Introduction
 Three Tears in Borneo, a period drama series released by Taiwan Public Television Service (PTS), explores the complex factors that mobilized Japan’s colonial subjects in Taiwan to fight and die for the Japanese Empire in the Pacific Theater during World War II. The narrative follows the story of Shion, a Taiwanese in the Japanese Army stationed as a guard at a POW camp on the Southeast Asian island of Borneo. Shion and his fellow guards impose ruthless control over the POWs, in accordance with the tenets of bushidō. After the war turns against Japan, they carry out an order to kill all of the camp’s prisoners. Following the Allied victory, a military tribunal called to judge war crimes committed by the Japanese Army at the camp sentences many camp guards to prison or death. Historically speaking, while some Taiwanese served in Japan’s military as reluctant recruits, others volunteered out of a loyalty to the emperor and the empire cultivated by several generations of colonial education. The psychological struggle between duty and conscience in time of war and the deadly uncertainties surrounding being called to account for their war crimes afterward weigh heavily on Sion and the other camp guards. Will he ever be able to return home to Taiwan?  

World War II was precipitated by inciting events, including Japan’s invasion of central China following the 1937 Marco Polo Bridge Incident and territorial acquisitions by the German Reich in central Europe soon afterward. In December 1941, seeking to break the stalemate in its war against China by gaining direct access to the resources of Southeast Asia, Japan proclaimed the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” and launched synchronized attacks on the United States at Pearl Harbor and in the Philippines and on British and Dutch colonies in the region. The result was three and a half years of open conflict in the Pacific Theater, remembered today as the Pacific War.

Japan’s initial sweeping victories put the empire in control of much of Southeast Asia and in charge of many European, American, and Commonwealth prisoners of war. Taiwan, a colony of Japan since 1895, was an active recruiting ground not only for volunteer soldiers but also for support staff such as porters, laborers, and guards. Scattered across the Pacific Theater, those Taiwanese who survived to see Japan’s surrender in August 1945 faced a precarious and uncertain future. Some were impressed into the Chinese Nationalist army and sent to fight in the Chinese Civil War, while others successfully arranged passage back home to Taiwan. Several, like those who had served as POW camp guards, were called by the victorious Allies to account for their wartime atrocities, with some paying the ultimate price. Nevertheless, after the end of the war, all of Japan’s Taiwanese soldiers and conscripts desired nothing more than to be allowed to return home.

 1 

The Buildup to War: Mobilization and National Identity 

Lin, who adopted the Japanese name Shion upon his enlistment into the Japanese Army, was born in 1926 in the Shousen District of Takow (modern-day Kaohsiung). He had joined a pro-Japan group, the Kominhokokai, in 1942 and enlisted as an informal serviceman in the army a year later, serving as a camp guard in the Fifth POW Camp Detachment on the island of Borneo. His brother Eikō, older than Shion by three years, had distinguished himself early on as a model citizen seamlessly integrated into Greater Japan.

With the outbreak of war in Asia, Taiwan’s colonial government stepped up efforts to turn island residents into loyal citizens of Japan’s growing empire through efforts such as the Kōminka (Nipponisation) Movement. Key objectives included popularization of the Japanese language, cultural forms (e.g., through banning Chinese-language publications), and religious practices (e.g., through promoting Shinto beliefs and building Shinto shrines), as well as the adoption of Japanese names and surnames. The initial multifront effort was subsequently consolidated in 1941 under the Kōminhokokai organization, which sought to further stoke enthusiasm among Taiwanese to become truly “Japanese.” Concurrently, Japan used Taiwan’s public education infrastructure, wartime propaganda, and contemporary influencers to convince Taiwanese of the righteousness of Japan’s fight in Asia and the Pacific. How Taiwanese responded to these government efforts varied widely. Some, especially younger Taiwanese for whom Kōminka ideas had been normalized during their education, embraced Japan’s war effort. Others, especially older Taiwanese, were more resistant to calls for zealous support and loyalty.

2 

All in for War: Taiwanese Holding the Japanese Line
 As portrayed in Three Tears in Borneo, the informal (non-enlisted) servicemen who staffed POW camp guard positions within the Japanese Imperial Army were expected to obey the military hierarchy and its rules. While some guards proudly saw themselves as Japanese, others (like Shion) saw in military service a way to demonstrate themselves as equals of their colonizers. This latter group naturally tended to find more reason to empathize with their captives. The many facets of life at this POW camp move the story narrative forward and explain why the relationship between guards and prisoners shifted and changed with time.

Japan’s need for military manpower rose sharply after the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. Although initial recruitment in Taiwan focused on securing labor to work on materiel transport and other critical support tasks, Taiwanese were gradually admitted as non-enlisted servicemen, serving in translator, POW camp guard, and other positions to help Japan strengthen its grip over occupied territories. With the outbreak of all-out war in the Pacific at the close of 1941, Japan launched the Tokubetsu Shiganhei system, which enlisted Taiwanese into the regular Imperial Japanese Army as volunteers. The intense propaganda campaign accompanying the launch of this system brought in large numbers of young Taiwanese men. Thus, at the war’s height, Taiwanese were serving on all fronts in various capacities. Although Japan announced formal conscription in its colonies in early 1945, the war ended before this could be fully implemented. Those Taiwanese who survived to surrender to the Allies after August 1945 faced uncertain fates based on their wartime roles and activities.

3 

War’s End and Judgement
 Shion and the others were still at their posts when the war came to an end in August 1945. They were also there when Allied soldiers uncovered a trench filled with evidence of a prisoner massacre, as well as when the war crimes tribunal was convened. Inside the former camp director’s office, now a military courtroom, those who had once run the camp — including Shion — were put on trial for war crimes. However, unlike their Japanese comrades, Shion and his fellow Taiwanese were from a place that was no longer Japan. Postwar control over Taiwan had been assigned by the Allies to Nationalist China (Republic of China or ROC). Thus, following a half century of assimilation into Japan, Taiwanese were abruptly reassigned as “Chinese.” For Shion, as for so many other Taiwanese in his situation, his identity was again thrown into question and shaken to its very foundations. Was it possible for them to ever return home again?

At war’s end, Taiwanese were scattered throughout recent battlegrounds from Manchukuo (Manchuria) in the north to Southeast Asia and Oceania in the south. All longed to go home. However, for many who had served in POW camps, accusations of mistreatment and killings led to postwar tribunals and, for some, imprisonment or execution. Thus, an untold number of Taiwanese left hanging in the far-flung corners of the Japanese Empire never found their way home. 

The end of the war and its implications for Taiwan were greeted very differently by Taiwanese of different generations and walks of life. Some openly celebrated the return of their island to the “motherland,” while others felt a deep sense of confusion and loss. Many young Taiwanese in particular looked to the new government with expectant hope, eagerly joining Chinese clubs and organizations and learning the new national language, Mandarin. However, the myriad problems the ROC’s civil and military administrations brought with them to Taiwan, coupled with severe post-demobilization unemployment and the effects of 50 years of cultural separation, ultimately dashed the hopes of many and soured the population to ROC rule.