ARTICLES & STORIES

A MAN SENT FROM GOD

     This is the story of a true hero of World War II - the Canadian doctor Major Ben Wheeler, who gave himself to help his fellow prisoners of war in the infamous 'Kinkaseki' Japanese prisoner of war camp on the island of Taiwan (formerly known as Formosa).

     Here is what Sgt. Thomas O'Toole of the British Army said about  Ben Wheeler in a letter he wrote after the war, "Now that the world knows of the murders, atrocities and hardships suffered by the POWs in Japanese prison camps, I consider it my...

THE MEMORIALS FOR THE TAIWAN POWS

     In the years from 1999 - 2018, the Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society has erected a number of memorials in honour and tribute to the men of the Allied nations who were taken prisoner by the Japanese in December 1941 and the spring of 1942, and who suffered so terribly in the fourteen Japanese-run prisoner of war camps on the island until they were liberated in September 1945.

     British, Australian and Commonwealth POWs captured at the fall of Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore, North Borneo; Dutch taken prisoner with the surrender of the...

27 YEARS OF RESEARCHING, REMEMBERING and HONOURING THE TAIWAN POWS

     2024 was the 27th anniversary of the recognition of the former Japanese prisoner of war camps on Taiwan during World War II. 1997 was the beginning of the effort to uncover the story of those camps and to make sure that the men who were interned in them had their story told and were not forgotten. in the past 27 years a lot had happened and now the story of the former Taiwan POW Camps and the men who interned in them is no longer unknown.

     The following is a list of...

THE WALL - A VERY SPECIAL PLACE!

The Taiwan POW Memorial Wall in the Taiwan Prisoner of War Memorial Park

Address given by Society Director Michael Hurst MBE at the Remembrance Day Service - November 15th 2015

     Time marches on! It has been 70 years now since the end of World War II and 18 years since we first built and dedicated the Taiwan POW Memorial here in the park. It was just a simple place back then with many trees and walkways and flowers. In the ensuing years it has been changed into the beautiful park you see here today with...

THE HISTORY OF HEITO CAMP AND THE POW MEMORIAL

    The story of the former Heito POW Camp following its closure in March 1945 is a long and interesting one, leading us to where we are today in preserving the story of the camp and the memory of those who have occupied the site for more than 80 years.

     In the late 1930’s, a work camp was constructed of crude bamboo huts on the broad, treeless, dry plain near the present-day city of Pingtung to house mainly Chinese political prisoners of war who had been brought to Taiwan after capture on the...

The DEATH OF A YOUNG SOLDIER IN A JAPANESE POW CAMP

     This is a story which I’m sure will touch your heart as it has mine so many times. It is an account of a young soldier in a Japanese POW camp in the last days of his life before his death.

     May it help to bring home to all of us – these many years later, what it was like in so many of the POW camps across the Far East from day to day during those 3 1/2 terrible years, and what it cost to give us the freedom we...

A NEW MEMORIAL BENCH FOR THE POW PARK

     For the past several years since the building of the Memorial Wall in the POW Park at Jinguashi, we have wanted to have a bench placed there so that people who come to visit can sit and remember and reflect on their loved ones, the service they gave and the suffering they went through as POWs here so many years ago. We had asked the New Taipei City Gov't. to provide such a bench when we were constructing Phase 2 of the park in 2011, but budget restraints and other issues seemed to get in...

80 YEARS AGO . . . . . EVENTS IN TAIWAN POW HISTORY

2025 is the 80th Anniversary of the end of World War II, and we want to share with our readers a chronology of events that took place in 1945 relative to the Taiwan POWs, to help commemorate their suffering and sacrifice.

JANUARY

9th - As General Macarthur’s forces made the second major amphibious landing on the        Philippines in the Lingayen Gulf, aircraft from the US Navy carrier Hornet attacked Takao (Kaohsiung) Harbour. The hellship Enoura Maru - part of a convoy of ships that had left the Philippines on December 27th carrying mostly American POWs bound for Japan, was bombed...