For four decades, an altar maintained by the Chuahua Temple (勸化堂) in Miaoli County’s Nanjhuang Township (南庄) has been dedicated to the veneration of a deceased Japanese guard officer who saved more than 2,000 Taiwanese at the cost of his own life near the end of World War II.
According to the chairman of the temple’s board of trustees, Huang Chin-yuan (黃錦源), Otoemon Hiroeda was in 1975 enshrined in the temple at the behest of his now-deceased Taiwanese subordinate Liu Wei-tien (劉維添), who was saved by Hiroeda’s refusal to obey orders.
In February 1945, Hiroeda was a guard officer leading a unit of Taiwanese volunteers in the Philippines besieged by Allied forces. Before World War II, Hiroeda was a police officer stationed in Miaoli when Taiwan was under Japanese rule.
Near the end of the month-long Battle of Manila, Hiroeda received orders to arm his Taiwanese volunteers with “lunge-mines” — Japanese anti-tank grenades consisting of a large high-explosive warhead on a 1.5m stick designed to be rammed into tanks, which destroyed both the target and the wielder — and launch suicide charges against US armor.
Hiroeda refused to carry out his orders; instead, he entered secret negotiations with US officers to surrender his position peacefully in exchange for the safety of his troops.
With the bargain struck, Hiroeda gathered his men and told them: “You are Taiwanese and need not die unnecessarily for this war, but I am Japanese and must take responsibility for my disobedience.”
Hiroeda then shot himself, Huang said.
Hiroeda was 40 years old at the time of his death.
After the war, Liu returned to Nanjhuang, but did not forget his old commander, Huang said.
In 1975, Liu arranged for the temple to set up an altar and a memorial tablet to venerate Hiroeda in Fu Tian Temple, one of the subsidiary temples in the Chuahua Temple complex, Huang said.
Liu got in touch with Hiroeda’s widow and descendants in Japan, who attended more than 20 memorial ceremonies honoring Hiroeda since 1975, Huang said.
In 1985, Liu traveled to Manila and retrieved soil from the place where Hiroeda died and sent it to his family in Japan in lieu of his remains, which had been lost after the battle, Huang said.
Three years later, Hiroeda’s widow died, and she too was enshrined on her husband’s altar at the temple.
Today, Hiroeda’s altar features a memorial tablet bearing the names of the couple and commemorative Japanese lyric poetry inscribed on a plaque.
Since Liu’s death two years ago, his son-in-law Wang Ming-wen (王銘文) has continued the tradition, and is to appear at a ceremony scheduled for Sept. 26 with members of Hiroeda’s family, Huang said.
“After the war, Liu Wei-tien and his family in Taiwan remained good friends with the Hiroeda family in Japan. I think their friendship and Hiroeda saving his subordinates demonstrates the value of integrity and compassion,” Huang said, adding that “it is a story that more people should know.”
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard