Fall / Winter 2002

Page 8

Fall / Winter 2002

--- from the Director
Once again I must apologize for the delay in getting this newsletter out to our friends and supporters. This past year has been so busy - with research, travel, correspondence and other projects, so that we have had very little time to put out a newsletter. It has been a wonderful year though – full of surprises and discoveries, and warm, heartfelt moments as well.
We have found quite a few new former Taiwan POWs and our Honour Roll is now up to almost 2900 names. We still have a ways to go before we have all of the names, so if any of our readers know of anyone – of any nationality – who was a former Taiwan POW, please get in touch with us and give us the information.
The coming year is full of promise and opportunity for the Society. At present we have a number of projects that we are working on at various stages. We are still hoping to verify the location of the OKA Camp, negotiations are still ongoing with regards to placing the fourth POW memorial at the site of the Heito Camp in Southern Taiwan, we are doing preliminary work on finding the crash site of the PB4Y-1 shot down in the sea off the southern tip of the island, we are working with the government regarding preserving the site of the former Kukutsu camp as a historic site, and co-operating on the production of a documentary on the Taiwan POWs. In addition I hope to start work on the book on the Taiwan camps and the stories of the men who were interned in them, and also get more information about the camps onto our website, so it is going to be a very full year indeed.
All of the work is done voluntarily – no, this is not my “real job”, but for me it is a passion and a calling to make sure that the story is told and the truth is known, so that what happened here in Taiwan 60 years ago will not be forgotten.
I would like to thank all those who have continued to support us and encourage us in this past year. We have had some generous donations to help with funding for research and other projects, and are very grateful for those who have given so that the memory of the POWs will be remembered. There is still so much to do and we look forward to an exciting year ahead.
It means so much to have you behind us, helping us with your gifts and your encouragement. I am looking forward to doing even more in the days ahead so that the memory of the Taiwan POWs will “never be forgotten”.

Wishing you all the very best in the coming year!

Sincerely,

Michael Hurst, MBE
Director, Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society

THE TAIHOKU - OKA CAMP. . .

In June of 1945, with the war going very badly for them and Taihoku (Taipei) being constantly bombed, the Japanese POW camp HQ in Taihoku decided to “recruit” a group of POWs to go into the mountains and build huts so that men could be transferred up there “for their safety”. In fact as it is now known, that the prisoners were to be killed up there when the Allies landed on Taiwan.
A party of around 100 men left Taihoku Camp #6 on June 12 and spent all day hiking up into the mountains to where the camp was to be located. they were billeted at a school while they finished the first two huts and then they were moved into this new camp where they had to sleep on the ground in the huts and had no food to eat
On July 2nd 50 more men came “up the hill” to add to the already overcrowded state. A third hut was finished but the food got worse. Most of the men were sick and suffered from fatigue and beatings from the guards. By July 18 more than 100 were so sick they were unfit for work. Ten men died in the camp - from starvation and beatings, and of those went up to OKA Camp seven more would die within days of their return to the main camp at Taihoku after the war’s end.
We have found the village with the school and the temple where the ten men who died were buried, but after searching for almost three years, we have still not found the exact location of the camp. We keep searching but are finding it almost impossible to discover the location. After 57 years the forest has most likely overgrown everything that was previously there. We’re not giving up though!

IMPORTANT NOTICE:

At the beginning of the new year we are updating our mailing list. If you like the newsletter and wish to continue receiving it, please let us know by letter, fax or email and we will keep your name on the mailing list.
If we do not hear from you, then we will remove it in order to ensure the wisest use of our funds.
When you write please remember that it costs to produce and mail this newsletter and any gifts toward printing and mailing costs would be very much appreciated.
Thanks for your continued support!

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE TAIWAN POW CAMPS AND THE POWS?

If your club, school or organization would like to know more about the prisoners of war, the POW camps on Taiwan and the work of the TPCMS, we would be very pleased to come to a meeting of your group and give a talk and show pictures and artifacts from our research. It is one of our aims to share the POWs’ story with as many as we can, so that more people in Taiwan will know the story and be able to better understand this part of their history.
For further information, please contact us at -

Tel. (02) 8660-8438 Fax. (02) 8660-8439 Email: society@powtaiwan.org