After five years in the works, a memorial to honour the American and British POWs who were held in the Toroku POW Camp from November 1944 to April 1945 was dedicated on Saturday June 6th 2009. The memorial is located inside the grounds of Gou-Ba Elementary School in the village of Gou-Ba - a suburb of Douliou City in South-Central Taiwan.
Until 2003, two of the former old Japanese school buildings which the POWs inhabited still stood on the grounds – they were thought to be the last remaining POW buildings in Taiwan.
With the completion of this memorial, there are now six memorials that have been erected on the island to the former Taiwan POWs, with another one to come on June 20th and hopefully two more to follow in the coming year.
For more details about the Toroku Camp, the memorial and the dedication ceremony, please see the Spring –Summer 2009 edition of the “Never Forgotten” newsletter in the Society section of the website. The link to the newsletter is - http://www.powtaiwan.org/The%20Society/Newsletters/POW%20NEWS%20209.1%20Comb.pdf