Lest we forget. I have been to hellfire pass in Kanchanaburi , Thailand. I like the film of Railway Man. Of course I visited きんかせき POW camps several years ago. There still are other POW camps around Taiwan, such as 花蓮 新店 白河. The governors of Singapore and Hong Kong were prisoned in Taiwan.
My late secondary teacher told me that when he was a kid living in one of the Changi villages, two Japanese soldiers stationed in their village. They were in fact Taiwanese who spoke Hokkien as we do, and they were quite comfortable in Singapore than the Japan Japanese. The villagers never had any issues with them.
Over the Easter weekend, I visited the National Museum of Singapore and the National Archives of Singapore in which currently showcasing the Fall of Singapore 80th anniversary exhibition. There were some Taiwanese who came to Singapore during the Occupation to work alongside with the Japanese. Thanks for the video. I will visit the POW memorial when I go to Jiufen/Jinguashi again.
Every Taiwanese need to know about this part of history, WW2 is not a far far away thing for us , it actually did happen and deeply affected this island. Thanks for sharing!!
Thank you for all your amazing research to bring this information to a larger audience. I'd never heard of POW camps in Taiwan, in Australia the main focus when learning about WW2 POW camps has been on Chiangi and then the Burma railroad.
Just like what you said, I've been living in Taiwan for 40 years, and this is the first time I know that there is a POW camp in 金瓜石 or Kinkaseki. Although I went there so many times for its beautiful nature view. Many thanks for this video which let me know more about the land I lived in.
Great video. I knew that the war was so massive but I never realized the POWs that were kept in Taiwan or even Thailand. I knew of other locations but this was eye opening.
Thank you, Richard. I found this vlog most interesting and it touched a raw nerve about the horrors of war and about the cruelties demonstrated by the victors. Yes, I agree, we should never forget these fallen souls. May they RIP.
This is a forgotten sad story but worth remembering as a lesson to learn. One thing I want to say is that the Taiwanese men were forced to fight the war by the occupied Japanese. Some never returned to their own family and some were sent to the jungle in Philippine that they did not even know the was has ended 40 years ago. Everyone suffers during the war. It is too much a price to pay for mankind. Thank you for doing this episode in the heavy rain. Glad to see that the sky cleared out at the end (or it’s another day)
Towards the end of WW2 Taiwan was basically Japan, most went to war at will to protect their homeland as the allies were bombing now Taiwan to bits too. It's war, it's not pretty... but I'm sure quite a few of the POW camp guards are "Taiwanese" too.
Those are the scars of history. One of the most terrifying POW camps in the world is in Taiwan... Many, many British or American soldiers were captured and risked their lives here in Jinguashi, digging non-stop. Their lives were very Barren, no food and no medical resources... There were many dead, and the later American bombing killed many prisoners of war trapped indoors. I regret that they could not be reunited with their families.
0:10 that white bridge in the middle of the video next to the highway over the creek, apparently used to be mining light rail bridge, connected to Keelung
My grandpa used to mention some of the imperial japanese troops in malaya or singapore spoke hokkien aka taiwanese , they are much more ruthless than the only japanese speaking troops. Something most chinese media shun away from this issue .
Good morning Richard, something different for a change. We should be grateful that a POW memorial existed in Taiwan. As history had depicted, Taiwan fought on the side of the Japanese just like the Singaporean volunteer force fought on the side of the British, in the second world war. We were colonies of opposing empires. Part of the Japanese invading force in Singapore were made up of Taiwanese soldiers. To have a POW memorial in Taiwan is different from having the Kranji War Memorial in Singapore. One is for those who died against their will while the other is for those died defending their will. The existence of war and its brutalities is a human tragedy. There is no justifications nor real winners in a war. Only abject human sufferings. After 80 years of peace, today, we are witnessing incipient signs of human insanity around the world. . Lets not forget the lessons learned 80 years ago, lest those who perished would have died in vain. Cheers! See you next week!
