Taiwan POW Camp #2 - Taichu

Camp Opened: 09/27/42 - Camp Closed: 07/01/44

The first POWs to occupy the camp were Americans who were moved north from the Philippines following the collapse of the forces on Bataan and Corregidor. They came on the hellship Lima Maru in early September through the port at Takao and only stayed about two months. There were around 300 men in the camp and a list was made, which was reportedly seen by British POWs who came in later. The list also recorded the deaths of several of the men, but it disappeared and no-one has ever seen it since.

On November 12, 1942 the American POWs were loaded on trains and sent back to Takao where they boarded a ship called the Dainichi Maru which had just docked with a load of British POWs from Singapore. Surviving British POWs reported that as they came off the hellship, the Americans began boarding. It is known that this group of American POWs were transported to Japan where they worked in the ship-building yards of Yokohama.

Once off the Dainichi Maru, the British POWs boarded trains for the journey to the camp which lies roughly in the center of the island of Taiwan. The journey took them all night to reach Taichu and early the next morning they were taken out to the site of the camp. There were approximately 500 POWs in this group.

The main work to which the POWs were assigned at Taichu Camp was the excavation of a huge flood diversion channel in the river valley which ran adjacent to the camp. Each year when the monsoon rains and the typhoons flooded the river, the main road and rail bridges across the river were in danger of being washed away and the authorities felt that if a channel was dug to divert the flow of the floodwaters away from the bridges they could be saved from ultimate destruction.

The POWs were put to work excavating the bed of the river - removing huge boulders and digging out a channel in the massive river bed. The work was hard - all done by hand, with picks and shovels and the excavated rocks and dirt had to be carried out by hand in baskets or "stretchers" made by the POWs themselves. It was back-breaking work in the hot sun and the POWs had only two or three breaks all day. They had quotas that they had to accomplish each day and they were constantly beaten if caught resting or if the quota was not met.

Many of the POWs became ill through fatigue, disease and hunger, and several died during the course of their imprisonment there. The camp cemetery was located east of the camp and one or two of the POWs remember being on a burial party - carrying their mates to their final resting place.

As a rule there was no point in the prisoners trying to escape from the camps. Where could a white man go in a land where all the people were oriental - they would be spotted right away and there was certainly no escape from this island prison. However there was one escape attempt - and one only - and that took place in the Taichu Camp. Two men - Coleman Greelish of the US Army (left behind due to illness when the rest of the Americans left the camp), and a British POW named Thomas Joinson from the Manchester Regiment, decided that they were going to try to make a break for it and one night slipped out of the camp. They were gone for only a couple of days when they were caught and brought back again. They were beaten and interrogated and then the next day they were brought out for the rest of the POWs who were on parade to see. One of the surviving POWs remarked that both of them were so badly beaten that they were unrecognizable. The two were stood before the rest of the group with the warning given that this is what would happen to any others who tried to escape. The assembly was told "have a good look at your mates, because this is the last time you will see them". The two men were taken out of the camp and executed and their clothes were brought back into the camp the next day. It was rumoured that the men were forced to dig their own graves before being either shot.

In August and November 1943 two groups of men were moved out of Taichu Camp and sent to the coppermine camp at Kinkaseki in the north of Taiwan. There were also a few men moved up from the camp at Heito in the south, and some were brought down from Taihoku at this time, but the work force at Taichu was much depleted after November 1943.

The work and the suffering carried on at Taichu until the late spring of 1944, when just as the river project was about completed, a huge tropical storm ravaged the island for several days. As a result the river flooded its basin and the bridges were completely destroyed. The POWs rejoiced that nature had been their ally and had deprived the Japs of their precious bridges in the end.

After the flooding of the river and parts of the camp, Taichu Camp was closed in June 1944. The men were housed in a school near the camp for a short period of time and then were re-assigned to other camps. Many were sent down to Heito Camp in the south of Taiwan and about 100 sick men were moved to a new camp called the Inrin Camp which was located in a school in a nearby town about 20 miles from Taichu. Some of the men and the most of the officers were sent to Shirakawa Camp.

The men interned at Inrin Camp were mostly those who were too sick and weak to be moved to Heito Camp do further slave labour and so they stayed there until the spring of 1945 when many were moved to Toroku Camp and finally to Shirakawa Camp in May 1945. They remained there for the rest of the war.

In 2000 the Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society erected a memorial to the former Taichu prisoners of war on the site of the former camp and four of the men who were former POWs in the camp returned to Taiwan for the dedication.

Map Coordinates 24° 01' 06.8"N 120° 40' 53.6"E Google Map Link

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