Keelung Shipyard (Taiwan Dock Co.)

The Keelung Shipyard traces its origins to the Osaka Iron Works (大阪鐵工所) Keelung branch, which had operated modest ship-repair facilities in the port since the early Japanese colonial period. In 1915 (Taishō 4), mining entrepreneur Kimura Kyūtarō (木村久太郎) acquired the Osaka Iron Works Keelung branch and renamed it Kimura-gumi Iron Works (木村組鐵工所). In 1919 (Taishō 8), he reorganized the enterprise as Keelung Dock Co., Ltd. (基隆船渠株式會社), establishing it as a formal shipbuilding and repair company with a dockyard of approximately 11,600 tsubo (about 38,300 square meters) at Niuchōkō (牛稠港) in Keelung, primarily building small vessels.

The pivotal transformation came in June 1937 (Shōwa 12), when a consortium led by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (三菱重工業), together with the Bank of Taiwan (臺灣銀行), Taiwan Electric Power Co. (臺灣電力), Nippon Yūsen (日本郵船), Osaka Shōsen (大阪商船), and the prominent Keelung Yan family (顏家), reorganized the company as Taiwan Dock Co., Ltd. (臺灣船渠株式會社). The new company relocated and expanded its main shipyard to Sheliao Island (社寮島), the historical name for what is now Heping Island (和平島) in Keelung's Zhongzheng District. This became Taiwan's first fully modernized shipyard, equipped with steam-powered machinery and capable of both constructing new vessels and performing major ship repairs.

With the outbreak of the Pacific War in December 1941, the yard's mission shifted overwhelmingly to military ship repair. As Keelung sat at a strategic crossroads between the Japanese Home Islands, China, and the South Seas (Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands), Taiwan Dock Co. became a vital repair depot for Imperial Japanese Navy warships, transports, and auxiliary vessels damaged in combat or requiring maintenance during operations across the Southern theater. The yard's dry dock and fitting-out facilities handled repair work on destroyers, escorts, minesweepers, and auxiliary vessels, helping to sustain Japan's overstretched naval logistics.

The facility did not escape the devastating Allied air campaign against Taiwan. Starting in late 1944, US Army Air Forces and US Navy carrier aircraft conducted repeated raids against Keelung port and its industrial facilities. On January 9, 1945, B-29 bombers dropped 293 tons of bombs on Keelung. The heaviest single raids came on May 29, 1945, when over 100 B-24 Liberator bombers struck the city, and June 16, 1945, when 60 B-24s attacked again. Additional raids occurred on March 3, March 31, April 5, May 19, June 2, and June 17–19, 1945. The shipyard, port infrastructure, and surrounding city suffered extensive damage, with harbor facilities virtually destroyed.

After Japan's surrender in August 1945, the Republic of China administration merged Taiwan Dock Co. with Taiwan Steel Works (高雄株式會社台灣鐵工廠) and Tōkō Kōgyō Corporation (東光興業株式會社) to form Taiwan Machinery and Shipbuilding Co. (臺灣機械造船公司) in 1946. In 1948, the machinery and shipbuilding divisions were separated, creating Taiwan Shipbuilding Co. (臺灣造船公司). In 1978, it was merged into China Shipbuilding Corporation (中國造船公司), later renamed CSBC Corporation, Taiwan (臺灣國際造船) in 2007. The Keelung plant continues to operate on Heping Island today, with three dry docks including one of 130,000 DWT capacity and one of 30,000 DWT, while Taiwan's indigenous Hai Kun-class submarine is being built at CSBC's Kaohsiung yard.