To be clear on the Taiwanese in the Japanese military before 1942. Taiwanese served as military servants from 1937-1942. Only during 1942 were Taiwanese permitted to serve as soldiers in the Japanese army. They were restricted to the lowest rank of private. So there were no Taiwanese soldiers who fought in the fall of Malaya/Singapore. Some Taiwanese soldiers served in Singapore and Malaya later in the war. Taiwanese were only able to enlist in the navy from 1943. All in all, over 250 thousand Taiwanese served in the Japanese military.
hi. greetings from singapore. i didnt know allied POWs were sent to taiwan. just assumed most were imprisoned locally or peninsular malaysia or at Burma
Never knew the Japanese had PoW camps for Allied troops in Taiwan. Perhaps it was mentioned in The Forgotten Highlander by Alistair Urquhart, but I have forgotten. Nevertheless thank you for making this video. The Japanese cruelty to the prisoners they captured was absolutely terrible, inhumane in the extreme. To think that at this time the two nations causing WW2, committing genocide were the Germans and Japanese, but now look at them. Each have very successful economies, dominant in many industries and yet seemingly promoting very passive military policies and capabilities. My grandfather survived the Burma death railway. At the time he was training to become a doctor. That is all I know. He never ever spoke about it.
I think the fate of British troops during WW2, not just from Malaya to Burma, but also early on in the European theater isn't only a reminder of how horrible wars can be, but also how horrible being unprepared for wars can be, especially when your adversaries are clearly gearing up for an invasion.
Thanks a lot for the quite interesting video. Just for discussion, put the brutal treatment aside for a while, British troops in Singapore n. Burma at that time were also colonial existing, so can't tell which side was more just，was't it?
Thanks for the video. My only suggestion is that you also present the perspective of the Taiwanese people who were not volunteers for the Japanese Imperial Army. My family is Taiwanese. I am Taiwanese American. My parents were born in Taiwan as "Japanese." But this is a huge omission of information. My ancestors were Ming loyalists who were overthrown by the Ching. They lived in Taiwan for centuries before Taiwan was ceded to Japan. They were not loyal, enthusiastic patriots, of the Japanese Empire. They were pressed into service. The Taiwanese were caught in the middle of a war between the western forces and Japan. To portray it as if we participated willingly in Crimes Against Humanity is an injustice to most of us. Just like portraying Taiwanese as Chinese who want to reunify with China. Taiwanese are Taiwanese. We have our own cultural, genetic, political, religious identities. Much like any country we are made up of many different ethnicities who migrated to Taiwan for different reasons over different periods. I generally appreciate your videos, but this one had far too many omissions and it lumps my people in with war criminals who also oppressed and conscripted or enslaved the people of other neighbouring countries that they conquered.
2:00 to 2:10. No mention of Taiwanese willingness to serve or forced conscription. "For those of you that don't already know, Taiwan was already part of the Japanese...forces." Maybe I am just more sensitive to it than other people. I just want to stress that the Taiwanese were not fighting for the Japanese Imperial forces because we chose to. Further, if you do your research, you will find that the last Japanese Imperial Soldiers to surrender were actually Taiwanese who were essentially forgotten about or abandoned. One case was in The Philippines and the other was in Indonesia in the 1990s. While some Taiwanese who fought for Japan may have been more pro-Japan than pro-US we certainly weren't given any choice. These soldiers were not informed of the Japanese surrender and they only continued to fight because without specific orders to surrender, to do so meant dishonour and was punishable by death.
Hi Ken, Thanks for bringing this up. That wasn't really the focus of this video, but in hindsight I should have added a qualifier as although I myself know many Taiwanese were forced to fight, most people outside of Taiwan probably don't. The Taiwan contingent of the Japanese army really is a fascinating subject and it is maybe a subject for a video of its own in the future.
it's not taiwan's fault tho, because taiwan is never a country just captured and control by different regime, i wish taiwan can be strong enough to be truly independent and respect the will of taiwan people to be hegemony of the world, dreams aside, taiwan has no ground to be a main player on the international filed. individual deserve his or her right to be independent from any sovereign but the reality is you have to bend your will over by the might, it's ruled based world, who has the might, who gets to decide other people's fate.
