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Memories still raw for Taiwan¡¦s veterans
of WWII
By Chris Wang
CNA, WITH STAFF WRITER
Sunday, Aug 22, 2010, Page 3
Distant memories of the Pacific War and the deaths of fellow
child-workers and comrades still bring tears to the eyes of Lee Hsueh-feng (§õ³·®p)
and Lin Teh-hwa (ªL¼wµØ), two of more than 200,000 Taiwanese directly involved in
World War II.
Despite the passing of the 65th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic
bombings that led to the end of the war earlier this month, there are still no
formal ceremonies in Taiwan or memorials erected to commemorate former military
men like Lee and Lin.
This is why they appeared at War Memorial Park in Kaohsiung City, an important
military and industrial center during the Japanese colonial era from 1895 to
1945, and called for the government to pay respect to Taiwan¡¦s World War II
veterans.
¡§Maybe it [the lack of recognition] is because we were seen as Japanese, which
we really were at the time,¡¨ said 85-year-old Lin, who joined the Japanese
Imperial Navy in 1943 at 17 as a volunteer because soldiers¡¦ families received
special benefits.
Lin, who hails from central Taiwan, said he made the decision because ¡§I had
four older brothers and at 17, I feared nothing, including death.¡¨
He was fortunate to stay in Taiwan as a naval driver instead of being sent to
the South Pacific theater, but said that, nonetheless, ¡§serving in the Japanese
military was a living hell.¡¨
Lee, on the other hand, went to Yamato City in Japan¡¦s Kanagawa Prefecture that
same year, in the first group of Taiwanese child workers, called shonenko, who
answered a call from the Japanese government to build fighter planes.
In all, more than 8,000 boys aged 12 to 14 left their families, homeland and
childhood with the promise of an education in Japan. However, the promises and
their dreams were never fulfilled.
In December 1944, 25 Taiwanese boys were killed in a US air raid on Nagoya. Lee,
at 17, was the oldest of the group, and assumed the responsibility of taking
care of his ¡§brothers,¡¨ who often got homesick and cried at night.
¡§We had a very hard time [in Japan], but we were a happy group of kids. Losing
them [the 25 boys] just broke my heart,¡¨ Lee recalled, adding that 300 of the
boys never returned to Taiwan after the war.
Those 25 boys, along with 30,304 Taiwanese soldiers killed in the war, including
former president Lee Teng-hui¡¦s (§õµn½÷) older brother, are still remembered at
Tokyo¡¦s Yasukuni Shrine and have never officially returned to their homeland
either, Lee lamented.
Lee Hsueh-feng said he often wonders how he was able to tell his grandchildren
that ¡§grandpa built fighter planes for the Japanese Imperial Air Force at your
age¡¨ in a time when most university students in Taiwan have little understanding
of Taiwan¡¦s history and when some of them even think it was Japan, rather than
the US, that bombed Taiwan during the war.
Liang Chih-hsiang, 82, was one of the very few who fought as a Japanese soldier
in the South Pacific before being recruited and sent to China by the
then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government to fight Chinese Communist Party
troops.
Yang Liao Shu-hsia (·¨¹ù²QÁø), 83, was a 16-year-old student in the then-Japanese
occupied city of Shanghai, China, when the war in the Pacific broke out. She
volunteered to be trained and serve as a military nurse and was not able to
return to Taiwan until 1947.
Stories like these go on and on. Those who were involved in the war are now in
their 80s and, as Lee puts it, will be ¡§naturally fading away¡¨ soon.
¡§There has been so little commemoration of the war in Taiwan in which millions
of people were directly or indirectly involved. This is a strange society,¡¨
Taiwan Extra-Patriot Veterans Association secretary-general Chuang Sheng-huang
(²ø²±®Ì) said.
Citing statistics from Japan¡¦s health ministry, Chuang said that about 8,000
Taiwanese soldiers and more than 120,000 other service personnel were involved
in the Pacific War. About 15,000 were listed as missing in action.
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