Yuanlin (Inrin) POW Camp

The Yuanlin POW Camp (員林戰俘營), known during the war as the Inrin Branch of the Taiwan POW Camp system (台湾俘虜収容所員林分所), consisted of two separate Allied prisoner-of-war facilities in the town of Inrin (員林), Taichū Prefecture (臺中州; present-day Changhua County), Taiwan (then Formosa under Japanese colonial rule). The camps were part of a network of 14 Japanese-operated POW camps on the island that collectively held approximately 4,350 Allied prisoners between 1942 and 1945.

Inrin Camp — The Hotel Camp (1 July 1944 – 5 March 1945)

The first facility, the Inrin Camp, was opened on 1 July 1944 in an old hotel in Inrin town. In the spring of 1944 a typhoon flood had forced the evacuation and subsequent closure of the Taichū (Taichung) Camp; most of the fit men were sent to Heito Camp in the south, and Inrin was set up to house about 100 sick Allied POWs who were not well enough for the manual labour there and needed time and care to recover. The camp had two doctors on staff, and with improved nutrition and lighter duties — mainly gardening and farming near the camp — many of the men regained their health. Prisoners were permitted to grow vegetables for their own consumption, which significantly improved conditions and morale. Over the following months some men were moved to Shirakawa Camp for better medical care. In early March 1945 the Inrin Camp was closed and the remaining 43 POWs were transferred to Toroku (斗六) Camp. On 11 April 1945, Toroku Camp itself was shuttered, and all prisoners were moved to Shirakawa (白河) Camp, where they remained until liberation.

The Temporary Camp — The School Camp (8 November 1944 – 16 January 1945)

The second facility was a temporary holding camp set up in a local school (believed to be in the vicinity of present-day Qingshan Elementary School area). It was established in November 1944 to receive survivors of the hellship Hokusen Maru (北鮮丸, also known among prisoners as 'Benjo Maru'). The Hokusen Maru had departed Manila on 1 October 1944 carrying approximately 1,100 Allied POWs — primarily American and British servicemen captured after the fall of the Philippines, Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies. The harrowing voyage, which included a stopover in Hong Kong (11–21 October), did not end until 8 November 1944 when the ship finally reached Formosa. During the journey, prisoners endured extreme overcrowding in the ship's holds, starvation rations, inadequate ventilation, disease, and sporadic violence from guards.

Upon arrival in Taiwan, 336 American and 46 British POWs were separated from the main group and sent to the temporary camp at Inrin. The facility was located less than one kilometer from the existing Inrin Camp, whose prisoners came over to help the newcomers set up their kitchen. Conditions at the Temporary Camp, while still harsh by any normal standard, were notably better than those on the hellship or at many other Taiwan camps. Remarkably, no POW deaths were recorded during the camp's operation. In mid-January 1945 the camp was emptied and the prisoners were sent to Takao or Keelung and shipped to Japan proper aboard other vessels, ending the war in camps on Kyushu and in the Sendai area — continuing the Japanese practice of moving POW labor closer to the home islands as the war situation deteriorated.

Context: The Taiwan POW Camp System

Taiwan's POW camp network was established beginning in August 1942 under the administration of the Taiwan Army (台湾軍). The system grew to encompass 14 camps plus two post-surrender temporary facilities, scattered across the island from Kinkaseki (金瓜石) in the north to Heito (屏東) in the south. Camps housed POWs of various nationalities including American, British, Australian, Dutch, and Canadian servicemen. Conditions across the system were notoriously brutal: more than 10% of all Taiwan POWs died in captivity from starvation, disease, overwork, and physical abuse. Prisoners were forced into hard labor — mining copper at Kinkaseki, constructing airfields, building port facilities, and working in agricultural and industrial settings — often while sick or injured, with severe beatings as punishment for failing to meet daily quotas.

In late 1944, as U.S. forces advanced through the Pacific and prepared for operations against the Philippines and Okinawa, the Japanese began evacuating POWs from the Philippines and other southern territories to Taiwan and Japan via transport ships. These 'hellships' — unmarked vessels carrying both military cargo and prisoners — were frequent targets of Allied submarine and air attacks, resulting in catastrophic losses. The Hokusen Maru's relatively successful transit to Taiwan was an exception; many other transports, such as the Arisan Maru and Ōryoku Maru, were sunk with enormous loss of life.

Present Day

Today, no physical traces of either Yuanlin POW camp are known to survive. The hotel that housed the Inrin Camp and the school that served as the Temporary Camp have long since been repurposed or demolished. Yuanlin (upgraded to a county-administered city in 2015) is now a thriving county-administered city of over 120,000 residents in Changhua County. The Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society, founded by Michael Hurst MBE in Taipei, works to preserve the memory of all Allied POWs held in Taiwan, including those at Inrin. The most significant physical memorial to Taiwan's POW history is the Jinguashi (Kinkaseki) Allied POW Memorial Park in New Taipei City, dedicated in 1997, which commemorates all Allied prisoners held across the island's camp system.