|
LIST
OF TAIWAN POW
CAMPS. . .
- KINKASEKI
#1 (Chinguashi) - found
- TAICHU
#2 (Taichung) - found
- HEITO
#3 (PingTung) - found
- SHIRAKAWA
#4 (Chiayi) - found
- TAIHOKU
#5 MOSAK (Taipei) - found
- TAIHOKU
#6 (Taipei) - found
- KARENKO
(Hualien) - found
- TAMAZATO
(YuLi) - found
- KUKUTSU
(Taipei) - found
- OKA
(Taipei)
- TOROKU
- (Touliu) - found
- INRIN
- (Yuanlin)
- INRIN
TEMPORARY (Yuanlin)
- TAKAO
(Kaohsiung) - almost
- CHURON
(Taipei) - found
|
POW CAMP
SEARCHES . . .
SHIRAKAWA CAMP # 4
(con’t.)
Returning to the camp area, the former guard took them to the location
of the original camp gate and pointed out where the POWs’ huts had
been. He re-confirmed the location of the Japanese barracks where
he was quartered during his time there.
Following this he led the group
to the site of the former camp cemetery and showed them the exact
location on a hillside where the prisoners had been taken from the
camp to be buried. After they
had thanked him for all his kindness and help, he returned home,
and the team made their way to Chiayi for the night - thankful for
a great day and elated that another major camp had been found. Of
those POWs and next-of-kin who are returning for the Remembrance
Week in November this year, several were among those who went to
Shirakawa with Dr. Wheeler - Ben Slack, Dr. Peter Seed, George Reynolds,
Jack Fowler and also Jim Scott - who was with us last year. Sid
Dodds was so sick and weak that he had gone to Shirakawa with an
earlier thin-man party in October 1944. When he got well enough,
he was shipped off to Japan to work in the coal mines. There was
no mercy!
Now that we have located the
camp, we plan to take the returning POWs and Mrs. Seed down to Shirakawa
following the dedication of the memorial at Taichu Camp. (con’t.
on page 6)
|
|
UPDATE
ON POW CAMPS...
We now have fifteen POW camps on our list!
From
information that has continued to come in over the past several
months from various sources, we have now concluded that there
were five more POW camps on Taiwan during World War II - making
a total of fifteen altogether.
As mentioned in
our last issue, one of these other camps was called TOROKU
and was situated in the vicinity of the town of Touliu. This
camp was located in September. (See story page 6.)
Also mentioned was another
camp in the Yuanlin area which was called the INRIN CAMP.
It has turned out that there were two camps at this locale.
One was the camp that the POWs from Taichu were moved to after
floods partially destroyed that camp in the spring of 1944.
Most of the Taichu POWs were sent to Kinkaseki and Heito after
the camp finally closed.
The other
was the INRIN TEMPORARY CAMP, which was close to the main
camp and which was also used in late 1944 for two months by
American and British POWs in transit on their way to Japan.
At the INRIN
camps, the POWs were housed in schools as at the Toroku Camp.
We tried to find the location of these former schools on our
September trip, but our time ran out. To date we have found
one American survivor from the Inrin Temporary Camp.
There had
also been rumours of another temporary camp in TAKAO (Kaohsiung).
It was known that POWs were held there while awaiting transhipment
to Japan, but with the recent discovery of a POW in the States
who was actually interned in the camp for nine weeks, we can
now list it as a temporary camp. We have a good idea as to
the exact location of the camp and expect to make confirmation
soon.
In the last days
of the war following the Japanese surrender, POWs from all
over the island were rounded up and sent to a large holding
camp - called “CHURON”, near the Matsuyama Airfield in Taihoku
(Taipei) - today’s Sungshan Domestic Airport.
Following further research
at the Japanese Archive Section of the Taiwan Provincial Library,
and with help from the Taipei City Government Archives, the
location of this camp has been identified.
A trip to the area
revealed that today it is covered with houses! From material
gathered from various sources over the past three years, and
from interviews with almost two hundred former POWs and their
next-of-kin, we now finally believe that these were all of
the POW camps that were on Taiwan during World War II.
|
|
