TOROKU POW CAMP MEMORIAL DEDICATED

After five years in the works, a memorial to honour the American and British POWs who were held in the Toroku POW Camp from November 1944 to April 1945 was dedicated on Saturday June 6. The memorial is located inside the grounds of Gou-Ba Elementary School in the village of Gou-Ba - a suburb of Douliou City in South-Central Taiwan.

Until 2003, two of the former old Japanese school buildings which the POWs inhabited still stood on the grounds – they were the last remaining POW buildings in Taiwan.

With the completion of this memorial, we now have six memorials that have been erected on the island to the former Taiwan POWs, with another one to come on June 20th and hopefully two more to follow in the coming months.
For more details about the Toroku Camp, the memorial and the dedication ceremony, please see the Spring –Summer 2009 edition of the “Never Forgotten” newsletter.

Memorial to the prisoners of war who were interned in Toroku POW Camp from November 1944 – April 1945

“We Will Never Forget”

DEDICATION OF THE AMERICAN AIRMEN’S MEMORIAL

Using your mouse click on the images to display a large photograph and description.

On Saturday June 20th a memorial service was held at the site of the former Taipei Prison to honor and remember the American airmen who were captured by the Japanese when their aircraft crashed or were shot down over Taiwan in the fall of 1944 and the spring of 1945. These men were not considered to be POWs but rather “war criminals” and as such were held in the old Taihoku (Taipei) Prison, often in solitary confinement. They were starved and beaten and suffered great hardships. On May 29th 1945, 14 of these airmen were given a mock trial with no defense and were sentenced to death by firing squad. The sentence was carried out on June 19th 1945 – less than two months before the Japanese surrender! The remaining airmen were released in September 1945 and returned to their homeland again.

On June 19th 2005, a memorial service was held by the wall to commemorate the death of the US Army Air Corps and US Navy airmen who were murdered 60 years ago on that date. It was decided then that some kind of plaque should be placed on the wall of the old prison to remember the sacrifice of those men for our freedom. The Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society is pleased to have worked with the Department of Cultural Affairs of the Taipei City Government, and with the support of the ROC Veterans Affairs Commission and the American Institute in Taiwan, we are proud to have brought this project to its completion.

This memorial will stand as a remembrance of the courage and strength and sacrifice of those American airmen many years ago. They were needlessly taken from us when they were so young. They are gone– but they will never be forgotten!

WE WILL REMEMBER THEM!

Tribute to the POWs . . .

Your story must be told because your courage -- and your heroism -- was what led us on to victory.
Your victory was measured in your survival; and in maintaining your faith and your loyalty to your country, when the reward for maintaining that loyalty was continued starvation -- and death.
Your strong heart, great spirit and unyielding faith served as an inspiration to the rest of us. You placed honour before everything, even before having a whole self.
You absorbed with your own bodies the blows that were intended by our enemies for our nation and its people, and you sacrificed your own freedom for the freedom of the world.
And finally, you returned from your service, regained your rightful place in our society, and strengthened your families, your communities, and our nation through your example of courage, and loyalty and continued good citizenship.
We owe you a debt that can never be repaid -what you did must not, and will not, ever be forgotten!

Courtesy American Defenders of Bataan & Corregidor - Adapted