This year was the 13th time that FEPOW Day has been celebrated here in Taiwan. Once again we met at the Spot Theatre - # 18, Zhongshan North Road Sec. 2 in downtown Taipei, on Saturday August 15th.
Being the 75th Anniversary of VJ Day and the end of World War II, we expanded the day’s program to include two seminars relating to Taiwan in World War II, and these took place in the afternoon.
The first was a special guest presentation on the bombing of Taiwan and Taipei by noted Taiwanese military aviation historian Chang, Wei-Bin. His presentation was titled ‘Air Raids Against Formosa - 1943-45’ and his excellently illustrated talk was very informative and revealed a lot of details that most people do not know about Taiwan, or what took place here in World War II. He has authored a comprehensive book on the subject (in Chinese).
The second part was a presentation on ‘The Story of the Taiwan POWs’ by the Society director. As usual, a collection of WWII POW and military artifacts was on display.
In the evening our regular FEPOW Day program commenced with Society deputy director Mark Wilkie emceeing. We had a short memorial service to honour the FEPOWs and civilian internees. Richard Arnold, Bernie Moore and Hans Song brought tributes to the POWs and James Baron read the pledge to remember the FEPOWs followed by a minute of silence to conclude the service. Then the movie “Empire of the Sun” was shown.
Produced and directed by Steven Spielberg, the story is loosely based on the true life episodes of James G. Ballard, a young British boy growing up in Shanghai who suddenly found himself plunged into war. He and his family were interned with other foreign civilians at Lunghua Camp outside Shanghai, where they remained until August 1945. It showed the treatment meted out on the civilian populace by the Japanese during their wartime occupation of China.
It was a great event and especially significant being on the actual day 75 years after the Japanese surrender. A capacity crowd was present for both events, breaking all previous attendance records. There were 61 present at the afternoon seminars and 44 remained for the evening event. Everyone said how pleased they were with our program this year and that they were able to learn and understand more of what the POWs and the civilians suffered. Thanks to all those who attended and to Wei-Bin Chang, Mark Wilkie, William Wang and Judy Chen who helped make the day such a great success. Our thanks to the Spot Theatre and manager Susan Hsu for their assistance as well.
Some photos from the day courtesy POW Society photographer William Wang –
Welcome and Introductions. Wei-Bin Chang Sharing the story of the Taiwan bombings.
Telling the Taiwan POWs' Story. The capacity crowd in the afternoon. Viewing the POW artifacts.
Mark Wilkie - Emcee Bernie Moore Richard Arnold Hans Song James baron
A moment of silence for the POWs. A few friends after the service.