The Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society wants to ensure that the memory of all the former Taiwan POWs - including those from the other Commonwealth countries of Canada, New Zealand and South Africa are remembered, as well as those from the countries that had the majority of POWs on Taiwan.
In addition to the British, American, Dutch and Australian POWs who made up most of the prisoners held by the Japanese on the island during World War II, there were three Canadians, two New Zealanders and ten South Africans - all part of the British Army, who were held in camps here for varying periods of time.
We have already featured the story of the ten South Africans - Lieut. Lambert Rees, Royal Engineers; Sapper William Reid, Royal Engineers, Private John M. Henderson, Royal Army Service Corps - and the seven more recently discovered (2022 - 23) - Capt. Frederick N. Croft, Royal Engineers, Lieut. Stuart E. Dawson, Royal Engineers, Lieut. Michael P. Wright, Royal Engineers, Pte. George Mills, 2nd Btn. East Surrey Reg't., Edward B. Rice, Grp/Capt. Royal Air Force, Maj/Gen. Berthold W. Key, Commander of the 11th Indian Infantry Division and Wyndham K. Forbes, Capt. 5th Field Reg't. Royal Artillery, in the story by Mark Wilkie – see “Forgotten Country – Forgotten Heroes” also in the Archives section of our website.
This article will cover the Canadians and the New Zealanders.
CANADA
MAJOR BENJAMIN WHEELER – Egerton, Alberta, Canada – British Indian Medical Service
Major Ben Wheeler was born and raised in Egerton, Alberta, Canada. After graduating from medical school in 1937, he did not have enough resources to start his own practice, so after taking an additional course in tropical medicine in the UK, he joined the British Indian Medical Service in India. When war broke out with Japan he was sent to Malaya and Singapore and was taken prisoner by the Japanese there on February 15th 1942. His wife Nellie and family had already moved back to Canada from India, and it would be one full year before they even knew that he was alive and a prisoner of war.
Ben was sent to Taiwan in November 1942 on the hellship the England Maru. He was in the first group of POWs to be sent to Taihoku Camp #6 in Taipei. Conditions in the camp were deplorable with men suffering from various diseases – mostly brought on by malnutrition and the slave labor they were forced to do there. Wheeler tried his best to care for the men with the little equipment he had and the scant medicine the Japanese provided. It was a struggle which he recorded in his now famous diary.
In August 1943, Ben was moved to Kinkaseki – the infamous copper mine camp. On arrival there he found the resident RAMC doctor Captain Peter Seed in poor health from his attempts to care for the men who were slaving down the mine. Wheeler took over the camp ‘hospital’ – merely one of the POW huts set aside for that purpose, and began again to do what he could to alleviate the suffering of the men. During the next two years he saved the lives of hundreds of men though his ingenuity and the practice of ‘jungle medicine’. He operated on men with razor blades and no anaesthetic, he helped men who had their backs and limbs broken in rock falls and accidents in the mine to live and walk again – the POWs called him “The Man Sent From God”!
He was not able to save them all and more than 80 POWs died at Kinkaseki during the 2 ½ years the men spent there. In March 1945, after the mine had closed, Major Wheeler took the last party of 86 sick and dying men from Kinkaseki to Shirakawa Camp. This move is credited with saving many of the men’s lives, but still 15 died later at the new camp.
When the war was over Wheeler stayed on in Taiwan until the last of the sick POWs had been evacuated. His diary was used to convict criminals in the War Crimes Trials and was later made into a movie by his daughter, Canadian film-maker Anne Wheeler in the moving docu-drama “A War Story” released by Canada’s National Film Board in 1980. Ben Wheeler died in Edmonton in 1963.
Readers can read the story "The Man Sent From God" in this ARCHIVES section and also access the movie from the LINKS section of the website.
It was the story of Ben Wheeler and his dairy which was brought to our attention in late 1996 that led to the formation of the Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society and the work we have done thus far.
