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2000
REMEMBRANCE WEEKEND
Attention Taipei Area Residents. . .
Since 1997, with the dedication of the now famous Kinkaseki
POW Memorial at Chinguashi, a memorial service has been held
on the site of the former POW camp there. Every year former
prisoners and their wives have returned to Taiwan to take
part in the event. This year will be no exception as we have
twenty-seven returning from the UK, Australia, New Zealand
and Hong Kong. This year the dates for the Remembrance Weekend
are November 18 – 19.
The Weekend of
Remembrance begins with a special POW Banquet, which is held
at the Bankers’ Club on Saturday evening. It is held in honour
of the POWs, and provides an opportunity for those in the
community to meet and talk with them and to listen to their
stories. On Sunday a chartered bus takes everyone to the Remembrance
Service at the memorial in the village of Chinguashi near
Jiufen.
The POW Banquet
commences at 6:30pm on Saturday (cost NT$1000), and reservations
are required as space is limited. On Sunday, the service will
be held at 11:00 am and reservations are also required for
the bus - which will depart from the Howard Plaza Hotel, Taipei
- sharp at 9:00am. (cost NT$300).
Everyone
is welcome to join us for this very special occasion and we
hope that many will come out to remember and honour these
men to whom we owe a debt that can never be repaid.
“LEST WE FORGET”
Reservations
by November 15 are required for both events, and can be
made by calling - Melissa or Mary at the New Zealand Commerce
& Industry Office – Tel. 2757-6725 Ext. 208
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STILL
NEEDED !
This
is an urgent appeal to our friends and members in the Taipei
area. From time to time we have videos sent to us from POWs
in the UK or Australia which are in the PAL format, and
as such cannot be viewed on Taiwan VHS video recorders which
are of BTSC format.
Sometimes we also need
to send copies of videos produced on NTSC format to the
UK or Australia and then they cannot be viewed on their
equipment.
One of our expat
friends (who no longer resides in Taiwan) had a dual format
video recorder, but since he left we have been unable to
get copies transferred from one format to another. If anyone
has a VCR that can copy PAL and NTSC formats, and would
be willing to help us make copies from time to time, please
drop us a note or an email. Your valuable assistance is
really needed - and will be most appreciated!
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--- from
the Director
What an exciting time
this is for the Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society, and in fact for
all those who have an interest in the POWs and their story.
In early August,
we received a letter from the government giving us permission to
erect a POW memorial on the site of the former Taichu Camp. We had
been working on this project for almost a year, and are thrilled
to finally see it completed.
With the installation
of the POW memorial now complete, we are eagerly anticipating the
dedication ceremony, which will take place this November 20 at the
site of the former camp. Three former POWs who were interned in
the Taichu camp will be with us for that special day.
Then there
has been the discovery and confirmation of four more POW camps -
Taihoku, Shirakawa, Toroku and Churon, bringing the total to eleven
out of the fifteen former Taiwan POW camps that have now been found!
In addition valuable leads were gathered which should enable us
to locate the former Takao Camp very soon.
Although unable
on the first try to locate the two Inrin Camps, we are confident
that they will be found in the not too distant future. That will
only leave the OKA Camp near Taipei still to be located, and then
we will have found them all.
Also, over the past
few months, we have continued to find more former Taiwan POWs. For
a long time we had been unable to find any of the Americans who
were prisoners on Taiwan, but recently, we have located six and
have information on several more.
In addition,
we are still finding former POWs who slaved at Kinkaseki. This is
amazing considering all the effort that has gone into searching
for these men, and all the publicity that has been created, especially
in the UK, over the past three years since our efforts first began.
Several survivors
have been found by relatives who have come across our website, and
to date we have been in touch with 110 living ex-Kinkaseki POWs.
This is far more than we ever expected, and 35 more than we would
have found if we had stopped this work following the completion
of the memorial. So it does pay to persevere!
Lastly, I
hope many of our members and friends in the Taipei area will come
out and join us for the wonderful Remembrance Weekend that is being
planned for November 18-19 - to honour those who gave so much for
our freedom - it wasn’t free!
Until next
time -
Let Us Never Forget !
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