Hurst is currently working closely with the Hellships Memorial project, which plans to construct a memorial to honor all the POWs who were transported on these ships. The memorial, which is to be located at Subic Bay in The Philippines, is set to be unveiled in January next year.
As for the more immediate future, Hurst and the society are looking at one of their busiest years yet. Along with the holding of memorial services in Taipei and Koahsiung, Hurst is also busy organizing a 60th anniversary memorial of the evacuation of POWs from Taiwan and this year's Remembrance Day memorial in November.
He also plans to continue to sift through recently declassified archive records and, if needs be, dig and scrape his way through even more top soil in search of artifacts. And as if all this isn't enough to keep Hurst busy he also plans to finish a book about the POWs who were interned in Taiwan.
"It is a very busy year. But it's very important to keep the project going," said Hurst. "It's important for Taiwan, the families of the POWs and, of course, the ex-POWs themselves. We're doing it to remember those who survived the camps as well as their mates who didn't."
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