Page 3
Winter 2001
       This year’s annual remembrance week activities were very special, and reflected the growing awareness of what is being done here in Taiwan to remember the men who were imprisoned in these little-known camps.
      A total of twenty-nine overseas visitors converged on Taiwan this past November to take part in the activities that were organized by the Commonwealth Remembrance Committee and the Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society. The POWs and their wives and families came to re-visit the areas of their former captivity and to lay ghosts to rest. Twenty-one came from the UK, six came from Australia and there was one each from New Zealand and Hong Kong.
Harry Leslie was the first to arrive from “down under”, and members of the TPCMS had the great privilege to be able to take Harry for a visit to the sites of all of the camps that he had been interned those many years ago.
       First was a visit to the hills north of Taipei to the area of the Oka Camp. Harry reminisced as to how his time there had been the worst of his captivity and that if the atomic bombs had not been dropped when they had that he and countless others would have surely died.
Next it was off to the south of Taiwan to visit the site of the former Heito camp at PingTung. Once again the R.O.C. military was wonderful with us, allowing us to visit the base. Harry was the first ex-POW to return to Heito Camp since the war, so his visit was quite a celebrated event.
Joining us were two of the former Taiwanese camp guards, and the men were quite excited to see each other again after such a long time. There was a great spirit of friendship and reconciliation, and it was a very moving experience for all concerned.
       Harry spoke of his experiences in this camp where he was interned for most of his time as a POW and was interviewed by a local reporter. Tthe story of his visit made the national newspapers.
       Next to arrive on November 15, was the major contingent from the UK and also the group from Australia and New Zealand. Some of the FEPOWs in this year’s group - Sid Dodds, Stan Vickerstaff and Ben Slack had been to Taiwan before - in 1998.

     The day after their arrival, the TPCMS arranged for a visit to Kinkaseki Camp for all our guests. We visited the site of the mine and then the former camp and memorial. Memories were rekindled of the hard times endured and the mates left behind, and it was a sombre moment for many.


Harry Leslie with two former guards at Heito Camp

The weather was rainy, causing the comment from the POWs that this is the way they always remembered Kinkaseki.
       On the way back to Taipei, we stopped at the port city of Keelung to visit the old harbour where many of the men had first arrived on Taiwan, and also from where they were rescued at the end of the war. It was the first time we had been able to take FEPOWs to Keelung as we had only recently come across a local historian who knew the area and how the harbour had been during the war years.


FEPOWs on the docks at Keelung Harbour

Our historian friend met us at the docks and showed us the very warf where the American destroyers had docked to evacuate the POWs. The buildings and rail lines were still there from those former times and it was quite an experience for the POWs to stand in the exact same place where they had been those 55 years ago.

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