[Above: Taiwanese families, the "security risks" to Australia]
So who and how many were these Taiwanese internees?
From Rabaul, the Canberra Times reported in the March 15, 1946 edition that "Transfer of 350 Formosan and Korean internees from the Yoizuki to the Jap hospital ship, Hikawa Maru, was completed this morning..."
The origin of the Taiwanese is still unknown, it now appears that they were the surveyors and traders who went with the Japanese migrants to Dutch East Indies in the 1930s. When the war broke out, some of them were somehow selected and sent to Australia camps (by Aug 1945, there were still 18,138 Taiwanese remaining in Dutch Indies). It also turns out that, in the style of the American internment of citizens of Japanese descent, Australia had also imprisoned some 1,000 of its own residents/citizens of the Japanese heritage (including 300 divers and their families who worked in the pearling industry in Broome since the late 19th century). There were 28 prison camps in Australia to also intern (1) POWs; (2) enemy aliens; and (3) in addition to the Japanese described above, German and Italian residents of Australia. The Taiwanese, plus other Japanese civilians relocated from Java and New Caledonia were encamped in Camp No 4, together with German and Austrian POWs, all confined to the 7 concentration camps in Tatura, 17 miles southeast of Sheppartan in northern Victoria.
According to contemporary reports, on March 6, 1946, the Pyrmont Wharf in Sydney Harbor was crowded with 565 Japanese POWs and 400 "Japanese" civilians; among the latter were 100 and 112 Taiwanese women and children, respectively, plus 40 adult men. The number of the Koreans - mentioned in the Canberra Times article - remains unclear. In any case, the Taiwanese internees arrived at 7AM after an overnight train ride from Victoria.
For some inexplicable reason, the men were to be separated from their families. With this, all hell broke loose - families struggled to stay together and women and children wept and cried openly. One already boarded man jumped from the ship in an attempt to re-join his family on the dock and had to be rescued from the sea. The boarding process was temporarily halted but was later resumed on order of an unknown higher authority and further enforced by the Australian military police. In all, 1,005 were packed into the Yoizuki. This chaotic heart-breaking scene and the apparent overcrowding were promptly reported by the press - with comparisons to the infamous hell-ships on which many Australian POWs had suffered and died.
Scenes of Taiwanese families at Pyrmont Wharf, Sydney Harbor
[Above: The 2,700-ton Yoizuki arriving in Sydney Harbor]
[Above: a Taiwanese being forced to board the Yoizuki]
[Above: This young man refused to get on the ship while others embarked under the watchful eyes of the Australian MPs (bottom)]
[Above: Girls weeping and bottom: children receiving milk]
[Above and below: Men, women and children congregating at the Wharf]
Order from Gen MacArthur stipulated that only 948 should be allowed on board and the Australian investigating commission later pointed out that it should have been 800. In all, however, 1,005 went on the ship designed to accommodate 400.
A postscript: The hospital ship Hikawa Maru氷川丸 that the Taiwanese boarded in Rabaul was a converted luxury ocean liner of 11,621 tons. In 1941, it ferried Jewish refugees from Japan to Canada. Immediately after the war, it served as a repatriation ship, and later continued to carry cargo and passengers sailing between Japan and the US until 1960. In 1961, it was re-fitted into a floating museum in Yokohama which was closed in 2006 but re-opened to the public in 2008:
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