ARTICLES & STORIES

TRIP TO KINKASEKI - TAIWAN - NOVEMBER 2009

by Peter Bowkett IN MEMORY OF HAROLD VINCENT BOWKETT

Cpl. Harold V. Bowkett, 9/11th Indian Division Signals -  standing back row, second from left. Taken in England just before the war. 

   I suspect the earliest part of planning for this trip actually must have started when I was a young boy - seven or eight years of age - at home in Clydach as I recall one day asking Dad why he had scars on his back and he told me that they were from working in the copper mine whilst he was at...

100th ANNIVERSARY OF THE END OF WWI REMEMBRANCE DAY EVENT IN TAIWAN

     Sunday November 11th 2018 saw more than 120 people gathered in the Taiwan Prisoner of War Memorial Park - the site of the former Kinkaseki POW Camp in Jinguashi, to take part in the year's Remembrance Day event.

     It was the 100th Anniversary of the Armistice that ended World War I on the day, and a special service of commemoration was held to mark that special historical event. For a change the weather was beautiful - a lovely autumn day under cloudless blue skies

     The Taiwan POW Camps Memorial...

JAPAN UNDER THE ABE REGIME

JAPAN'S DEMOCRACY IS DYING UNDER THE ABE REGIME! Democracy took root in Japan 75 years ago after the end of World War II. Who would have thought that someone could overturn it so easily? But Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has done just that !

READ THE ARTICLES AND REPORTS BELOW TO SEE HOW THIS HAS COME ABOUT AND PLEASE SHARE THIS INFORMATION WITH YOUR FRIENDS . . .

Japan’s Democracy at Risk – The LDP’s Ten Most Dangerous Proposals for Constitutional Change

An article by Lawrence Repeta in the Asia-Pacific Journal Japan Focus - July 22,...

AT LAST - A LOOK AT THE WAR CRIMINALS' MEMORIALS

     Over the past number of years many articles have been written about the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo and of Japanese prime ministers visits to honour Japan's war dead and particularly the 14 Class A war criminals enshrined there as 'gods'. These visits have caused much controversy and also angered the governments and the people of China and Korea particularly, due to the enormous atrocities that those war criminals and their armies carried out in their countries - and all across Asia, in WWII.

     The only photos I have ever seen of the...

HIROHITO’S RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE END OF WORLD WAR II

FEBRUARY 14TH 1945 - THE DAY THE WAR IN ASIA COULD HAVE ENDED!

World War II could have ended in February 1945 – even before the Germans surrendered in May – read on……

     DID YOU KNOW? - February 14, 2015 is the seventieth anniversary of the day that the senior Japanese statesman Prince Konoe Fumimaro presented a report to Hirohito in which he told the emperor that after a continuous string of defeats the war was irrevocably lost and that he should surrender unconditionally immediately.

     Hirohito’s fateful negative response was that they...

JAPAN’S UNWARRANTED CRITICISMS

June 2004. . .

     We recently received an article relating to the news that Japan had condemned the atrocities committed by American troops on some of the Iraqi prisoners of war. While these acts are certainly not right and should be condemned, as the following article points out, Japan is hardly in any position to criticize the actions of a few soldiers when their entire military was responsible for the slaughter of tens of thousands of prisoners of war held under their jurisdiction during World War II.

     In addition to this, hundreds...

HISTORY GROUPS DEMAND JAPAN TO FULLY ACCEPT WAR RESPONSIBILITIES

August 2005

     The Rape of Nanking Redress Coalition and several affiliated World War II Truth in History groups – including the Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society, are demanding that Japan bring proper closure to all pending WW II issues on the 60th anniversary of the end of the war this V-J Day.

     The groups express strong objection to the repeated visits to the Yasukuni Shrine – for the purpose of worshipping war criminals and promoting militarism - by Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and his cabinet and LDP party members, as well...