ARTICLES & STORIES

TAIWAN POW CAMPS MEMORIAL SOCIETY DIRECTOR AWARED THE M.B.E.

(CP-Taiwan)     Michael Hurst, the Founder and Director of the Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society, traveled to London England in October 2002 to receive a very special award - the Member of the Order of the British Empire. His long and tireless efforts to remember the former allied prisoners of war in Taiwan have been recognized. Michael was the original founder and first Chairman of the Kinkaseki Memorial Committee in 1997, and later he founded the Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society, to carry on the work begun by the original committee when it closed down...

The RAKUYO AND KACHIDOKI MARUS

     In the spring and early summer of 1944 a large group of so-called “fit” POWs were returned to Singapore from Thailand upon completion of the Death Railway.

     On September 4th 1944 a convoy of several Japanese transport ships set sail from Singapore. There were two ships carrying POWs - the Rakuyo Maru with 1,317 POWs and the Kachidoki Maru with 900 POWs aboard. On the 12th of September the Rakuyo Maru was torpedoed by the American submarine USS Sealion II at around 5:00am and the Kachidoki Maru received hits from the submarine...