BRIGADIER KENNETH S. TORRANCE MC – Guelph, Ontario, Canada – General Staff Command
Brigadier Kenneth Sanderson Torrance was born in Guelph, Ontario in 1896. In school he was involved in the drama club, army cadets and the rifle team. He was a top cadet and he went to the Royal Military College at Kingston, Ontario in 1914.
Torrance went overseas during World War I and served with the Canadian Army until the armistice. He was awarded the Military Cross for distinguished service and bravery. After the war, he transferred to the British Army, took staff training and continued to serve in India and then in Malaya in World War II.
At first he served with the Manchester Reg’t. for a time. By the time of his appointment to Singapore he was a fairly senior staff officer and had not served with a battalion of the regiment for some time.
He was sent to Malaya in 1940 and became one of the three senior British officers in Singapore. He was the Chief of Staff to General A.E. Percival the top British commander, and was a member of the famous surrender party at Singapore.
Brig. Torrance is shown in this photo of the surrender party going to the Ford Factory at Bukit Timah walking next to General Percival second from right.
In the 1942 New Year's Honours List ceremony, King George VI awarded Torrance the Order of the British Empire for his bravery while serving with the besieged British Forces in Singapore.
Brigadier Torrance spent 3 ½ years in Japanese captivity. He was sent to Taiwan with General Percival’s group in August 1942, and after spending a week at Heito Camp was moved with all the senior officers and governors of Singapore and Malaya to Karenko Camp where he remained until April 1943. Then he and the most senior British, American, Australian and Dutch officers, plus the governors of all the former SE Asian colonies, were sent to Tamazato camp for two months.
In July 1943 he was transferred to Shirakawa Camp where he remained, doing farm labour under miserable conditions until October 1944 when he was once more moved, this time via Japan to Mukden, Manchuria in northeast China. There he finished his days as a POW until evacuated by the allied forces in early September 1945.
Torrance returned to Guelph in 1945 after his time as a prisoner of war. He also lived in Toronto for a time. Because of his time as a POW, his health was severely affected and he lived to be only 52. He died in 1948 at his winter home in the Bahamas.
L/BDR. ROBERT BICKFORD – Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada - 5TH Field Reg’t. Royal Artillery
It is not known exactly how Robert Bickford, a Canadian from Halifax Nova Scotia, came to be in the 5th Field Regiment Royal Artillery, but it is known that with war looming on the horizon in Europe and prior to the outbreak of war, a number of Canadian young men from the Maritimes went to England and joined up to serve. Bickford was one of those in this famous group known as the 'Halifax 100'. Like most of the men in this group, he originally joined the Manchester Reg't. It appears that in due course he was posted to the Royal Artillery and the 5th Field Regiment.
The 5th Field Regiment was first stationed in North India, and when war looked imminent in Asia the regiment was sent to Malaya as part of the 9th Indian Division. Robert served in the 63/81 Battalion of the regiment. They were stationed at Khota Baru and Kuantan, and once the Japanese attacked they were one of the first units to go into action in the Pacific War. They fought a hard retreating action all the way to Singapore and were finally taken prisoner when the island surrendered on February 15th 1942. He spent the first few months of captivity in various POW camps on Singapore Island.
Robert was moved to Taiwan in November 1942 on the hellship England Maru and first went to Taihoku Camp #6. After about a year in that camp he was moved to Taichu Camp in central Taiwan where he slaved building a flood diversion channel in the nearby river bed close to the camp. When the area was flooded and the camp was evacuated in June 1944, he was most likely in the group that moved to Inrin Camp, and then in the spring of 1945 he moved from there to Shirakawa where he finished the war. He was evacuated from the port of Keelung in September 1945 and taken to Manila in the Philippines on the American aircraft carrier USS Block Island. There he received medical care before returning home to Canada across the Pacific on the troopship USS Tryon. He later settled in England.
