Ben Wheeler (Canadian doctor)

Ben Wheeler was a Canadian doctor in the British Army (Rank was Major) stationed in Singapore in 1942 when British forces unconditionally surrendered to the Japanese on Feb. 15, 1942. He was imprisoned by the Japanese in Singapore and later moved to Taiwan with other British POWs.

Wheeler had a central role in keeping up the spirits and the health of British and Commonwealth soldiers subjected to harsh treatment while prisoners of the Japanese, and was directly responsible for saving hundreds of lives.

The POWs were used by the Japanese as forced labour in copper mines and were subjected to some of the most inhuman treatment imaginable. Conditions in the mine and the camp were as bad, if not worse in many cases, than those experienced by POWs under Japanese control on the now-famous Railway of Death in Burma and Thailand. He was the only Canadian in the Camp, and the survivors came together to see to it that he got an Order of Britain for his heroic work.

A movie, A War Story, was made about his experiences as a prisoner of war. His daughter, Anne Wheeler was the director of this feature length docudrama. The film was released in 1981. Anne Wheeler also directed a film based on her mother's experience in Alberta, Canada during her husband's stay in the POW camp, Bye Bye Blues. She had no word if he was alive or dead, for more than two year, when finally she received a postcard with his signature written over a date - after that there was little word until his camp was found by the Americans and liberated in Sept. 26, 1945. *Wainwright Star, January 2, 1946

Ben Wheeler came home to his wife living at Edgerton by the end of 1945. Anne Wheeler was born in September of 1946, one of the first of the "Baby Boomers."