[quote=“HakkaSonic”][quote=“daryl_ks”]I would love to know if anyone knows anyway of getting hold of a copy of the film, A War Story, that was mentioned in the first post…
I would love to see it…
Daryl[/quote]
Since it’s a Canadian movie, I’m guessing the Canadian Trade and Cultura Office would stand a good chance of having it or knowing where to get it.[/quote]
Contact the National Film Board of Canada.
I looked, albeit briefly, through the links to the POW sites offered (many thanks) but I couldn’t find something that has intrigued me. I’m curious to find out how the ordinary Taiwanese responded to allied POWs.
I spent sometime with a chap that had been a prisoner of war in Thailand on the Burma railway. He was an Australian nabbed in the fall of Singapore and one of the few younger prisoners to have survived. On his return to Australia he was put in a psychiatric hospital by his father after “lolling about for a too long and not looking for work.” Despite spending the rest of his life in mental hospitals he was one of the most lucid men I have met.
He learnt Japanese while in the camps (he said he was one of the very few that were fluent enough to spot a different accent) and claimed the most barbaric guards were always Taiwanese and Koreans. He didn’t stop there though, and said they were brutal because the Japanese treated them badly and in order to appease (in their minds at least) they brutalised prisoners. He reckoned the Japanese were much fairer and actually thought less of the guards because of their brutality.
He said that the officers and NCOs of Changi and the other camps he was in were usually Japanese but that the hoi poloi were almost always Koreans or Taiwanese. As an aside, this got me thinking about the anti-Asian element in Australia and their absolute inability to distinuguish between Japanese, Korean, Chinese or Vietnamese.
Since then its been sort of in the back of my mind and led me to focus on stuff like the accounts of soldiers from the mainland who came to suppress the 2/28 claiming they never saw the Taiwanese as anything other than Japanese; same haircuts, fashion, language and the like.
The Taiwanese history books quite naturally gloss over this stuff, but stuck at a red light some days I can’t help but wonder if these very people that I consider inordinately friendly now wouldn’t have ripped me to pieces if I’d dropped on the same spot 60 years ago. More importantly, I wonder at the connotations of this blurry history?
Dunnno.
HG
I don’t think there was much contact, at least that’s what I gathered from reading that Bonzai, You Bastards book written by one of the prisoners.
I just looked through General Wainright’s Story – he was shipped to Taiwan, after surrendering in the Philippines, by the Japanese – but saw no mention of how ordinary Taiwanese responded to the POWs, except for: “We picked up our luggage, were formed into a column, and marched through the city. It was a depressing experience. The streets were lined with thousands of silent Japs and Chinese, starting at us as if we were freaks.”
Cheers HS. In a way that’s what I was after. I couldn’t be bothered doing the reading. Mind you I really wonder if they would have made any distinction, Taiwan was a colony and the stuff I read about the KMT boys shooting up the place is that they just thought it was part of Japan, just full of strange speaking Japanese.
HG
[quote=“Huang Guang Chen”]
He learnt Japanese while in the camps (he said he was one of the very few that were fluent enough to spot a different accent) and claimed the most barbaric guards were always Taiwanese and Koreans. [/quote]
For ethnicity of camp guards:
ajrp.awm.gov.au:8000/ajrp/AJRP2. … enDocument
From Jack Edwards’ Banzai you Bastards:
2nd February
A Taiwan soldier known as “The Nasty Carpenter” went into the officers’ billet and there was a terrific beating-up. Many officers were knocked out completely.
8th February
Eight Taiwan soldiers (the “Runabouts”) entered the officers’ billet and made straight for Captain A. Sewell, MC, RA. They proceeded, each in turn, to beat him for an hour, and finished up with a sentry with rifle, holding the butt end, hitting him on the head with the bayonet. The officer concerned was in a very bad way when this brutal, savage beating was finished.
