“My aunt asked for Ko's address in Taiwan, but we couldn't find the address because the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] government that took over Taiwan after the Japanese surrendered changed the numbers, street names, district names and everything,” Lu said.
“My father, Cho Kuang-lai, also made several fruitless attempts to look for Ko after he retreated to Taiwan with the KMT government,” Lu said.
Lu said it was when she finally met Ko last week that she learned her father couldn't find the man who saved his sister-in-law's life because Ko was jailed as a war criminal in Rabaul, Papua New Guinea, until 1953.
Ko was sentenced to 10 years in prison for killing two Allied POWs, but was released after serving seven-and-a-half years in prison.
Ko said killing the POWs — who had become his friends over the years — was the most difficult thing he had done in his life and that it continues to haunt him today.
Ko and other Taiwanese camp guards were ordered to execute the POWs to save food supplies toward the end of the war.
Ko protested, saying it was illegal to kill POWs, but a Japanese officer pointed his pistol at the Taiwanese guards with one hand and held a samurai knife on the other, threatening to kill them if they didn't kill the POWs.
“As many as 173 Taiwanese stood in court for war crimes after World War II. Twenty-six were executed, of which 11 were hanged,” Lee said.
Despite this dark page in his life, Ko said he was happy to see Chao's family.
“I'm really happy that they still remember me. I never expected they would actually come to see me after so many years,” he said.
“Of course we remember him,” Lu said, as her father had talked about Ko since she was a child.
“If you're done something good, people will remember you,” Lu said.
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