In June 1944 the Taichu POW Camp was flooded, and the POWs who remained in the camp at that time were evacuated for their safety. Around 200 men were sent to the camp at Heito and approximately 100 men who were too ill or frail to be moved that far, were moved to the nearby town of Inrin (present day Yuanlin) and lodged in a school there. The camp became known as the INRIN POW CAMP. The men were cared for by two British doctors, and by growing some vegetables and doing very little work, they slowly recovered.

In November 1944 a group of POWs - mostly Americans, who had suffered untold hardships on the hellship “Hokusen Maru” (aka. Haro Maru / Benjo Maru), were brought to Inrin to recuperate from their harrowing voyage. There was not room for them in the main school where the British POWs were housed so another school nearby was pressed into service.
For the first few weeks the British doctors attended to the medical needs of the American POWs, while several of the British POWs helped the beleaguered Americans set up their camp kitchen and get their camp organised. This camp became known as the INRIN TEMPORARY CAMP.
Two months later in February 1945, the Americans were removed from this camp and sent back to Takao where they were loaded aboard another hellship and sent on to Japan to continue their work as slaves of the Japanese.

Old wartime photo of the school at Yuanlin, which became the Inrin Temporary POW Camp . This camp housed about 500 American POWs for two months from November 1944 to January 1945.

On our trip to Central Taiwan in the autumn of 2000 in search of the Shirakawa and Toroko Camps, we tried to find the location of these two camps at Yuanlin, but ran out of time. We had some idea as to their possible location, but a lot more research was required.
In early August after many more months of research, a breakthrough was finally achieved in the search for the two Inrin POW camps. We received information that led us to an 89 year-old resident of the town of Yuanlin who had lived near the schools and knew about the camps and the POWs and their time there.

On August 29 Tina and Michael travelled to the town of Yuanlin and met with Mr. Lin. They had a delightful time talking to this gentleman who knew so much of the local history. He told them many stories about the POWs and their experiences as he saw them, and was most helpful in documenting some of the facts that we had been given by two of the surviving POWs that we have found from this camp.

After a visit in Mr. Lin’s home they went together to see the locations of the two former POW camps. They first visited the site of the main Inrin Camp where Mr. Lin showed them the area of the school that was formerly taken up by the camp. Following this they visited the other school which housed the American POWs.

There is nothing left now from those earlier times, although Mr. Lin did say that the two-storey building that had housed the POWs at the main camp had only been torn down about two years ago. Today, modern three-storey school buildings stand on the sites erasing all traces of those former days.

Although the buildings are gone now, the memories of the the men who spent time in these two camps can never be erased. By rediscovering the locations of these two camps once again after all these years, we can also help to keep these memories alive, so that what those men suffered there will never be forgotten!