A headstone with an inscription in English believed to date to World War II that recently went missing from a graveyard in Taipei has been retrieved and temporarily listed as a historical relic, the Taipei City Government said on Tuesday.
The headstone, discovered during a burial site relocation project in Xinyi District (信義), had been reported to police as missing by Taipei City Councilor Hsu Chia-pei (許家蓓).
Police tracked down the headstone and returned it to the site, where it was on Monday analyzed by experts from the Taipei Department of Cultural Affairs.
Photo courtesy of Taipei City Councilor Hsu Chia-pei’s office
The department’s Cultural Heritage Division said that the headstone, which had been retrieved from an unidentified individual, was temporarily stored at a local police station.
The city government said that by temporarily listing the headstone as a historical relic, it would be possible to pursue legal action if it was taken again.
The headstone was discovered in March after the city government was to begin relocating 30 graves in hills near Fude Street on Jan. 28, as part of a road expansion project.
After the city government ordered the graves to be relocated by April 30, visitors discovered an inscription in English on one of the headstones thought to read either “Clack, Eric Arthur,” or “Clack, Erec Arthur,” indicating that the person passed away on Aug. 25, 1945.
Pictures of the headstone were on March 31 posted on the Facebook page of Taiwan Ancient Tomb Detectives, a group of local cemetery enthusiasts, alongside another two stones that were too badly weathered to make out names or dates of death.
Members of the group speculated that the headstones might date to World War II, with military historian Chang Wei-bin (張維斌) on Sunday saying that they could mark the graves of British soldiers who had been captured and sent to Taiwan, which was then a Japanese colony, as prisoners of war.
However, cultural heritage conservationist Hsiao Wen-chieh (蕭文杰) said that as cement was valuable during the war, it was unlikely to be used to make headstones for prisoners of war, unless they were Allied soldiers who died near the end of the war.
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
China has reserved offshore airspace over the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts that are usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Sunday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. The alerts, known as notice to air missions (NOTAMs), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert
RSS