65th ANNIVERSARY MUKDEN POW CAMP TOUR

     In November last year I received a letter from my good friends Ao and Pat Wang in the States advising me that they were organizing a tour to Shenyang in Northeast China to take former Mukden POWs and their family members and friends back for a visit to see the former Mukden POW Camp that had recently been preserved and renovated by the Chinese government. They asked if I would help in the organization and planning of the program and if I would help to lead the tour as well. I was delighted to say yes and so we spent the next seven months working together to try to prepare the best program we could.

     On May 18th I flew to Beijing to meet the group of 60 Americans who would be participating in the tour. Since it had been 65 years since the first American POWs went into Mukden Camp, we decided to call it the “65th Anniversary Mukden Tour”. It was some of those men who first went into the camp in November 1942 that I would be meeting in two days.

     On my first day I visited the historic walled city of Wanping on the outskirts of Beijing. It was here at the Marco Polo Bridge where the spark that ignited the conflict between Chinese and Japanese troops took place in July 1937. The ‘Museum of the War of Chinese People’s Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in WWII’ is located here also and I spent some time visiting the assistant curator and other staff I knew there from previous visits. Following this I returned to Beijing and visited the Jingshan Park which overlooks the Forbidden City from the hill behind. What a magnificent sight!

Marco Polo Bridge with Wanping City in the background

     The next morning I took a walk to Tiananmen Square and the gardens around the Forbidden City, and then went on a self-guided tour of the Hutongs before going to the airport to meet the arriving guests.

     After getting things organized at the airport in Beijing we flew to Shenyang where we had dinner and a time of fellowship before retiring for the night. Some of us had to stay up quite late finalizing all the plans for the next three days tour which promised to be exciting for everyone.

brief tour of the museum, a ceremony was held so that the former POWs and family members could present donations of artifacts and other memorabilia to the new Mukden POW Museum. Following this there was a time for touring the camp and museum more fully.

Former barracks building # 1 at the Mukden POW Camp

     At 11:00 am the 65th Anniversary Memorial Service commenced. Former POW Ralph Griffith read the opening poem “A Special Journey” by Maurice Rooney and following that I made some opening remarks on behalf of the former Taiwan POWs who were held in Mukden Camp. Former POW Oliver Allen then told how he and the first group of POWs got to Mukden Camp - their journey on the hellship and the conditions when they first arrived there.

Ann Lamkins reads a poem at the POW memorial service

    Ann Lamkins, the sister of POW Charles Wilbur who died in the camp in December 1942, read the poem “The Man We Never Knew” in memory of her brother and all the other POWs who gave their lives at Mukden. Next Roy Weaver told what life was like from day to day in the camp and what the men suffered there.
     Randall Edwards, also one of the original POWs, gave a rendering of the poem “We Will Remember Them” – referring to the men and their mates, and then Hal Leith, a former S/Sgt. in the OSS who parachuted into the camp to help evacuate the POWs in August 1945, told a little of that
incident and how he felt at the time.    
                                                             (cont’d on page 7)