Shirakawa POW Camp was opened in June 1943 with the transfer of over 300 POWs from Karenko Camp. It was formerly a Japanese army training camp and barracks. The camp was near a wooded hillside occupying around 10,000 sq. meters and was surrounded by a bamboo fence. The buildings were one-story, made of wood with tile roofs and wooden floors. There were also stables for livestock (believed to have been used to house some of the POWs of lower rank); there was a cookhouse, infirmary, isolation hut, bathhouse and latrines.
It became known as the 'officers’ camp', as most of the men in the camp were senior officers, although there were quite a number of enlisted men there as well. The camp was in operation from June 1943 to August 1945, and there were from 300 - 500 POWs in the camp at various times.
The POWs were forced to work at farming which was hard and back-breaking work for the older men on the starvation diet they were given. The POWs did cultivation and raised livestock - mostly for consumption by the Japanese. They also had to do such demeaning tasks as hauling water for the camp and emptying the contents of the latrines on the farm fields.
The men did have some respite from the harsh life at times. For some months during 1944 they were allowed to write stories, poems, articles and sketches and publish them in a camp magazine called “Raggle Taggle”. Material was contributed by the officers and men and it gave a great boost in morale. After the war in 1947 a number of the articles that had appeared in the camp magazine were compiled into a hardcover book of which only 400 copies were ever produced.
Also, a Scout Rover Crew was started at Shirakawa Camp by some of the officers, and a great number of former Boy Scouts - as well as some who had never been in Scouting, eagerly joined up. This group of men provided much needed care for some of the sick and weaker men and in keeping with the true spirit of Scouting, many good deeds were performed in the camp.
There was a wooded hilly area just outside the bamboo fence on one side of the camp that was used as a recreation area where the POWs could take walks and read, and where church services were conducted on Sundays. It was nick-named “Yasume Park”. Later during harder times in the camp these privileges were withdrawn.
The population of the camp increased in number throughout 1944 as POWs from other camps and some of those men being transported on various hellships arrived. In October 1944, with the allied forces getting closer to Taiwan, it was decided to move the most senior officers and the civilian officials on to Japan and Manchuria. So the highest-ranking officers were sent to Heito Camp for a few days before being flown to Japan and later taken by sea to Korea and then by train to Manchuria.
Also at that time, 259 of the junior officers and some enlisted men were sent to the northern port of Keelung and put on a ship called the Oryoku Maru and moved via Japan and Korea to Mukden in North China where they remained until the end of the war.
After the officers left, Shirakawa became a sort of hospital camp - a place where sick and over-worked POWs from other camps could come to recover as the medical facilities were better there. That said, there were still quite a number of deaths in the camp. In March 1945, Dr. Wheeler took the last sick party from Kinkaseki to Shirakawa, and this move is credited by many of the current survivors as the only thing that saved their lives. Still several of those men died later.
When the war ended in August 1945, the remaining men at Shirakawa were moved to Taihoku and temporarily housed in the Maruyama Hospital Camp until their evacuation by the American and British navies from the port of Keelung in early September. The men of Shirakawa Camp are mostly all gone now, but they will live on in our memories forever.
On November 11th 2013 a memorial to the men who were interned in the former Shirakawa POW Camp was dedicated with several POW family members present for the occasion.The memorial is a fitting tribute to the men who were held in the camp those many years ago - they have not, and will not be forgotten!