Kinkaseki POW Camp (Jinguashi Allied POW Memorial Park)

The Kinkaseki Prisoner of War Camp (金瓜石捕虜収容所, Kinkaseki Horyo Shūyōjo), officially designated as Taiwan POW Camp No. 1 (臺灣俘虜收容所第一分所), was a Japanese military prisoner-of-war camp established in November 1942 at Kinkaseki (金瓜石, present-day Jinguashi), a remote mountainous mining settlement in the Zuihō District (瑞芳郡) of Taihoku Prefecture (臺北州), colonial Taiwan. The camp was sited adjacent to the Kinkaseki copper and gold mine, operated by the Nihon Kōgyō (日本鉱業, Japan Mining Co.), specifically to provide forced labour for wartime mineral extraction.

The first contingent of approximately 523 British prisoners arrived on 14 November 1942, transported from Changi Prison in Singapore following the fall of Malaya and Singapore in February 1942. Most were soldiers of the Royal Artillery, Royal Engineers, Royal Army Medical Corps, and various infantry regiments captured during the Battle of Singapore. In February 1943, a second large group of British, Dutch, and Australian prisoners arrived from Singapore and the Dutch East Indies, bringing the camp's population to over 1,100 men.

Conditions at Kinkaseki were among the worst endured by Allied POWs anywhere in the Pacific theatre. Each day, prisoners were forced to march from the camp over a steep mountain ridge and then descend 831 stone steps to reach the mine entrance — the same gruelling climb had to be made in reverse after each shift. Inside the mine, temperatures regularly exceeded 40°C (104°F) in the narrow, poorly ventilated tunnels. Carbide lamps provided the only illumination. There was no ventilation system, no structural shoring, and rockfalls were a daily hazard. Four-man teams were required to fill and haul 24 carts of copper ore per shift; failure to meet this quota resulted in all team members being lined up and beaten by guards with wooden clubs or rifle butts.

Rations were deliberately kept at starvation levels — primarily small quantities of rice supplemented with occasional sweet potato or vegetable scraps. The combination of extreme physical labour, malnutrition, tropical heat, and unsanitary living conditions produced rampant disease. Beriberi, pellagra, tropical ulcers, malaria, dysentery, and diphtheria swept through the camp. Medical supplies were almost entirely withheld by the Japanese administration. Men's body weight dropped to as little as 70–80 pounds. The camp's medical officers, working with virtually no supplies, performed operations and amputations with improvised instruments.

Of the approximately 430 Allied POW deaths recorded across all fourteen Japanese prisoner-of-war camps on Taiwan during the war, the majority occurred at Kinkaseki — making it by far the deadliest camp on the island. The precise death toll at Kinkaseki is difficult to establish with certainty, but estimates range from 90 to over 100 men.

The camp commandant throughout most of its operational period was a figure the prisoners knew as "the Snake" — notorious for his cruelty. Guards included both Japanese soldiers and Formosan (Taiwanese) conscripts. Punishments for infractions were savage: in addition to routine beatings, men were forced to stand at attention for hours in extreme weather, denied food and water, or confined in punishment cells.

In early March 1945, the Kinkaseki mine was permanently closed. Allied submarines and aircraft had by then established an effective naval blockade around Taiwan, making it impossible to ship copper ore to Japan's war industries. The prisoners, many barely alive, were relocated in stages during May and June 1945 to a new camp called Kukutsu (also rendered Kukutzu), in the hills at Hsintien (Xindian) south of Taipei. They remained there until Japan's surrender on 15 August 1945, after which Allied forces arranged their repatriation.

After the war, the camp site was gradually reclaimed by the subtropical mountain vegetation and largely forgotten. The mine itself ceased operations, and the local population declined as the mining economy collapsed. For decades, the suffering endured at Kinkaseki remained unknown to most people in Taiwan and largely overlooked in Western accounts of the Pacific War.

In 1990, former POW Jack Edwards — a British soldier who had been imprisoned at Kinkaseki — returned to Taiwan and rediscovered the overgrown camp site. His efforts, along with those of other survivors and the Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society (founded in 1997 by Michael Hurst MBE), led to a campaign to establish a permanent memorial. With the support of the Taiwanese government, the Ruifang District Office, and local residents, a memorial park was constructed on the original camp grounds.

On 23 November 1997, the Kinkaseki POW Camp Memorial was formally dedicated in a ceremony attended by former prisoners, diplomats, and Taiwanese officials. The original monument is a granite obelisk bearing plaques in English and Chinese, erected in memory of those who died at Kinkaseki and in honour of all POWs held captive in Formosa. A 56-foot (17-metre) Wall of Names was subsequently added, listing every known prisoner by name, rank, and country of origin.

In November 2011, a bronze sculpture titled "Mates" was unveiled at the memorial. It depicts two emaciated prisoners supporting each other — symbolising the camaraderie and mutual aid that sustained men through their ordeal. The sculpture was funded by donations from former POWs, their families, and the governments of the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, and New Zealand.

Today the site is officially known as the Taiwan POW Memorial and Peace Park (國際終戰和平紀念園區). It is maintained by the New Taipei City government and the Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society. The surviving original camp entrance gate is preserved on site. Annual memorial services are held each November, typically attended by representatives of the British, Australian, Canadian, and Dutch diplomatic missions in Taipei. The park serves as a place of remembrance, reconciliation, and education about the experiences of Allied prisoners of war in wartime Taiwan.