The Japanese atrocity during World War II was well documented by the Western history and movies. Yet in Japanese history books this part of history is totally unmentioned. The Japanese atrocity in China was repeated highlighted in The PRC history books and PRC movies and dramas over and over and day in and day out. And yet they don't mention the atrocity of Chairman Mao's policies that starved tens of millions of Chinese. The facts that Current Japanese regime and Chinese Communist regimes that intentionally cover the ugly history of their own demonstrated that whoever cover up their faults are bond to repeat the history. We can see the the Putin's Russian regime and PRC's Xi Jinping regime are following the same paths that Hitler, Stalin , and Japanese Empire had done in the World War II. The history is bid to repeat itself.
dont worry they are going to bring them back in the guise of "quarantine camps"...anyone who dis obeys the government will go there...Taiwan start getting back your individual rights and freedoms as in the law of Taiwan...
I look forward to watch your video every Sat, but I hv to keep this one for next time. Jus imagining the cruelty as you narrated it made me feel sick. Wars only benefit very little number of people (and they need not fight in the war themselves) and many commoners in Japan and everywhere else suffer greatly from it.
I won’t say it was a nice vlog being about the Japanese at the time , being very cruel and executing and mistreating 1,000s of prisoners of war all over Asia but it has to be told . My wife’s uncle died on the death railway during the 2nd world war so close to home . I see you brought your wife with you this time , only joking , your son :-)
Lest we forget.
I have been to hellfire pass in Kanchanaburi
, Thailand. I like the film of Railway Man. Of course I visited きんかせき POW camps several years ago. There still are other POW camps around Taiwan, such as 花蓮 新店 白河. The governors of Singapore and Hong Kong were prisoned in Taiwan.
My late secondary teacher told me that when he was a kid living in one of the Changi villages, two Japanese soldiers stationed in their village. They were in fact Taiwanese who spoke Hokkien as we do, and they were quite comfortable in Singapore than the Japan Japanese. The villagers never had any issues with them.
Over the Easter weekend, I visited the National Museum of Singapore and the National Archives of Singapore in which currently showcasing the Fall of Singapore 80th anniversary exhibition. There were some Taiwanese who came to Singapore during the Occupation to work alongside with the Japanese. Thanks for the video. I will visit the POW memorial when I go to Jiufen/Jinguashi again.
People have nominated this area to be on the world heritage list, as its historically important, both natural history and cultural significant ....
Every Taiwanese need to know about this part of history, WW2 is not a far far away thing for us , it actually did happen and deeply affected this island. Thanks for sharing!!
Thank you for all your amazing research to bring this information to a larger audience. I'd never heard of POW camps in Taiwan, in Australia the main focus when learning about WW2 POW camps has been on Chiangi and then the Burma railroad.
Just like what you said, I've been living in Taiwan for 40 years, and this is the first time I know that there is a POW camp in 金瓜石 or Kinkaseki. Although I went there so many times for its beautiful nature view. Many thanks for this video which let me know more about the land I lived in.
I feel you teach me more Taiwanese history than my high school history teacher.
Thanks
謝謝拍攝並講述了一個我不清楚的歷史
Thank you for introducing the Taiwan’s story that never show up in the Taiwanese history textbooks!🥲
It means a lot!🥰
No problem!!
Tribute to these fallen heroes...no matter how, these WWII POW just remind us do not forget the real history!
Still amazes me that you are able to find all these places in Taiwan that 99.9% of the Taiwanese people have no idea about they exist. Bravo!
Thanks. It's really not that hard!
Great video. I knew that the war was so massive but I never realized the POWs that were kept in Taiwan or even Thailand. I knew of other locations but this was eye opening.
很棒 長見識了...謝謝您!!!
Thank you very much for sharing this information. We must never forget
Thanks for sharing. I have been to that area many times. But, I didn't know about this. I will pay a visit when I go next time.
You should!
