Karenko POW Camp

Date CapturedJune 23rd, 2024 at 02:46 UTCCameraDC-S5M2LensLUMIX S 20-60mm F3.5-5.6Apertureƒ / 3.5Shutter Speed1/125 secFocal Length20.0 mmISO100Exposure Value10.6 EVOriginal Size3600 × 2400

Karenko was the POW camp in Taiwan where Imperial Japan held the most senior Allied officers taken in the opening year of World War 2. These officers were separated from the men they led, starting in August 1942 with the arrival of US Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright and 178 others taken from the Philippines. In September, Lieutenant General Arthur Percival and the commanders taken at Singapore and in the Dutch East Indies followed by way of the POW camp at Heito, together with colonial governors and civil officials from Singapore, Malaya, and Sumatra. Some 401 prisoners passed through in ten months, forced into farming and goat herding and denied food and medicine. Three died here, the first being Major General Merton Beckwith-Smith in November 1942.

Date CapturedJune 23rd, 2024 at 02:47 UTCCameraDC-S5M2LensLUMIX S 20-60mm F3.5-5.6Apertureƒ / 5Shutter Speed1/160 secFocal Length24.0 mmISO100Exposure Value12.0 EVOriginal Size3600 × 2400

Ahead of a Red Cross inspection the Japanese moved 117 of the highest-ranking prisoners inland to Tamazato to be rested and fed, eventually dispersing the prisoners to Shirakawa and Taihoku Moksak before closing the camp at Karenko in June 1943.

The Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society raised the monument outside the military police base now occupying the site in 2012, with members of Beckwith-Smith’s family in attendance.