Friends and relatives of 14 American airmen captured and executed by Japanese forces in Taiwan near the end of World War II gathered to honor them yesterday at the site of a notorious Japanese prison where they spent the final months of their lives.
Retiree Charles Parker of Gainesville, Florida, came to the event to commemorate his brother John and 13 other airmen who were executed by a firing squad on June 19, 1945, when the island was a Japanese colony. "It's a very tough thing for me to do but it's necessary," Parker said.
"John was a gunner on a B-24 flying out of Leyte Island in the Philippines," he said Saturday. "On January 28, 1945, the plane went down after it had successfully bombed two Japanese ships. I'm not sure if it was hit by Japanese flack or what, but it made a crash landing into the water, and four of the crewmen were killed."
Parker said the seven survivors were picked up by a Japanese patrol boat and taken to Taihoku Prison in Taipei. He said one of the survivors died of his injuries, and another was transferred to Tokyo for interrogation.
Parker said an official Japanese account of the episode said the five remaining crew members were grouped together with nine other captured American flyers at the Taihoku Prison and put on trial on May 29, 1945, for "indiscriminate bombing." All were found guilty and sentenced to death.
"On June 19, between 6:00 and 6:20 in the morning, they were marched to the inside of the outer wall of Taihoku Prison and executed by a Japanese army firing squad," Parker said. "Then their bodies were burned." It was a needless killing as the Japanese knew they were losing the war and the men could have been held for just a few more weeks and then set free.
It was a great travesty of justice and POW treatment, and fortunately in the end, the Japanese who perpetrated this crime were arrested, convicted and executed by firing squad.
Yesterday, about 20 people laid 14 wooden crosses, each bearing the name of one of the airmen, near a moss-covered section of the original prison wall that has been preserved to memorialize the people imprisoned there.
Michael Hurst, a Taiwanese-based Canadian who heads the Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society, helped Parker in his efforts to salute the airmen.
"This year we decided to do something out of the ordinary to remember these brave men." Hurst said. "I was honored to help."