莫忘初衷，最好是徹底解決戰爭及人類罪惡的根源。
Thanks for making the amazing video. I learned a lot of Taiwan history from you.
My pleasure!
Such a meaningful place to be remembered. Thank you so much for this video.
Thank you, Richard. I found this vlog most interesting and it touched a raw nerve about the horrors of war and about the cruelties demonstrated by the victors. Yes, I agree, we should never forget these fallen souls. May they RIP.
感謝你對台灣的關心
不客氣
Thanks for brining up the awareness for this historic site as well as its sad story
現在的大直忠烈祠在當時也是戰俘營。
我父親在小學的時候，有帶他們在街上看戰俘。看著他們走中山北路那條路往圓山走去大直。
It is heartbreaking to see this. Thanks for sharing. I ljve in Taiwan ans do not know to this.
I've watched my share of videos around this copper mine/smelter. 1st mention of this memorial. Thanks.
Welcome!
Just amazing
Very interesting video. I've driven past this area so many times and never knew there was a memorial there.
很棒的真實故事記錄
謝謝
👍 Great!
This is a forgotten sad story but worth remembering as a lesson to learn. One thing I want to say is that the Taiwanese men were forced to fight the war by the occupied Japanese. Some never returned to their own family and some were sent to the jungle in Philippine that they did not even know the was has ended 40 years ago. Everyone suffers during the war. It is too much a price to pay for mankind. Thank you for doing this episode in the heavy rain. Glad to see that the sky cleared out at the end (or it’s another day)
Towards the end of WW2 Taiwan was basically Japan, most went to war at will to protect their homeland as the allies were bombing now Taiwan to bits too. It's war, it's not pretty... but I'm sure quite a few of the POW camp guards are "Taiwanese" too.
Thanks! It was another location! On the day I filmed only the coast was rainy. Everywhere else was super sunny!
What a terrible story of inhumanity 😢. Thanks for sharing.
謝系您的分享
Those are the scars of history. One of the most terrifying POW camps in the world is in Taiwan... Many, many British or American soldiers were captured and risked their lives here in Jinguashi, digging non-stop. Their lives were very Barren, no food and no medical resources... There were many dead, and the later American bombing killed many prisoners of war trapped indoors. I regret that they could not be reunited with their families.
Lest we forget 🌺
0:10 that white bridge in the middle of the video next to the highway over the creek, apparently used to be mining light rail bridge, connected to Keelung
Thanks for the info
原來那個小公園有這個故事，謝謝你
My grandpa used to mention some of the imperial japanese troops in malaya or singapore spoke hokkien aka taiwanese , they are much more ruthless than the only japanese speaking troops. Something most chinese media shun away from this issue .
Eh..rr.. Chinese cruelty toward Chinese 😢
That's what I heard too...
Oh wow! This is awesome! Always love to see and experience new things with you! Cool! Until next time! : )
Glad you enjoyed it!
水金九，充滿了美麗與哀愁，繁華與沒落！！！
這集講歷史，下次，或許，等天氣晴朗地面乾燥時，可以看到你挑戰劍龍稜鋸齒稜！！！
我爬過：ua-cam.com/video/aN4CGv76rKg/v-deo.html
very much appreciate the research you did for your videos. The horrors of war really should be hammered into every generation's collective psyche.
Thanks
Thanks Richard for another piece of history: How terrible was the WW II.
Very.
恭喜發財
Good morning Richard, something different for a change. We should be grateful that a POW memorial existed in Taiwan. As history had depicted, Taiwan fought on the side of the Japanese just like the Singaporean volunteer force fought on the side of the British, in the second world war. We were colonies of opposing empires. Part of the Japanese invading force in Singapore were made up of Taiwanese soldiers. To have a POW memorial in Taiwan is different from having the Kranji War Memorial in Singapore. One is for those who died against their will while the other is for those died defending their will. The existence of war and its brutalities is a human tragedy. There is no justifications nor real winners in a war. Only abject human sufferings.
After 80 years of peace, today, we are witnessing incipient signs of human insanity around the world. .
