Apparently he never spoke a single word about it, but overall my family is really secretive about everything and won't give me any details.
I have a few specific questions. Is surviving 5 years in a Japanese POW camp a big deal? Did a lot of troops simply waste away before they could be freed?
Where was he taken exactly? Since he was a Quebecer, it's likely that his battalion was the Royal Rifles of Canada (Quebec). Did prisoners stay with their battalion?
What kind of anguish/work did he have to deal with in such a camp?
I saw several other threads about Americans in camps, but since they only started getting captured later on I was curious about how this could have played out early in the war.
Edit: apparently he got captured in 1941, and was in for 4 years.
The majority of Canadians sent to Hong Kong lived. Over 1,400 of the 1,900 something survived the war. About 1,700 were capture with around 250 dying in camps. He would have gone to either North Point Camp or Sham Shui Po and would have been in Sham Shui Po by end of summer 42 regardless. Diphtheria and malaria were both concerns as well as the expected dysentery and beri-beri along with a lack of food.
There are books available on the subject like [We Shall Suffer There}(http://www.hongkongwardiary.com/book3thepows.html) and plenty of stuff on the internet about these camps.
Basically, the story of these camps are the story of your uncle. But I really only know the broad strokes so I can't be of much help past that.
I suggest reading a book called The Brave Japanese by a man named Kenneth Harrison. It's his wartime autobiography. He was an Aussie, captured early in the war and spent many years as a prisoner ending up in Japan when the bombs were dropped. Fantastic read. You should be able to get an e-copy.
I also recommend the book Unbroken by Lauren Hillenbrad, it's about an America POW and a lot of the story is about him in the Japanese camps