| 2002
– A VERY BUSY YEAR by Michael Hurst |
|||||
| This
past year has once again been an extremely busy time for us and for
the Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society. It all started last February with an invitation from the Singapore National History Society and Tourism Board to come to Singapore and take part in the commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of the fall of that city to the Japanese in 1942. I was pleased to do this and very surprised find some former Kinkaseki POW friends there as well. On the first morning, while on a visit to Changi Chapel and Museum, I was greeted by Pearl and Jack Fowler. Later in the day I also met Jack and Polly Edwards from Hong Kong, and Keiko Holmes who had come from the UK with a Royal British Legion delegation. The anniversary events were well organized and very meaningful – especially the dawn memorial service put on by the Australian government at Kranji War Cemetery on the morning of February 15. It was very moving to see the homage being paid to those who suffered so much in the battle for Malaya and Singapore and as POWs following the surrender. While at the ceremony I also met a former Australian POW who was in the same regiment as my cousins who were lost aboard the Rakuyo Maru. It was a very sobering time for me. During our stay there we visited Selerang Barracks, The Changi Murals in Roberts Barracks, the opening of the new exhibit on the monster guns of Singapore, the Changi Chapel and Museum and finally the Changi Jaol. Most of all it was so great to talk with so many of the former POWs and to learn more of their experiences. All in all it was a wonderful, never to be forgotten trip. During the spring we made several trips to the mountains north of Taipei in search of the OKA Camp but were still unable to turn up any more clues. We’re still trying! On June 21 – 22 Tina and I journeyed down Taiwan’s East Coast for a visit to the former Tamazato POW Camp. After having tried for several years to obtain permission for a visit inside the camp, we finally received approval in April and wanted to go as soon as possible. The former camp is now administered by the Taiwan Army, but the base was closed several years ago. There is nothing left from the former times but the surrounding hills and the views over the campsite are the same. In July we went to Canada to visit my family and while there I accidentally stumbled on the story of a former German POW camp that was located in the same town where my mother now stays. I took the opportunity to visit the former campsite which is now a college campus. The buildings were made of brick and so are all still there and have been converted for educational use. As I looked into the story of the camp and its prisoners, I found that they were treated so much better than what the Taiwan and other Far Eastern POWs experienced at the hands of the Japanese. Also, while in Canada, we paid our annual visit to former Kinkaseki POWs John Emmett and Ken Davis and their wives and had a delightful time together as always. I was shocked and surprised by the announcement in June that I had been awarded the MBE by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth on the occasion of her Golden Jubilee. |
This came about because so many of the FEPOWs added their support
to the proposal put forth by Maurice Rooney for the award a couple
of years ago. To have this award is very special, but to have it
at the recommendation of so many of my FEPOW friends is a great
honour indeed, and I am so humbly grateful to them for thinking
of me in this way. Of course I have to share the honour with Tina,
for it is also largely due to her invaluable help that we have accomplished
what we have here in Taiwan.
Prior to our arrival in the UK Maurice Rooney had organized a gathering of some of the FEPOWs who live close to the London area or who were easily able to get down to London, to join us at the Union Jack Club on the day of the award for a reunion dinner. Some also came and stayed for a day or two with us. In addition to Maurice and Barbara Rooney, Joan Seed and Stan Vickerstaff, we were so pleased to have about fifteen former FEPOWs and their wives and Dominic McAllister – a former TPCMS Board member and friend, now living back in the UK - with us for the event.
...continued on page 4 |
||||
http://www.powtaiwan.org
society@powtaiwan.org