On the external wall of the old prison adjacent to a walking path next to a Taiwan Historic Plaque

A framed metal plaque.

The plaque remembers Navy and Army Air Crews held in the prison and the 14 executed as criminals in June 1945.

US Navy and Army Air Forces launched large air raids against the enemy in late 1944 and 1945 to include the island of Formosa (now Taiwan).  Many planes were shot down and the crews rather than sent to POW Camps, were sent to civilian prison for trials.  Senior officers were sent to Japan (Ofuna), but many of the fighter and bomber aircrews were sent to the Taihoku City Prison in Taipei.  in the prison they were interrogated by the Kempeitai. A total of 25 American airmen were held in the prison from October 1944 until the end of the war.

On May 29, 1945 - fourteen of the Navy and Army Air Force fliers were taken from the prison to the local military court and given a mock trial, and with no defense were found guilty of 'indiscriminate bombing' and sentenced to death. On June 19, 1945 the were executed by firing squad. They were cremated and their ashes placed in a local Japanese Shinto temple. At the end of the war the remains were turned over to the Allies for burial.  The eleven other airmen remained in the prison until the end of the war and then they were released in early September 1945.

The Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society placed the plaque and is the source of this information.

The text on the plaque is written and English and Chinese.  The English reads:

This plaque is placed here in honor and memory of all

The Allied Airmen held in the former Taipei Prison by

The Japanese Army in 1944 and 1945 and the fourteen

American Airmen who were needlessly executed here

On June 19, 1945

The airmen had been shot down or crashed while on patrol over Taiwan in

In the Fall of 1944 and the Spring of 1945.  They were held in the Taipei Prison until the end of the war. On May 29, 1945, 14 of these aircrew where given “mock” trials and sentenced to death. The needless execution took place not far from this place only 58 days before the end of the World War II.  When the war ended the remaining men were released and returned to their homelands again.

WE WILL REMEMBER THEM

NAME                                     RANK/UNIT                                       HOME

(See Photos)