For a long time now there has been some difficulty in sorting out the discrepancies with the various Allied intelligence reports that were gathered on the Taiwan POW camps at the end of WW II.

As mentioned in an earlier article, most of the information was hastily and often inaccurately gathered in an effort to put a speedy end to the paperwork and to bring the whole Pacific War to a close. Also, much of the material was copied from inaccurate and falsified reports which had been supplied to the Red Cross by the Japanese.

Most of the Allied reports show a Taihoku Camp #1, as well as a Camp #5 and Camp #6. These were even shown erroneously on maps of the time. There were great mixups between Camps 5 and 6 as well. Some reports listed Camp 5 as having all British POWs and Camp 6 having a mixture of Dutch, American and British, while other reports suggested the opposite.

Even the map references were wrong - sometimes as much as one or two degrees or several minutes out - in the opposite direction! (In fact, we have now found that ALL of the map references supplied for the locations of all the Taiwan camps in the Allied intelligence reports were wrong!)

There never was a Taihoku Camp #1 - in Taihoku! That was Kinkaseki, which was Taiwan Camp #1 and was administered from Taihoku because of its remote location and the wish of the Japanese to hide its whereabouts from the Red Cross and others.

Camp #6 was the main POW camp in Taihoku for most of the war - and it contained almost entirely British POWs for most of its time in existence. In the last months of the war a few Americans were also interned there.

Camp #5 contained the senior American, British and Dutch officers, along with the Governors of Singapore and Hong Kong, plus a few other high ranking military and civilian officials. The camp was small, numbering only 32 POWs, and all were treated fairly well during their time there. These men had been moved to Taihoku after their previous internment in Karenko, and Tamazato camps. They were held in this camp for more than a year before they were moved on to Mukden in Manchuria via Japan and Korea, where they finished out the war.

So now that we have these camps sorted out, all that remains is to make a positive identification as to their location. We have recently had some good leads as to the whereabouts of Taihoku Camp #5 and we hope to follow up on these as soon as possible.

We are just waiting for some more corroborating evidence before the location of Taihoku Camp # 6 can be confirmed and announced.

It has been a real struggle and a lot of work to sift through all the old records and try to sort out the accurate details. Thanks to the POWs’ stories and diaries, and information provided from other sources, more pieces of the puzzle are coming together now. We invite anyone with any information on the camps or the POWs to contact us as soon as possible.