18th February 1943
Inspection of the whole camp. All Taiwan soldiers appeared with sticks, and beat up all the sick men left in the camp after the mine workers had left.
20th February
The Camp Commander walked into the prisoners’ cook-house and ordered four of the cooks to beat each other with fists for half an hour. The Japanese NCO of the guard (“Mussolini”) had a terrific day, beating up all and sundry.
Not been there yet. Nice shot. What exactly are we looking at there blueface?[/quote]
I’ve been told it’s the shrine to a former Japanese governor of Taiwan. It was destroyed by the KMT after “reunification”…
I used to go up there 10 years ago when it was a ghost town and everything was wild. If you want to see anything you’d better do it in the next several months…it looks like they’re turning it into somekind of Disneyland. 
Banzai, You Bastards is hard to come by, which is a shame because it’s well worth reading.
Here’s a link to search many new and used bookstores for the title.
It has been translated into Mandarin, but I don’t remember the title.
I used to go up there 10 years ago when it was a ghost town and everything was wild. If you want to see anything you’d better do it in the next several months…it looks like they’re turning it into somekind of Disneyland. [/quote]
Yeah, with the mine carts turned into a roller coaster and everyone eating their “POW bindang.” Let’s hope some sane minds are involved in looking after this area.
[quote=“cranky laowai”]Banzai, You Bastards is hard to come by, which is a shame because it’s well worth reading.
Here’s a link to search many new and used bookstores for the title.
It has been translated into Mandarin, but I don’t remember the title.[/quote]
Dear all,
I did a google search and this is what I found:
Edwards, Jack,
[quote=“Kobo-Daishi”][quote=“cranky laowai”]Banzai, You Bastards is hard to come by, which is a shame because it’s well worth reading.
Here’s a link to search many new and used bookstores for the title.
It has been translated into Mandarin, but I don’t remember the title.[/quote]
Dear all,
I did a google search and this is what I found:
Edwards, Jack,
There is one guy in Taiwan who sells copies of Bonzai You Bastards. He was friends with Jack Edwards in Hong Kong and relocated here. I can’t remember the guy’s name, but I know someone who knows him, and will find out this weekend if he has any more copies.
On the web page you mention http://www.romanization.com/books/formosan_odyssey/kinkaseki.html
I found this [quote]War-crime trials were held in Japan but the majority of war criminals escaped justice, and since then, in sharp contrast to the continual prosecution and retribution sought for Nazi crimes, there has been little or no investigation. The Japanese got off very lightly after the war because attention quickly turned to halting the communist threat. Chiang Kai-shek actually recruited some Japanese officers and soldiers into the KMT army, including the Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese invasion army, Okamura, the man who had come up with the idea of the “comfort women” program. [/quote]
Actually I once wrote a paper on the war trials and found out, that not only Chiang Kai-shek recruited Japanese soldiers into his army, but fact is, that the US, who controlled the whole war crime trials, actually didn’t charge the worst criminals on top of the list, but instead used them and their knowledge in the Korean war a few years later. Where do you think did they got their knowledge on chemical weapons from?
Tojo Hideki, who was made the main responsible, was in fact just a puppet of the worst war criminal, the emperor himself. The emperors “Monologues”, which he dictated after the war to explain his embroilment, proof, that he was a well informed, belligerent, egoistic man, who fully approved of the military’s actions. But Tojo willingly took the blame, cause his family got generously rewarded. Strangly enough, these so called “Monolgues” where lost and only found in 1990 again, a year after the emperors death.
For the war crimes in the Philippines general Yamashita Tomoyuki was hanged, but he in fact was not stationed there and could not have know, what his troops did. McArthur himself made sure, that Yamashitas superior wasn’t charged. For the Nanjing massacre General Matsui Iwane was made responsible, but the guy actually stayed in bed during the massacre because of sickness and was a physically and psychologically wreck anyways, so he could not have possibly lead his troops there.
