I’m an American, living in the United States. My Grandfather served in the US Army during World War II and was bombed by another US plane above him on April 15th 1945. 5 men, including my Grandfather were killed. The remaining 6 crew members escaped but were taken captive and held in a Japanese prison camp until the end of the war. My Grandfather was on a mission with 23 other B24 bombers to bomb “Shinshoshi” Airdrome 10 miles from Taichu, which, according to maps is likely modern Taichung. I’ve been researching my Grandfather’s death and would like help looking into where the plane crashed, what happened to the wreckage, whether there is anyone that remembers a plane crashing 57 years ago and most importantly if I can find any remnants of the plane. I’ve published some of the imformation I’ve collected at:
Joe Leavey
If anyone would be interested in a history project, I’d be very grateful,
Shane
Thanks for posting the link.
Have you been in touch yet with the people behind the site on the WWII prisoners of war held in Taiwan? They could probably be useful.
www.powtaiwan.org
HowGreenIsMyFormosa also knows something about this topic. I haven’t seen any posts from HowGreen in a while, though.
Please keep us posted. ![]()
What a fascinating story. From the map on your site, the location looks to be very near what is now the town of Shalu or Wuchi, although its hard to tell for sure.
My parents-in-law were born and raised in Wuchi and live there still. I’d imagine they would have been children or teenagers at the time of your grandfather’s crash.
I’ll be visiting them for the Chinese New Year holiday, which begins this weekend and I’ll be sure to ask them if they know anything about this incident.
Good luck in your research.
I forgot to add earlier that I can confirm “Taichu” is indeed an obsolete name for Taichung.
You might also be interested in this page on my site:
www.romanization.com/ww2/
It lists World War II Allied code names for places in Taiwan. But the list isn’t very useful as is, because it usually gives Japanese rather than Chinese placenames.
I think I’ve probably found Shinshoshi on my map of Taiwan. Following the coordinates on Shane’s web page (24 degrees 11 minutes north, 120 degrees 34 minutes east) I find a place about 2 kilometers due west of Tunghai University called Hsinchuangtzu (Chinese characters: 新莊子 ) . I can confirm that Hsinchuangtzu would be pronounced Shinshoshi in Japanese.
Google turns up about 90 hits for the Chinese place name. I tried throwing in a few other choice Chinese keywords to see if I could nail down a connection between Hsinchuangtzu and Japan/airplanes/etc, but didn’t find anything in ten minutes of browsing. Maybe I’ll dig some more later. (If I have the time!)
By the way, have you considered what datum your geographical
coordinates are in? As we move along the 24d 11m parallel, we pass
thru Shuinan Airport, [before ending up in my backyard, where I have
erected a marker “24d 11m”, 20 km further east]
Oops, I checked some old maps [published by Yuanliu,
,]http://www.ylib.com.tw], which one can see in many university
libraries here in Taiwan. Anyways, the datum the Japanese used is not
too different from that of today. When I say datums I mean like on
http://www.geocities.com/jidanni/taiwan-gps-qa.htm
I thought I’d recieve an email if anyone replied - sorry I’ve been absent in my own conversation.
Ampuero, that’s very big news! Let me do some research and see what I can find - I’ll repost if you all are interested.
Dan, I visited the site you mentioned. I consider myself a reasonably intelligent guy but feel downright dumb after looking at all those numbers. I have no idea what they all mean. What’s a datum?
Thanks for the help - this is great- Shane
Yes, keep us posted. I keep thinking I’ll call a librarian or something, but haven’t gotten around to it.
Dan’s info threw me for a loop too. I guess you have to expect a curve ball from a guy who makes a hobby of determining his geographic position by looking at the hieroglyphics on utility poles!!! But things started making a wee bit of sense when I followed the link on Dan’s page to “A Geocentric Reference System In Taiwan”. (The link is now dead, by the way, but Google has it cached, so you can still dig it up. But I guess that’s irrelevant to your quest.)
Good luck.
Sorry, geodetic datums are explained in
http://www.colorado.edu/geography/gcraft/notes/datum/datum.html
Anyway, I was saying that the difference in the datums concerned was
say, less than 1 km, and thus probably not a factor in your problem.
I just wanted to let you all know that I have gotten some help from several people and have added the new information regarding where the plane crashed at:Current Research
I still have a long way to go but am consistently amazed at the warmth and generosity of the people living in Taiwan. This part of my experience has taught me a lot not only about my Grandfather but of Taiwan.
I’ve really come to like Taiwan and it’s people. Regardless of whether I learn anything more about my Grandfather’s plane, I’ll always think fondly of Taiwan. Someday, I will visit, until then, I enjoy learning more and keeping up to date with what’s going on some 8000 miles away there in Taiwan.
Shane
I just now clicked on the link to your Current Research page. Nice stuff! I really like what you’re doing. But if you don’t mind some unsolicted advice, I’d like to suggest a change to improve the page just a bit.
You wrote:
After WWII, the popular language changed to Chinese and at least initially, was well accepted by the Taiwanese people. Currently, Taiwan is going through a “Romanization” which basically means after thousands of years of developing their own symbols of language, they are changing to the commonly known Roman alphabet (a,b,c, etc.).
My version:
After WWII, the official language changed back to Chinese.
My reason: Chinese continues to be well accepted by the Taiwanese people, on a par with the way English is accepted by the American people, for example. When people speak of romanization, they don’t mean that the Taiwanese people are abandoning Chinese characters in favor of a Roman alphabet. Romanization is simply a means of spelling out Chinese place names, personal names, etc. so that non-Chinese people who haven’t done hard time studying Chinese squigglies can have some idea of how to pronounce the Chinese.