Lets not forget the lessons learned 80 years ago, lest those who perished would have died in vain.
Cheers! See you next week!
To be clear on the Taiwanese in the Japanese military before 1942. Taiwanese served as military servants from 1937-1942. Only during 1942 were Taiwanese permitted to serve as soldiers in the Japanese army. They were restricted to the lowest rank of private. So there were no Taiwanese soldiers who fought in the fall of Malaya/Singapore. Some Taiwanese soldiers served in Singapore and Malaya later in the war. Taiwanese were only able to enlist in the navy from 1943. All in all, over 250 thousand Taiwanese served in the Japanese military.
Very interesting. Thanks
冬天金瓜石東北角一帶常下雨，又溼又冷，生活環境惡劣，能生存的礦工戰俘要有堅強的毅力和身體！
@曾憲文
*你不是那些臭個性的日本人.! 所以, 不要這麼被動 - 就坦白的講: 在金瓜石死了多少人我不管.!*
*還有,*
*不用對我嗆聲 - 你不會贏的.!*
5:20 Kirkby Walter,
Sunday Features, A POW's story, I did not find,
www.taipeitimes.com/images/2008/11/23/TT-971123-P13-IB.pdf
I mean the history is bond to repeat itself. Sorry about the typos.
hi. greetings from singapore. i didnt know allied POWs were sent to taiwan. just assumed most were imprisoned locally or peninsular malaysia or at Burma
Come Singapore soon
Never knew the Japanese had PoW camps for Allied troops in Taiwan. Perhaps it was mentioned in The Forgotten Highlander by Alistair Urquhart, but I have forgotten. Nevertheless thank you for making this video.
The Japanese cruelty to the prisoners they captured was absolutely terrible, inhumane in the extreme. To think that at this time the two nations causing WW2, committing genocide were the Germans and Japanese, but now look at them. Each have very successful economies, dominant in many industries and yet seemingly promoting very passive military policies and capabilities. My grandfather survived the Burma death railway. At the time he was training to become a doctor. That is all I know. He never ever spoke about it.
Why didn't you ask much about the forgotten history from your grandfather? It is important to learn these..
@@vinnysing1324 Are you trying to guilt trip me? I was only 6 years old.
多謝，身為台灣人的我不知道金瓜石有這段歷史。I never knew it, it is indeed shocking.
I think the fate of British troops during WW2, not just from Malaya to Burma, but also early on in the European theater isn't only a reminder of how horrible wars can be, but also how horrible being unprepared for wars can be, especially when your adversaries are clearly gearing up for an invasion.
True
Thanks for such good Chanel’s , love it, no war we earned it but killing and taking other lives for our desires , …sad
當時的礦工有戰俘，也有台灣人
我是台灣人，我不知道這段歷史，謝謝你
不客氣
AAsia.Super! breathtaking .;)
😎❤️🇹🇼‼️
We must not forget the Japanese treated other human being with extreme brutality. If we don’t learn from the past, bound to make same mistakes again
Thanks a lot for the quite interesting video. Just for discussion, put the brutal treatment aside for a while, British troops in Singapore n. Burma at that time were also colonial existing, so can't tell which side was more just，was't it?
Agree. The British were also pretty cruel to many populations during their colonial reign.
Japanese rule was incredibly cruel. Colonialism is obviously not great but if you wanted anyone to be in charge then the British were the least bad.
戰後應有留在台灣的新加坡人？
Thanks for the video.
My only suggestion is that you also present the perspective of the Taiwanese people who were not volunteers for the Japanese Imperial Army.
My family is Taiwanese. I am Taiwanese American. My parents were born in Taiwan as "Japanese." But this is a huge omission of information. My ancestors were Ming loyalists who were overthrown by the Ching. They lived in Taiwan for centuries before Taiwan was ceded to Japan. They were not loyal, enthusiastic patriots, of the Japanese Empire. They were pressed into service. The Taiwanese were caught in the middle of a war between the western forces and Japan. To portray it as if we participated willingly in Crimes Against Humanity is an injustice to most of us. Just like portraying Taiwanese as Chinese who want to reunify with China.