Following the Japanese surrender, Bickford and the other Shirakawa POWs were moved back to Taihoku and billeted for about 10 days in the Maruyama Evacuation Camp. Airdrops from B-29s from Saipan provided much-needed relief for the men. Then on September 6th Robert was ferried out to the American aircraft carrier USS Block Island for a journey to Manila for medical care before going home. On October 6th he and a large number of Taiwan POWs embarked on the American troop transport ship USS Tryon for the journey across the Pacific to San Francisco, and from there by train home again.
I
NEW ZEALAND
FLT. LIEUT. IVON JULIAN DFC – Wellington, New Zealand - Royal New Zealand Air Force / RAF
Ivon Julian joined the Royal New Zealand Air Force in January 1940. On completion of his training he was posted to England, joining 232 Squadron RAF in January 1941. By later that year, he had become a Flight Commander. Posted overseas with the squadron in 1941, he subsequently led his Flight to Batavia, Java on January 27th 1942. Moving to Singapore on the 5th of February, he had established himself as a good fighter pilot and leader for his men.
In the days that followed he flew many patrols attacking the Japanese planes which were harassing the Johore Straits and Singapore. On the 8th of February he and his unit moved to Palembang, Sumatra where he further continued his air war with the Japanese. Withdrawn to Java in mid-February, the balance of his unit became 242 Squadron RAF, and early in March he was promoted to command this unit when most of the senior officers were withdrawn to Australia.
On the 1st of March the Japanese invaded Java with a series of beach landings in the northwest. By this stage the squadron was reduced to six operational Hurricanes and on the 8th of March the island of Java surrendered and Julian was captured, along with a further 15 members of his squadron. He then became a prisoner of war. In all he had shot down at least four enemy aircraft, damaged four aircraft in the air, and destroyed one on the ground.
He was first moved to Singapore and held as a prisoner there. In November 1943 he was sent to Taiwan on the hellship Matsue Maru with a number of other British, Australian and Dutch officers, arriving at Shirakawa Camp on the 8th. He remained there until October 1944 when he was sent north via Japan to Mukden, Manchuria where he finished the war as a POW.
He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1946 after he returned home.
Postwar Ivon Julian became a successful businessman, in later years changing his first name to Evan. He passed away in Auckland, New Zealand, on August 29th 1999.
CAPT. CHARLES H. JACKSON - Auckland, New Zealand - British Royal Engineers
Capt. Charles H. Jackson from Auckland was in the British Royal Engineers. We are not certain as to how he got with the British Army, perhaps he had moved to the UK prior to the war and came out to Singapore from there with the Royal Engineers - most likely in the British 18th Division.
He was captured at the Fall of Singapore and remained on the island for the next nine months. He came to Taiwan on August 29th 1942 on the hellship England Maru with Gen. Percival's senior officers' group of 400 POWs. They landed at Takao (Kaohsiung) and were sent to Heito Camp at Ping Tung. After about a week there General Percival and 92 of the most senior officers and governors were moved on to Karenko Camp at Hualien to join their American counterparts there under General Wainwright, but about 300 men - mostly RE's and other service corps - including Capt. Jackson, remained at Heito.
After two months on November 13th, about 200 of those men - including Capt. Jackson, were sent back to Takao and put aboard another hellship called the Dainichi Maru which had come from Singapore with several hundred POWs for both Taichu Camp and Heito. After the incoming POWs were off-loaded, Jackson and his group boarded the ship and were taken to Yokohama Camp -01D where most of the other ranks and a few officers were put to work in the shipyards.
From Yokohama many of the remaining officers were sent to Zentsuji Camp where they remained for two years and six months, and then in June 1945 they were sent to other camps on Kyushu and Charles went to Miyata Camp #9 on the northern part of the island. When the war ended he was evacuated from there and taken via Nagasaki to Manila for medical care and treatment before returning home. Following that he returned home via the United States on the troop transport USS R.L. Howse.
May we not forget the courageous and dedicated service and sacrifice made by these men for our freedom!