Liao Kuo-yang’s (廖國揚) father was only 29 when he was shot dead during the anti-government uprising 62 years ago. His mother was two months pregnant.
“He didn’t say goodbye,” said the 62-year-old carpenter, a native of Jhushan Township (竹山) in Nantou County.
The rebellion was part of civilian resistance to Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) rule.
After a woman was beaten by an agent from the Monopoly Bureau for selling smuggled cigarettes in Taipei City on Feb. 27, 1947, nationwide anti-KMT protests ensued.
PASSING ON THE STORY
KMT troops were sent from China in early March to quell the disturbances, leading to the massacre of tens of thousands of people.
PASSING ON THE STORY
Liao said his mother did not like to talk about his father, but that he had learned the details of his father’s death from his grandfather.
Liao said his father was killed during a confrontation between a militia and government troops at Chukou (觸口) in Linnei Township (林內).
Liao’s grandfather told him that government troops fled to Jhushan and Linnei after the militia attacked the troops at Huwei Airport (虎尾機場).
Liao’s father was among the militia fighting with troops near the Wutu Power Plant, or Chuoshui Power Plant, in Linnei.
The militia was wiped out by the government troops and Liao’s father was shot in the head and stabbed in the chest.
While the onslaught along the Chuoshui River (濁水溪) in Yunlin was immensely tragic, Liao said he had not seen any written accounts of the incident.
Liao said his father came from a big farming family. The family had five water buffaloes and six courtyards for drying rice.
His father joined the Japanese army to get away from his grandfather and was stationed in Borneo for six years.
Curious about his father’s military service in the Japanese army, Liao sent an address he found on one of the postcards his father had sent home, along with other basic information about his father, to the Japanese Interchange Association.
Much to his surprise, the association sent him detailed information about his father, along with two checks to cash the money his father had saved in two separate accounts in Japan.
Liao said he received that money long before government compensation issued to the families of victims of the 228 Incident.
Liao said the government’s efforts to uncover the truth of the massacre were inadequate and it was hard for families like his to come to terms with the loss of their loved ones because they did not know the details of what happened.
“How can I forgive if I don’t even know who killed my father,” he said.
Liao said he did not hate anyone, but the perpetrators of the massacre must admit their guilt so that families like his could move on with their lives.
Chen Yi-shen (陳儀深), an associate research fellow at the Institute of Modern History at Academia Sinica who carried out a field study of victim’s families that has been published in the book On the Side of Chuoshui River: An Oral Account of the 228 Incident, said he asked his father on his sick bed in 1980 about what happened in their hometown during the 228 Incident.
Chen’s father told him that many townspeople had joined the militia to fight the KMT troops on the banks of the Chuoshui River.
Chen said his father described the fight as “courageous.” Only later did he find out why: The militia had not been armed with weapons capable of killing or even trained, he said.
Chen Yen-wen’s (陳彥文) father, Chen Tsuan-ti (陳篡地), was the militia organizer. The purpose was to maintain order in the area and attack Huwei Airport, he said.
IN HIDING
The militia was disbanded in Changhu (樟湖), Yunlin County, in April 1947. Chen Tsuan-ti returned to his hometown of Ershui (二水), Changhua County, and went into hiding, living in a cave for six years.
One night in 1950, a troop of armed policemen stormed into their house and took Chen Yen-wen’s mother, leaving the four young children without their parents.
Although their mother was released one month later, she had to report to authorities each week, Chen Yen-wen said.
Four of Chen Yen-wen’s relatives on his father’s side were sentenced to death for refusing to disclose Chen Tsuan-ti’s whereabouts. Five more of his relatives were executed in 1950.
To protect her children, Chen Yen-wen’s mother hid two of them in Changhua and sent the other two to live with her father in Lugang (鹿港).
Chen Yen-wen said he was only eight years old at the time of the 228 Incident. His father had studied medicine in Japan and once served as a military surgeon in the Japanese army. He was captured in Vietnam, but managed to escape and returned to Taiwan.
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