News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: Kinkaseki

Date: November 27, 2000

"Memories revived of darkness under the rising sun
By DAVID RENNIE KINKASEKI

In the Chinguashi Valley, on the windswept north coast of Taiwan, there is a piece of ground where no one will build to this day for fear of British ghosts.

No one knows exactly how many hundreds of young British servicemen died there, in one of Asia's most brutal prisoner-of-war camps. Even now it feels an evil place.

During World War II, this valley was known as Kinkaseki, and was the site of the largest copper mine in the Japanese empire. The mine flowed with sulphurous, acid water. Rock falls were common and temperatures could reach 54 degrees.

Now, 55 years later, the first official pilgrimage of British veterans has returned to remember those who did not live through it.

The former PoWs had heard days before that, after a long fight, they would receive 10,000 ($A27,000) compensation from the British Government for their suffering.

But even as The Last Post echoed round the valley there was deep anger that Japan had still not apologised, let alone given meaningful compensation. In 1951 each PoW received a derisory 76 from Japan as a final payment under the terms of a post-war treaty.

"Why should our public be paying?" asked Bill Notley, 81, a retired printer from London. "The Japanese have got away with it."

The veterans were given a warm, almost apologetic welcome by the Taiwanese. They were also met by senior envoys from Britain and Commonwealth nations, next to a monument that was recently erected by Western expatriates.

As the veterans arrived, an old villager stepped forward.

Chang A-hwei, 76, worked in the mine during the war. "I saw you, I saw you every day," he told them. "The British really suffered," he said. "They did the hardest work, in the most dangerous places."

Mr Notley, a former gunner, had not been back since the war. "But it never leaves you. I have had dream after dream," he said as he gazed at the hills where he and his comrades buried so many dead.

Japanese guards, filled with contempt for men who had surrendered rather than fought to the death, never allowed them to dig proper graves. Within a day of burial, the white of a dead hand could often be seen sticking out of the soil. When it rained hard, bodies would wash down the slope, a mess of maggots and bones. After the war, all remains were moved to Hong Kong.

More still could have died. Had the Allies landed on Taiwan, the Japanese planned to lock all prisoners in the mine and blow them up. If explosives failed, a war crimes tribunal heard, nitric acid was to be poured on them.

Jack Edwards, 82, a Welshman sent to Kinkaseki after being captured in Singapore, has written a book about the mine, unapologetically titled Banzai You Bastards!

The Japanese had good reason to hide Kinkaseki. The mine, though worked by PoWs, was run by a private company, the Nippon Kogyo Copper Mine. According to Mr Edwards' investigations, the company was later bought by one of Japan's largest minerals firms, the Japan Energy Corporation. Company officials have told Mr Edwards they have no records of the wartime situation in the mine. "