Wulai Takasago Volunteer Corps Memorial Park

The Wulai Takasago Volunteer Corps Memorial Park (烏來高砂義勇隊主題紀念園區) stands on a hillside near Wulai Waterfall in Wulai District, New Taipei City, the traditional homeland of the Atayal people. It commemorates the Takasago Volunteers (高砂義勇隊, Takasago Giyūtai), units of Taiwanese indigenous soldiers mobilized by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Pacific War.

Between 1942 and 1945, the Japanese colonial government recruited approximately 4,000 indigenous Taiwanese — drawn mainly from the Atayal, Bunun, Amis, Paiwan, and other tribes — into seven successive corps (an eighth, formed in 1945, never left Taiwan) dispatched to the Philippines, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Rabaul (New Britain), and Morotai (Dutch East Indies). Valued by the Japanese military for their exceptional jungle-warfare skills, tracking ability, and physical endurance in tropical environments, the Takasago Volunteers served as scouts, porters, and frontline combatants in some of the most gruelling campaigns of the Pacific theatre.

Casualty rates were devastating. Of the roughly 4,000 men dispatched, estimates of those who perished from combat, tropical disease, and starvation range from about 2,800 to more than 3,000 — a mortality rate of around 70% or higher. Among the most famous was Teruo Nakamura (中村輝夫 / Attun Palalin), a Takasago Volunteer from the Amis tribe who continued fighting alone on Morotai Island until his discovery in December 1974, making him one of the last Japanese holdouts of the war.

The cenotaph was first erected after the war by Wulai Atayal resident Chou Li-mei (周麗梅) on private land; when that site was lost, it was relocated to the present county-owned site, where the work was completed on 8 February 2006, funded by approximately 32 million yen (roughly NTD 9 million) raised entirely by Japanese donors and veterans' associations. The site features a stone memorial pedestal (鎮魂之碑, Chinkon no Hi — "Monument to Pacify Souls") inscribed by former Japanese military commanders, along with commemorative stones, indigenous sculptural elements, and cherry-blossom walkways. The elevated 25-tsubo (roughly 83 m²) stone platform was deliberately constructed above the surrounding bamboo forest so it would remain visible and accessible.

The park has been a source of ongoing controversy. Indigenous activists, notably legislator Kao Chin Su-mei (高金素梅), launched a "Return Our Ancestral Spirits" (還我祖靈) movement protesting that the memorial glorifies Japanese imperialism and that the names of fallen volunteers were enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo without the consent of their families. Supporters counter that the memorial honours the sacrifice of indigenous soldiers who were victims of colonial conscription.

On 24 February 2006, weeks after the relocation, the Taipei County Government ordered the removal of the Japanese-inscribed stones on the grounds that they stood on public land without approval, a decision that was itself contested by local Atayal groups. In 2009, an expansion — the "Waterfall Warriors Plaza" — was reported completed, adding interpretive displays and improved access paths. The park was later renovated with observation platforms, a plaza, boardwalks and a pavilion, and reopened on 30 June 2022 as an indigenous-themed memorial park.