Taiwanese are Taiwanese. We have our own cultural, genetic, political, religious identities. Much like any country we are made up of many different ethnicities who migrated to Taiwan for different reasons over different periods.
I generally appreciate your videos, but this one had far too many omissions and it lumps my people in with war criminals who also oppressed and conscripted or enslaved the people of other neighbouring countries that they conquered.
I don't think he gave this impression at all. I took it that he meant the Japanese not the Taiwanese local people.
I didn't get this impression at all from the video.
2:00 to 2:10. No mention of Taiwanese willingness to serve or forced conscription. "For those of you that don't already know, Taiwan was already part of the Japanese...forces."
Maybe I am just more sensitive to it than other people. I just want to stress that the Taiwanese were not fighting for the Japanese Imperial forces because we chose to. Further, if you do your research, you will find that the last Japanese Imperial Soldiers to surrender were actually Taiwanese who were essentially forgotten about or abandoned. One case was in The Philippines and the other was in Indonesia in the 1990s. While some Taiwanese who fought for Japan may have been more pro-Japan than pro-US we certainly weren't given any choice.
These soldiers were not informed of the Japanese surrender and they only continued to fight because without specific orders to surrender, to do so meant dishonour and was punishable by death.
Hi Ken,
Thanks for bringing this up. That wasn't really the focus of this video, but in hindsight I should have added a qualifier as although I myself know many Taiwanese were forced to fight, most people outside of Taiwan probably don't. The Taiwan contingent of the Japanese army really is a fascinating subject and it is maybe a subject for a video of its own in the future.
it's not taiwan's fault tho, because taiwan is never a country just captured and control by different regime, i wish taiwan can be strong enough to be truly independent and respect the will of taiwan people to be hegemony of the world, dreams aside, taiwan has no ground to be a main player on the international filed. individual deserve his or her right to be independent from any sovereign but the reality is you have to bend your will over by the might, it's ruled based world, who has the might, who gets to decide other people's fate.
The Japanese atrocity during World War II was well documented by the Western history and movies. Yet in Japanese history books this part of history is totally unmentioned. The Japanese atrocity in China was repeated highlighted in The PRC history books and PRC movies and dramas over and over and day in and day out. And yet they don't mention the atrocity of Chairman Mao's policies that starved tens of millions of Chinese.
The facts that Current Japanese regime and Chinese Communist regimes that intentionally cover the ugly history of their own demonstrated that whoever cover up their faults are bond to repeat the history. We can see the the Putin's Russian regime and PRC's Xi Jinping regime are following the same paths that Hitler, Stalin , and Japanese Empire had done in the World War II. The history is bid to repeat itself.
If I remember correctly, there were about 5000 allies POWs sent to Taiwan. They were divided to three groups to Jiufeng, Miaoli, and Pingtong.
mark
有許多的臺灣人曾經自願當兵，支援是日本帝國的南侵，但是卻從沒有人接受過責備或檢討，甚至至今還會認同日本對發動侵略戰爭的說法。
他們也跟日本人一樣，不用日本戰敗「投降」，而是用「終戰」一詞。
They were brainwashed. What a shame.
囤房哄價只是將通膨的苦轉嫁給雖台>,
You mean JAPAN’s POW camps.
dont worry they are going to bring them back in the guise of "quarantine camps"...anyone who dis obeys the government will go there...Taiwan start getting back your individual rights and freedoms as in the law of Taiwan...
I look forward to watch your video every Sat, but I hv to keep this one for next time. Jus imagining the cruelty as you narrated it made me feel sick. Wars only benefit very little number of people (and they need not fight in the war themselves) and many commoners in Japan and everywhere else suffer greatly from it.
I won’t say it was a nice vlog being about the Japanese at the time , being very cruel and executing and mistreating 1,000s of prisoners of war all over Asia but it has to be told . My wife’s uncle died on the death railway during the 2nd world war so close to home . I see you brought your wife with you this time , only joking , your son :-)
No one cares anymore!