Remembering WWII: Taiwanese share memories of fear and survival

Taipei, Aug. 15 (CNA) As the world marks the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, two Taiwanese shared memories of a childhood and youth marked by fear and survival under Japanese rule during the Pacific War, offering a rare firsthand glimpse into Taiwan's role in the war.

"Some of my classmates were sent to the frontlines and many didn't survive," said Yang Fu-cheng (楊馥成), who was born in 1922 in Tainan during the Japanese colonial era, as he recalled the harsh realities faced by his generation during a recent interview with CNA.

Born in a rural, electricity-free village, Yang grew up amid poverty and limited opportunities, leaving him, like many of his classmates, with little choice but to serve in the Japanese military when the Pacific War broke out.

Yang said he was relatively fortunate in being assigned to a supply unit in Singapore where he taught locals to grow vegetables for the military, but many Taiwanese were sent to fight in China and Southeast Asia.

By Japanese accounts, more than 200,000 young Taiwanese joined the war, either voluntarily or conscripted due to manpower shortages, Yang said, but he believes the actual number was even higher.

"That figure only counted those who fought in the Pacific War," Yang added. "Even more were sent to the frontlines in China as porters or to carry supplies, including people from my hometown, and many never returned. Most of these stories have gone unrecorded."

Despite serving in a rear-area supply unit, Yang still faced danger, as Allied forces frequently targeted transport ships, sinking many in the Bashi Channel and Philippine waters, the centenarian said.

"We only learned afterward that the day before we arrived, one ship had been sunk, and the next day, another was reported lost," he said.

"The journey from Kaohsiung to Singapore took about a week, and many lives were lost along the way -- so many."

In a separate interview, Jiang Jin-zao (江金棗), born in 1930, vividly recalled the terror of U.S. air raids on Keelung in 1945, which were aimed at disrupting Japanese military installations and supply lines across the Pacific.

With no shelters near the house where she lived while working as a cook, Jiang said that during the air raids, she would run to the mountains behind it to watch planes drop bombs on the fields below.

The B-29 bombers came in groups of three -- one at the front, and two following close beneath the lead plane, flying across the entire sky, she said.

"The sound of the planes was deafening, and it felt as if the entire sky was about to be torn apart," she said.\

One day, a plane dropped a bomb on the fields across from her, and it sank into the wet soil without exploding. "If it had gone off, we'd have had nothing to protect us, and the blast could've reached us."

Seeing that kind of bombing, everyone felt a deep pain inside, but no one dared to cry out, Jiang said, "We just watched in silence."

After an air raid that injured the pregnant landlady at her home because she could not hide under the bed, Jiang quickly packed her things and ran to her grandmother's house, passing cries and wails along the way.

"When she saw me at home, she hugged me and started crying, telling me not to go out to cook for money anymore," she said.

Thinking back, Jiang said the sounds of people crying were enough to make her heart feel like it would leap out of her chest.

"It was terrifying, and no one dared to think, 'Will I make it until tomorrow?'"

"Humans should help one another," Yang said.

"War is unnatural. Even animals help each other; why then do we, who can reason and feel, choose to fight?"