Hope this helps.
I have absolutely no problem in changing it. I wrote based on my observations.
I started to ask a question regarding Romanization but it’s so far off the subject I think I’ll start a new thread.
Thanks,
shane
I may have found the modern day location of the target my grandfather was bombing the day he was killed. It looks very likely as though the area is today Taichung TW-AFB.
Is anyone familiar with the topography of this area? Can anyone confirm that this may have also been an aerodrome during WWII? Does anyone know where I might find photographs of this area? Does anyone know anyone who has lived around here for a very long time and might have been there on April 15th 1945? My records say the survivors were found by 40 or so farmers and turned over to Japanese soliders so I know the area around the target was farmland 60 years ago.
Thanks,
Shane
Shane,
You should go to your nearest large university library and see if they have a copy of the USAAF’s “Strategic Bombing Survey” for Taiwan (it might be Formosa). Also check their Map Depository (usually attached to the Geography Dept). My university had very detailed military maps of Taiwan which were published sometime around 1944.
Shane, sounds like you’re getting warmer. Congratulations. Can you tell me what you mean by “Taichung TW AFB”? I’ll try digging around a bit more next time I’m at the in-laws.
O’Brien, Shane does have several military maps of the area on his website, but the problem is that the names are all the old Japanese names or else code or simply coordinates, which doesn’t really help much when looking around on the ground. Also, the land has changed a great deal since 1944, which also makes things more difficult.
There are currently only two Taiwan Airforce bases near Taichung: Ch’ingchuangang清泉崗 or Shuinan水湳.
Maybe the first is your “Shinshoshi.”
Best of luck. You may only find the answer by going there personally.
The Taiwanese government should be helpful. They had hoped that the U.S. would save them from the KMT during that time.
“To the South, a mountain whose romanized name would be something like Kuei Shan (Gui Shan in pinyin)
To the West, Hsin Chuang (Xin Zhuang in pinyin)
To the North, a cemetery Shih Fan Kong Mu (Shi Fan Gong Mu)
To the Northwest, Lu Kang Liao (Lu Gang Liao)
To the Southwest, Nan Liao”
These seem to be a general description of Taiwan, all over the place, and may not be not near the crash site.
Long ago, I posted here wondering if someone could help me find the location of my Grandfather’s plane crash during WWII. I had many replies and so much great help but I still haven’t found what is at the location they say is the place where the plane went down (N 24 11’ and E 120 34’).
I’d still love to find someone near Taichung with A) a sense of adventure and B) a little bit of free time to find N 24 11’ and E 120 34’, which I believe should be about 10 miles due West of Taichung and take some pictures of what is there and maybe do some research there in Taiwan to see what happened to the plane that crashed there April 15th 1945.
During WWII there was a Japanese airbase around that location but it may be gone, I would be absolutely thrilled if someone in the area remembers the war and a plane crashing on that day or someone who has heard stories.
Maybe I could reciprocate by helping to find something here in the US. If it can get past customs, I’ll help you get it - just let me know.
My concern is that if there is someone that may remember WWII, they are getting older and may not be around if I wait much longer. However, if they were just a child in 1945, they could have been old enough to remember well but yound enough to retell the story.
Since my original post more than a year ago, I’ve updated the website with the information (www.myhomeinkc.com/ourpage/joeleavey.htm).
Anyone have too much time to spend?
Thanks - Shane
Speaking of dusting off old threads… For those of you that weren’t around when I first posted this, I’m an American (in America) looking for details of my Grandfather’s WWII plane crash in 1945.
This week, I recieved from my government, all records regarding the post war search for his remains. I have new maps, names, addresses and even photos of the original grave there in Taiwan.
It seems that after the plane crashed, Japanese soldiers took the survivors to prison camps, took what they wanted from the pockets of the American deceaesd and left the bodies for the locals to deal with.
According to the documents, my Grandfather’s body was found by a local farmer named Shu Hsin (address: Taichu-shu, Taiko-gun, Shoryku-kai, Rukuryo, 144 Banchi) very close to an area referred to as “Seisui” what looks to be not very far inland from the West coast South of Taichu and almost due West of a Naval Air Base.
This package I received is awesome. I’m seriously considering coming to Taiwan to search for the area and see if there’s anyone in the area that took any souveneirs from the plane or if there’s anyone around that has heard stories about the event - maybe decendants of Shu Hsin.
Is there anyone that would be willing to help?
Shane
First: Following WWII the language did not turn BACK to Chinese. People in Taiwan prior to the Japanese era spoke Hoklo, Hakka and aboriginal languages. Mandarin was usually only spoken by Qing office holders who usually stayed no more than 5 years or until they got caught in a scandal. The “Guo Yu” or mandarin brought to Taiwan following WWII was a mix of northern Chinese languages created in the 1920’s to help nationalize China.
Second: The Airodrome you are looking for is probably the current airfield in northern Taichung west of Shalu. The property was originally a large parcel belonging to the Pazeh tribe of Anli, working with Zhang Da Jing the large tract remained divided between the Pazeh and Zhang’s family. Following the Japanese colonization the large plots posessed by aborigines. The Chiu’s and Zhangs were forced off the land and it was turned into an airbase. Kamikazis were trained near Dong hai University.
I believe POWs were trained nearby.