BECAUSE OF A POSTCARD !

I have a Taiwanese friend who is interested in stamps and who has given me some articles about Taiwan POW postcards. One such article contained a photocopy of a card addressed to a Sapper Reg Howard. I immediately recognized the name as one of the men who had been a POW at Kinkaseki. I enquired with our UK rep, Maurice Rooney - a good friend of Mr. Howard’s, who was in the same squad at Kinkaseki. From the details I gave, Maurice was able to confirm that the postcard did belong to Reg.

Later, I invited my friend over to show me some of his wartime stamp collection. He has a great selection of first-day covers and Japanese postcards - mostly propaganda stuff, and a number of other wartime artifacts. Then he pulled out a stamp dealer's auction catalogue to show me some of the items inside - including two POW postcards that were up for auction.

Well I couldn't believe my eyes when I looked at the card - whose name do you think was on the cover?

2078653 SAPPER M.A. ROONEY
288TH FIELD COY., ROYAL ENGINEERS
SINGAPORE
BRITISH PRISONER OF WAR
C/O JAPANESE RED CROSS, TOKYO

It was postmarked NORWICH - 17 April 1943 and across one end is written in pen -
                          “Received June 1st, 1944"
This is just absolutely unbelievable. Here I am, 56 years later, sitting in my livingroom talking with a new Taiwanese friend who I had met only 3 weeks earlier - who shows me a stamp catalogue with a POW postcard addressed to my good friend and our Society rep in the UK. What a small world!

My friend couldn't believe it either. He loaned me the catalogue so I could make a photocopy to give to Maurice. I asked my friend how he thought such POW postcards could have ended up in Taiwan when all this mail "should" have either been delivered to the POWs or returned to England, and he had no explanation. I deduced that it must have come from mail the Japanese Army never bothered to deliver, although I did wonder at the writing on it marked "Received June 1st 1944".

Maurice later emailed me saying that both he and Reg had sold most of their cards after the war when they needed some extra money, so that explains how they got into circulation again.

The British dealer who bought them must have re-sold them and "down the line" over many years, they have somehow ended up back here in Taiwan. What a story!! I am trying to contact the stamp store that published the catalogue to try to find the owner and at least ask him for a photocopy of the original - if I cannot obtain it.

As mentioned, there were two POW postcards in the catalogue, and the other one was from a Bob Paradise that was addressed to a Rev. Flanagan in Nebraska. I thought I recognized the name "Paradise" so I checked in my files and found he was the last man who came into Kinkaseki from Taihoku Camp No. 6 in May 1945. He was a US soldier - PFC Robert P. Paradise, and he would also have gone with the Kinkaseki men to Kukutsu. Another fantastic coincidence!

This POW research has taken some strange and wonderful turns, and what a small world it is turning out to be indeed. Talk about things being terribly exciting! It just makes me wonder what is going to turn up next - from where and from whom?

WAR MEDALS BRING INQUIRY - Bdr. Rogers story

In late January we received an email from Mr. Steve Verralls of Hong Kong - a wartime medal collector, who had recently obtained a set of WW II medals belonging to a Bdr. John Rodgers (853376) of the 5th Field Reg’t. R.A. who he believed had been a POW on Taiwan. He was looking for information on Bdr. Rodgers - what camp(s) he might have been in and anything we might know about him.

By checking through the records we have, I was able to confirm that Bdr. Rodgers was in fact a POW on Taiwan. We even had a record of his death in the OKA Camp on August 16, 1945 from an entry in another POW’s diary that I have.

So from what info we had, Bdr. Rodgers’ story unfolds this way. He was on the hellship England Maru which brought the first draft of POWs to Taihoku and Kinkaseki on November 14, 1942. Since he was never at Kinkaseki, he likely would have been at No. 6 Camp in Taihoku (Taipei) for the entire time except for the last couple of months when he went to the OKA Camp. He is now buried in Sai Wan Bay Cemetery in Hong Kong.

We are looking for more info on Bdr. Rodgers so if there are any former 5th Field Reg’t men from Taihoku - or others who knew him, or can tell us anything more about him, please let us know.

Interested parties can also write to Mr. Verralls directly at P.O. Box 559, Tai Po Post Office, Tai Po, NT, Hong Kong.

I hope we can help Mr. Verralls further, and as well add to our knowledge of another former Taiwan POW.