The imperial family, whose members where involved in the war where not charged at all. Neither Prince Asaka, who actually did order the Nanjing massacre, nor Prince Chichibu, who supervised the looting in the occupied territories on the emperors behalf. Until this day, secret US-Japanese missions are still salvaging these treasures. Where do you think did the money for the fast Japanese post-war reconstruction and economic wonder come from?
The criminals, who where convicted did not stay in prison for too long, some of them were nominated for the new “democratic” government!!!
Under these circumstances, how could somebody expect the Japanese to apologize for their crimes anyways? McArthur on behalf of the US government let them get away with it, so why apologize now??
I think the US already knew how to make chemical weapons. 
But the US might have also wanted to know what the Japanese knew. Seems you’ve forgotten the Japanese had also been fighting the Russians. Did you know that Marshal Georgi Zhukov, the guy who captured Berlin in 1945, had already kicked Japanese butt in 1939 at a place called Nomonhan? BTW, the French recruited members of the SS and Wehrmacht into the French Army…a large percentage of the troops at Dien Bien Phu (1954, Vietnam) were German.
[quote=“mesheel”]
as for the US, it was and still is not a crazy dictator who’s in power, but still “incidents” like Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, Irak happened and are still happening and more will happen…[/quote]
Gee mesheel, if you’ve studied so much about WWII war crimes, then you ought to know why Hiroshima and Nagasaki got nuked. Regarding Vietnam and Korea. Uhhhh. What are you babbling about? The Communists invaded North Korea and South Vietnam. Or don’t they teach that in schools in Germany?
Regarding Japanese war crimes and the Imperial family getting off. You’re right. They did get off. There were many people in the US government and military who wanted to hang them all. If we had, we probably would have been involved in a guerrilla war in Japan for the next 100 years. We needed stabilty in Japan while we dealt with the Russians in Europe and the Chinese in Asia. I still think the US should have put a boot on the Japanese neck and squeezed alot harder than it did.
Well, that’s one way of putting it (Vietnam). France royally screwed up as usual.
Funny thing is how did the US get involved. You can’t tell me the Gulf of Tonkin thing wasn’t just some made up bullshit. i mean 2 torpedo boats attacking 2 US destroyers… unless they were suicide squads loaded with TNT. what a bunch of BS. Of course the date of death of JFK is remarkably convenient only a few weeks after the military coup and not long before Tonkin Gulf.
1963:
On November 1, South Vietnamese president Diem is overthrown in a military coup.
On November 22, President Kennedy is assassinated. Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in as his successor.
1964:
After an attack by North Vietnamese torpedo boats on two US destroyers, the US Congress enables the president to order retaliatory attacks in Vietnam (Tonkin Gulf Resolution).
and someone will probably chime in what a great life vietnamese refugees now have in the US, but who knows what might have happened if there was no war to begin with…
Like this?
[quote][size=150][b]American Terrorism and Genocide of the Philippine People, 1899
Kenny, this has nothing to do with the POW camps…I’m sorry I even responded to Mesheel’s post.
But remember, people get on buses with TNT strapped to their bodies all the time. What you think is rational or BS is really immaterial as it’s what the other guy thinks that’s important.
indianexpress.com/ie/daily/2 … 13015.html
From Oct. 25, 1944 to Jan. 25, 1945 Japanese Kamikazes were able to sink 2 Escort Carriers, 3 Destroyers. They were also able to damage 23 Carriers, 5 Battleships, 9 Cruisers, 23 Destroyers and 27 other ships. There had also been 738 killed and another 1,300 wounded from the result of these attacks.
history.acusd.edu/gen/WW2Timeline/LUTZ/okin.html
[quote=“Soddom”]
Like this?
[quote][size=150][b]American Terrorism and Genocide of the Philippine People, 1899
[b]Reminder:
This particular thread is on Japan’s POW camps in Taiwan. Let’s keep it that way.
Thanks.
–the moderator[/b]
