Taiwanese Imperial Japan Serviceman - History

History

In the fall of 1937, the Empire of Japan began recruiting Taiwanese into its military; prior to that, Taiwanese were banned from serving in the military of Imperial Japan. As the war continued, there was an increasing need of translators for conducting military operations in China, and many Taiwanese volunteers were given training courses in Min, Cantonese and Mandarin languages, and served as translators for the Imperial Japanese Army operating in China. The number of Taiwanese serving in this capacity was classified, and remains unknown.

In 1942, after the United States entered the war on the Allied side, Japan lifted its ban on Taiwanese serving in a combat capacity, and began the Army Special Volunteers Act (Japanese: 陸軍特別志願兵令) in Taiwan. This act allowed the residents of Japan's overseas territories and colonies to serve in its army, and was first enacted in Korea in 1938. The first few recruitment drives were limited in scale, with only a few hundred openings available to a relatively large number of applicants. The scale gradually expanded in order to replenish the loss of manpower on the battlefield. A similar program, the Navy Special Volunteers Program (Japanese: 海軍特別志願兵制度), was established in 1943 in both Taiwan and Korea to allow non-Japanese to serve in the Navy.

With Japan's manpower depleting, the Japanese government terminated the army and navy special volunteers programs in 1944 and 1945 respectively, replacing them with systematic conscription. Before Japan's surrender, there were 126,750 non-combatants and 80,433 soldiers and sailors serving in Japan's military, with roughly 16,000 of them having been recruited through volunteer programs. A total of 30,304 servicemen, or 15% of those recruited and conscripted, were killed or presumed killed in action. Additionally, 173 Taiwanese who served in the Imperial Japanese armed forces were found guilty of Class B and C war crimes, and twenty-six of those were sentenced to death.