A survivor of a US air raid during World War II has petitioned the Yilan County Government to build a monument in memory of his colleagues and friends who were killed in an attack on a paper factory.
Lin Pai-lien (林百連), 87, said that he worked at the factory, an enterprise established with Japanese capital and employing both Japanese and Taiwanese.
The company later became Taiwan Chung Hsing Paper Corp, a state-owned enterprise under the Republic of China government until it was privatized in 2001.
Photo: Chien Hui-ju, Taipei Times
The factory site has since been repurposed as the Chung Hsing Cultural and Creative Campus under construction in the county’s Wujie Township (五結).
Lin said he was working at the factory on the day of the raid, which killed many workers because they received no warning prior to the attack.
The bombs caused fires that destroyed numerous facilities and most of the equipment.
On Aug. 9, Lin brought a petition and the factory’s employment record book to the county government office, asking Yilan County Commissioner Lin Tsung-hsien (林聰賢) to build a monument at the cultural and creative center to honor his friends and colleagues who died in the raid.
“I plead with the responsible agencies, historians and cultural workers to raise a monument for them, because it is an important thing. At about 7am on the third day of the first [lunar] month in the 20th year of Showa [Feb. 15, 1945], American military aircraft bombed us for the first time, and the very first bomb hit the facility where I worked, which was the place with the highest number of workers. A great many were killed or wounded. Even today, remembering it brings tears to my heart,” Lin wrote in the petition.
The Yilan Cultural Affairs Bureau said it would discuss with Lin what type of monument should be erected.
The cultural center will also display artifacts, records and interviews relating to the factory, including the air raid, the bureau said.
Lin’s log book provided a complete and detailed record of the employment history and wages of the workers, and is a valuable addition to local historical material on a business that had been important to the nation’s economy during and after the Japanese colonial era, the bureau added.
If the county government approves Lin’s proposal, the monument will become the second memorial built at the cultural center.
A monument erected during the Japanese colonial period, dedicated to 13 workers killed in a boiler room accident in 1936, is a government-certified cultural heritage site.
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