From the Director. . .

The year 2005 is proving to be another banner year for the Society and the Taiwan POWs. With the events that have taken place and the upcoming ceremonies that we have planned, it will truly be a great year for bringing the story of the Taiwan POWs to the forefront and to making sure that they and their mates and what they suffered is not forgotten.

On January 9th, the first of several 60th Anniversary commemorative events that we are holding this year took place with a memorial service on the docks at Kaohsiung Harbour to remember the more than 300 POWs who died when the hellship Enoura Maru was bombed by American carrier-based fighters. See the story on page 4.

Then in March I was privileged to be able to visit Kyushu Japan, where I was ably assisted by several local historians and POW supporters in visiting three of the former camps there where the Taiwan POWs were sent after leaving Taiwan in the spring of 1945. Explore these camps with me on page 6 – 7.

Also, as a result of further searches and with the help of fellow researchers in the USA – in particular Roger Mansell of the “Center for Research – Allied POWs under the Japanese”, we have been able to identify many of the former Taiwan POWs who were sent to Japan in the closing months of the war, based on their names being recorded in the camps on Kyushu and having been noted that they came on a certain hellship on a specified date from Taiwan. Thus I was able to take those names from the Japan POW camp rosters and add them to the Honour Roll of Taiwan POWs since we know that they came from Taiwan originally.

The Honour Roll has now reached almost 4100 names at present writing, up from around 3700 names at the beginning of the year, and we are now very close to having most of the names of the former POWs who were interned on Taiwan from August 1942 until September 1945. Please check out the Honour Roll at http://www.powtaiwan.org/men.html

As mentioned in our last issue, we were trying to work with the Taiwan Post Office to have a special stamp issued this August to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the End of WWII. Several meetings were held and a proposal was put forth, the main emphasis being that in WWII the Republic of China was one of the five major Allied World Powers, and is still today the bastion of freedom and democracy for the world’s Chinese peoples. Our point was that although the Republic of China is not recognized as much now as it was in the past, this could be an excellent opportunity for the government to once again highlight the contribution of the R.O.C. towards world peace and to take its place in history.
However, the committee that decides on such matters turned down the idea saying that they felt that the issue was not significant enough or broad enough in scope to warrant a special commemorative stamp. We argued that World War II was probably one of the biggest and most significant events in the 20th Century, and it affected the lives of those in Taiwan at the time as well. We also mentioned that all of the world’s major powers would be having special events and commemorations – including special postage stamps this year, and that we felt that this was an excellent opportunity for the R.O.C. to once again be viewed on the world stage. However that was the decision and we accept it, although we hope that they don’t regret it later. I think that any stamp to commemorate such an important event in our history would be a very popular one.

That said, the ROC Post Office has a program where organizations and individuals can have special stamp sheets issued and we had already decided to do this regardless of whether the government chose to issue an “official” stamp or not. To see our design and for more information, please look on page 5, and if you are interested in obtaining one or more of these special stamp sheets, please let us know and we’ll reserve one for you. They will be issued on August 15th.

Over the past several months I have been co-operating with Phoenix Television in Hong Kong and Taiwan in the production of a five part, five hour documentary film on “Taiwan in World War II”. One of the one-hour segments will highlight the Taiwan POWs’ story and will feature film footage of some of the former camps, old photos and interviews with several former Taiwan POWs. The film is scheduled for release sometime this summer and will be in Chinese for showing all across Asia. I am hoping that perhaps we might have the POW segment subtitled in English and released separately at some time in the future, but we will have to see how things work out. Phoenix Television has been excellent to work with and is truly dedicated to helping tell more of this hitherto largely unknown story.

June 19th saw more than 30 people gathered at the site of the old Taipei Prison to commemorate the needless execution of 14 American airmen by the Japanese. The brother of one of the executed POWs was present with us for the ceremony. See the report on page 8.

The rest of this year has many more exciting things in store. We are planning a special ceremony on Sunday August 14th in one of the local parks in Taipei to remember the end of WWII, and it is hoped that the R.O.C. Veterans Affairs Dept. and also the military will take part with us. Details will be announced later.

I will be putting some POW artifacts, documents and photos in a special World War II exhibition in the National Armed Forces Museum in downtown Taipei from August 15th to the end of the year, and will be one of the speakers at a symposium on “Taiwan in the Second World War” at the National Central Library in Taipei on August 18th and 19th.

On Sunday September 4th there will be a service on the docks at Keelung Harbour to commemorate the evacuation of the Taiwan POWs by the US and British navies. Several former crewmembers of those ships will be returning to Taiwan to take part with us, and we have the co-operation of the R.O.C. Navy to make the day’s event very special.

Of course our biggest event of the year is the annual Remembrance Week event that will be held from November 16 – 23 this year. The POW banquet will be held on Saturday the 19th and the Remembrance Ceremony will take place at the Taiwan POW Memorial at Chinguashi on the 20th. We already have a number of FEPOWs and their families registered for this event and we hope that more will join us for this special 60th Anniversary celebration.

One last thing to mention is that I am also hoping to have the book on the Taiwan POW Camps – entitled “Never Forgotten”, finished and ready for release by mid-November – just before our Remembrance Week activity begins.

So with all these things to do, I guess I’d better get back to work. Til next time – God bless and let us not forget our beloved Taiwan POWs.

Sincerely,
Michael Hurst MBE