Never Forgotten - The Official Newsletter of the Taiwan POW Camps Memorial SocietyNEW POW SOCIETIES FORMED TO HONOUR MUKDEN POWS

In the past year two new societies have been formed in the USA to remember and honour the prisoners of war who were interned in the former Mukden POW Camp in what is now the city of Shenyang in Northeastern China.

This has come about as a result of the dream of Mr. Ao Wang, a native of Shenyang – whose father worked for the famous Chinese general Chang Hsue-Liang prior to World War II. Ao and his family escaped from China as the Japanese advanced, and he has lived in America most of his life. A few years ago he had the idea to try to save what remained of the Mukden POW Camp buildings and turn them into a WW II museum.

He has made several trips back in recent years to meet with local gov’t. officials to discuss the project, and in 2005 they finally decided to adopt his plan. In the past two years the museum has developed and last year in May a group of former POWs and family members and friends paid a visit to the old camp and museum.

As director of the Taiwan POW Camps Society and a friend of Ao and his wife Pat, I was invited to go along. [There was a report on the trip in our Spring-Summer 2007 newsletter]. I had previously been with them in 2004 when they visited Shenyang, Liao Yuan and Pingfan – the site of the infamous Unit 731 near Harbin with another group, and at that time we made another strong presentation for the preservation of the old camp site. We also made a presentation to gov’t. officials in Liao Yuan – formerly called Hsi An - which was the site of the POW camp where the high-ranking senior officers and the governors of all the East Asian colonies were kept in the last months of the war, to erect some kind of memorial to those men as well.

As a result of Ao’s many visits and the successful co-operation between the governments of Shenyang City and Liaoning Province, the 918 Historical Museum, the local Mukden POW Camp Study Group, the University of Shenyang History Dep’t. and the Mukden Survivors Association, the museum in Shenyang is now a reality.

There has been a renewed interest in the Mukden Camp by the family members of the former POWs as well and at last year’s annual Mukden Survivor’s Association meeting in September, it was decided to form a “Mukden Descendants’ Group” to help carry on the memory of the men who were POWs there.

To help educate people about the former Mukden Camp and to promote the museum in Shenyang, the Mukden POW Remembrance Society [MPOWRS] was formed in January. Ao Wang is the president, former POW Randall Edwards is the vice-president, and descendants Ron Parsons and Gloria Myers, along with Ao’s wife Pat, Louisa Deng and Barbara Blackhorse round out the board of directors.

The society hopes to raise funds to take former POWs back to the Shenyang to visit their old camp and also make it possible for family members, researchers and others who are interested to go as well. They also plan to assist the museum in gathering artifacts, documents, and photos etc. that will enhance the museum’s collection and further tell the story that must not be forgotten.

The first POWs into Mukden were a group of 1300 Americans from the Philippines who arrived in November 1942. They were soon joined by 100 British and Australian POWs who came from Singapore via Korea. That first winter was hard and more than 150 POWs perished from the cold, starvation, beatings and lack of medical care. The POWs worked as slaves in several factories in the Mukden area, supposedly helping the Japanese war effort, but in reality they sabotaged the machines and the equipment they were supposed to be building. As a result, 150 of the POWs were moved from Mukden to Japan to work as slaves there.

In the fall of 1944 more than 350 officers and enlisted men were moved to the Mukden “area” from Taiwan where they had been held for more than two years. This included all the highest ranking officers and the governors of the Asian colonies that the Japanese had conquered. They were moved to the Hsi An Camp on Dec. 1, 1944 and the other men were moved to the main camp at Mukden in May 1945.

One of the veterans who has been particularly active in the effort at Shenyang is former OSS Sgt. Hal Leith who parachuted into Mukden the day after the Japanese surrendered to free the prisoners – in particular Generals Wainwright and Percival and the other senior officers and governors - and that is another whole story in itself!

Former POW barracks building at the Mukden POW Camp – now restored as part of the museum

Most of the over 200 military and civilian POW camps in Asia have disappeared. Mukden is one of the few places where anything remains from those former times and is possibly the best preserved of all the surviving Asian POW camp sites. The cruel treatment that the POWs received there is typical of all the Japanese POW camps in Asia.Thelack of food, medication, and sanitation led to a high casualty rate among the thousands of POWs throughout all their camps. By preserving the Mukden Camp, the story of all the camps in Asia can be told. The new society has a website at www.mukdenpows.org and their email address is info@mukdenpows.org .

The Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society supports the work that Ao and MPOWRS is doing to further tell the story of the suffering and sacrifice of yet another group of Japanese POWs, and we urge you to support them too.