as soon as the Nazi prisoners of their rifles and machine guns, the Australians regarded the war as absolutely lost or in the were incapable of stopping the Japanese and event of Germany’s unconditional surrender. hundreds broke through the camp’s wire system. Taking the threat very seriously, the camp staff At daybreak, search parties began rounding up began preparing for the worst. Reinforcements the escapees. All 378 of them were recaptured were brought in, requests were made for new in the days that followed the incident. In the weapons and equipment, the camp’s wire system end, 234 Japanese prisoners of war were killed was strengthened, defensive positions were built and 108 were wounded. Four Australian guards in the vicinity of the camp, and precautionary were killed, two of them posthumously awarded plans were devised to neutralize the inmates in the George Cross for outstanding gallantry and the event they launched their suicidal attack. devotion to duty, and four others suffered severe Although the HARIKARI Club was dismantled wounds. An Australian military court of inquiry several months later and the dreaded mass concluded several weeks later that the Cowra escape attempt never occurred, this incident mass escape attempt had been premeditated proved how Nazism remained a powerful force © Canadian Military History, Volume 13, Number 3, Summer 2004, pp.49-67. 49 Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2004 1 Canadian Military History, Vol. 13 [2004], Iss. 3, Art. 5 in Canadian POW camps in the last months of in charge of internment operations in Quebec, the Second World War. It also showed how well were given the difficult task of finding a suitable German POWs were organized behind Canadian location for this new POW officer camp. Several barbed wire. This article will examine the rise properties were considered, including two hotel of the HARIKARI Club and the measures taken complexes in the Laurentians and a Golf Club at by Canadian military authorities to counter the Beaconsfield.6 M.D.4 officials also inquired into threat it posed. the possibility of using the Grande Ligne Mission’s Feller Institute premises, which then served as POW Camp No.44 was located in the small a residential school for young men. It consisted village of Grande Ligne near Napierville in of a U-shaped four-story stone building, a brick southern Quebec, less than 50 kilometers away gymnasium, eight frame houses, a large barn, and from Montreal and close to the United States numerous smaller buildings with approximately border. It was part of a complex network of 240 acres of land.7 M.D.4 found the site suitable, internment facilities located across Canada and negotiations were immediately undertaken where approximately 34,000 German POW between the Privy Council Office and the Grande were detained during the Second World War.2 Ligne Mission. An agreement ensued on 24 Its origins date from early September 1942 November 1942 whereby the Mission agreed to when officials from the Department of National lease its property to the Canadian government Defence (DND) Directorate of Prisoners of for the sum of $15,000 per year.8 War, investigated the possibility of building an internment camp in Quebec specifically suited M.D.4 headquarters took over the site on 15 for German POW officers.3 According to the 1929 January 1943 and immediately began converting Geneva Convention, captured enemy officers it into a proper internment facility.9 It took nearly were to be segregated from non-commissioned five months to build the camp. Wire fences officers and other ranks, and were to be treated and guard towers were erected and existing with due regard to their rank and age.4 This buildings were renovated under difficult winter implied that special facilities had to be created conditions. But when Swiss representatives by all belligerents for the incarceration of POW inspected the completed camp on behalf of the officers. At the time, Canada operated two such German authorities on 16 June 1943, they found camps in Ontario: No.20 in Gravenhurst and the installations to be highly satisfactory.10 As No.30 in Bowmanville. Because these internment the Consul General of Switzerland in Canada facilities became increasingly overcrowded, the reported: construction of a new POW officer camp became necessary.5 I was deeply impressed by the work undertaken in order to adapt perfectly the existing buildings and annexes to the new purpose. I think that, Representatives from Military District 4 in spite of the natural difficulties due to the (M.D.4) headquarters in Montreal, which was very hard winter and conditions prevailing in Prisoner of War Camp No.44 Grande Ligne, 50 Quebec. https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol13/iss3/5 2 : The HARIKARI Club: German Prisoners of War and the Mass Escape Scare wartime, the Canadian authorities have done The Gestapo section had the task of making splendid work on this place and I have no sure that Nazism remained the dominant force doubt that the new camp will be on the same inside the camp’s enclosure. This was done level, in the way of comfort and facilities, as the Bowmanville officers’ camp, which is universally through acts of intimidation and violence. regarded as being an outstanding place of Members of the camp Gestapo spied on fellow internment.11 inmates and used strong-arm methods to alienate and terrorize anti-Nazis. Prisoners who After receiving this vote of confidence, within cooperated with the Canadian authorities were the next week, Lieutenant-Colonel Eric D.B. often subjected to kangaroo courts, where they Kippen (camp commandant) and his staff of were judged as ‘traitors’ and usually beaten. The approximately 250 guardsmen from the Veterans’ Gestapo section also gathered an impressive Guard of Canada (VGC) prepared for the coming arsenal of clubs, knives, and other hand-made of the German prisoners.12 weapons. Beatings, death threats, and other acts of brutality usually occurred at night and The camp opened on 28 June 1943 with in remote parts of the camp so as to prevent the arrival of 467 Germans who had been detection by the guards. Victims occasionally temporarily transferred to POW Camp No.40 had to be segregated from the rest of the inmate Farnham, Quebec, in early December 1942 population by camp authorities and held in because of severe overcrowding at Bowmanville protective custody. So successful were the actions and Gravenhurst. Most of them were Luftwaffe of the camp Gestapo that very few prisoners dared pilots and aircrew shot down during the Battle of openly to express their anti-Nazi sentiments.17 Britain and Kriegsmarine seamen captured on naval operations in the Atlantic Ocean and the The propaganda section’s mission was North Sea.13 Between July 1943 and February to educate fellow prisoners along Nazi lines. 1944, approximately 250 additional German Its members organized Nazi celebrations and POW were sent to Grande Ligne; many had been fabricated and distributed Nazi regalia and captured in North Africa and Italy.14 By early literature. They also administered an impressive October 1944, when camp authorities learned Nazi training program known as NAPOLA (Nazi of the HARIKARI Club scheme, the total POW Political Learning), whose purpose was to keep population in the camp numbered 713.15 POW officers as well trained and thoroughly indoctrinated as possible.