Twelve local ROC veterans from Keelung area attended a remembrance service in honor of prisoners of war who lost their lives at the hands of their Japanese captors in Taiwan during World War II Nov. 15 at Jinguashi in Taipei County on the site of the former Kinkaseki POW Camp.
Six Britons of the more than 4,000 former allied POWs who were interned at 16 camps around the island joined the service. They are Jack Fowler, Ken Pett, George Reynolds, William Roy, Stan Vickerstaff and Stan Wood.
 Medals proudly pinned to their chests and chins held high, they stepped off the bus to take their places among family members, friends, former servicemen, and guests who had gathered to pay their respects to these surviving heroes and the hundreds of other prisoners who were not so lucky.
POW camps existed between August 1942 and September 1945 and were in deplorable conditions. Food and medicine were in short supply, but diseases prevailed, and the places were infested with rats and bugs. Jinguashi was home to the infamous Kinkaseki “Hell Camp” where POWs were forced to work as laborers down a copper mine nearby.
The service was part of the 13th annual “Remembrance Weekend” event that was sponsored by the Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society, and co-sponsored by the British Trade and Cultural Office in Taipei.
The service were also attended by foreign officials including David Campbell, director of BTCO, William Stanton, director of the American Institute in Taiwan, Alice Cawte, representative of the Australian Commerce and Industry Office and Michelle Slade, director of the New Zealand Commerce and Industry Office, as well Hans Song, Overseas Liaison Director of the R.O.C. Veterans Affairs Commission.
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ROC veterans participated in annual memorial service for WWII POWs
