- by Christine Wood

Our late mother Marjorie’s first husband, Ernest Parker of the Royal Corps of Signals and a former prisoner of war in Taiwan, is buried in Sai Wan War Cemetery on Hong Kong Island. Since 1991 she had travelled to Hong Kong three times to visit his grave and I had accompanied her on two of those occasions.

Marjorie & Ernest Parker at their wedding in 1941.

One such visit in 2000 included a trip to Taiwan to visit some of the prisoner of war camps - the sites of which Michael Hurst of the Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society had identified. When we visited Taiwan we didn’t know exactly which camp Ernest had been in. We found out later through an appeal in the Society’s newsletter, that Ernest had been held in Taichu Camp.

     Michael did more research and was able to fill in the rest of the story. He told us that Ernest had come to Taiwan from Singapore in November 1942 on the hellship England Maru. He was first interned in Taihoku Camp 6. Later he was sent from Taihoku to Taichu in the fall of 1943, and worked there until June 1944 when the camp was flooded and the men were dispersed to other camps. Ernest was moved to Heito Camp in the south of the island and it was here that he died on September 26, 1944. After the war the remains of those men who had died in Taiwan were re-interred in Sai Wan War Cemetery, Hong Kong.

     Sadly, in April 2008 our mother passed away. We had talked prior to her death about where she wished her ashes to be scattered. It was her wish that half were to be placed with our father in Cheshire and half would be taken to Hong Kong to be with Ernest.

My sister, Rosemary and I travelled to Hong Kong last Christmas to carry out her wishes. The morning we chose to visit Sai Wan Cemetery was beautiful. The sun was shining and the cemetery looked and felt so peaceful. Once we had placed Mum’s ashes on Ernest’s grave, Rosemary read a poem from Mum’s ‘Golden Treasury’ and as we sat quietly by the grave, suddenly three butterflies appeared, flew around Ernest’s headstone and then disappeared. We felt that this was very symbolic and represented the spirits of our Mother, Father and her first love Ernest. May they all rest in peace.
We would like to thank the Commonwealth War Graves Commission for their help and also Mr. Derek Cheung who assisted us during our visit to Sai Wan War Cemetery.

Editor’s note:
We ran the story of Marjorie’s efforts to find out about her first husband and the camp he was in –in the Spring Summer 2001 newsletter - see http://www.powtaiwan.org/newsletters/2001%20Spring%20Summer/page4.htm . It is so wonderful to be able to complete the story and to know that Marjorie and Ernest are at peace together at last.