My Uncle, A Taiwanese Soldier in the Japanese Army

Written by Peter Li-Chang Kuo

Before my grandmother passed away, she would often sit alone, lost in thought. On October 25, 1970, in her final moments, she faintly murmured, “Find… find Kun-Yi…” Kuo Kun-Yi was my older uncle. During Pacific War, he was forced by the Japanese military to sign a so-called “Volunteer Form” and was conscripted into the army. He was sent from Cijin, Kaohsiung, by ship to Southeast Asia, and from that point on, no further news was ever received. Only a group photograph sent by the military remained, becoming my grandmother’s sole consolation for the rest of her life. Today, I have used AI to restore my uncle Kun-Yi’s youthful image (Fig 1).

Fig 1: Kuo Kun-Yi — “voluntarily” enlisted in the Imperial Japanese Army (circa 1942)

Life is a Continuum of Karma:

I often heard my grandmother say during prayers, “Kuo Kun-Yi passed away at 19…” Since 1923 plus 19 equals 1942, yet the records I later found state that “Kuo Kun-Yi died in battle in 1944”— this discrepancy raises questions. According to my father, Kuo Kun-Cheng (born in 1926), he himself was forcibly conscripted into the navy at age 15. At that age, he was trained to pilot the "Zero Fight Jet" —this would have been around 1941. After one year of training, at 16, he would have been sent into combat. However, when news of Uncle Kun-Yi’s death arrived, my father — recognized as a craftsman prodigy — was recommended by his Japanese supervisor and admitted into the sheet metal division of the Okayama Naval Air Arsenal. That stroke of fate spared his life, allowing our family line to continue.

Fig 2: Kuo Kun-Cheng, forcibly conscripted into the navy at age 15

In my interactions with Japanese people, I often ask them, “Why did Japan launch the Pacific War?” There is no answer. This suggests a deliberate neglect of that part of history. Yet for the families of victims, the pain is everlasting. My grandmother, Mrs. Kuo Chen Shu-Jean, would often put down her "paper-cutting scissors," gaze absentmindedly out the door, and quietly weep.

In 1969, when I moved Cheng Kuang Metal Processing Factory to Lane 451, Park Road, I installed the telephone number "220882." One day, the phone rang. When I picked it up, a voice said, “Hello, this is KunYi—” The entire household froze as if struck by electricity. I hurried to bring my grandmother to the phone. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a rice shop calling to solicit business. I watched as my grandmother once again broke down in tears of disappointment.

There was also the case of a Taiwanese Japanese soldier, Li Kuang-Hui, who had been lost in the Indonesian jungle for two or three decades before being found. This brought my grandmother tremendous hope. After lingering in a critical state for a week, she suddenly regained consciousness on October 25, 1970. Her final words were, “Find… find Kun-Yi…”—and then she gave up her breath.

My late father, Kuo Kun-Cheng, was a romantic at heart. He loved inventing but had no sense for business management. He would often lament, “A lone chicken cannot hatch much,” meaning that if Uncle Kun-Yi had survived, the two brothers working together could have restored the family business to its former glory under my grandfather, Kuo Biao.

In truth, my father was not exaggerating. In 1966, the year he was unjustly arrested, I relied on just one of his technologies to secure business with the American company Avnet Taiwan Ltd. in the Kaohsiung Export Processing Zone (KEPZ). I won "PTH" (plated through-hole) orders by outperforming competitors from the United States, Japan, and Germany, thereby contributing to the foundation of Taiwan’s precision industry. Had my father’s technical expertise been combined with Uncle Kun-Yi’s managerial ability, the outcome would have been remarkable.

During the Lunar New Year period of 1966, when four imposing police officers came to arrest my father, they also brutally broke my grandmother’s bound feet, leaving her bedridden for the rest of her life. When I later started my business, I arranged a small space beside my workplace so I could care for her. The first time Japanese buyers came, having heard about the “eyelet lugs” (哈多瑁端子) I was selling to Americans, my grandmother, lying in bed, became overwhelmed with emotion and burst into tears.

She said, “Now that Japanese people have come to buy goods, why hasn’t your Uncle Kun-Yi returned?”

In 1942, the Japanese military notified us: “Kuo Kun-Yi has died in battle in the South Seas.” Yet no personal effects were ever returned. My grandmother still held onto a faint hope — one in a million — but every new piece of information only brought renewed disappointment. Still, late at night, when all was quiet and she saw me preparing materials for the next day and making molds, she would tell “the story of the Kuo family.” It was the story of a business empire that was brought to an abrupt end overnight when a pair of treacherous servant colluded with the Japanese military to confiscate everything.

That traitorous servant had a son born in 1923, the same year as my uncle Kun-Yi. He ended up occupying the Kuo family’s business headquarters and was nicknamed “Kaku Pig,” living off the estate as a parasite until he died in excess. Meanwhile, my uncle Kun-Yi was forced to sign a “Volunteer Form,” pressed into army training, and then sent to the South Seas to “die in battle.”

My grandmother often spoke of the family’s ancestral enterprise, He-Mei Trading Company. “Harmony” (和，He) was the core of our corporate culture, and my grandfather, Kuo Biao, was an exceptional businessman. The company’s reach extended north to Hokkaido in Japan, west to mainland China, south to India, and even to France in Europe. It maintained business operations and properties in each of these regions.

She said, “Because Kun-Yi was so intelligent, your grandfather would take him to important occasions — such as meetings with senior Japanese figures like Mr. Nakagawa.” It was said that Uncle Kun-Yi knew tens of thousands of He-Mei Trading’s products intimately, and my grandfather was confident he had a worthy successor. However, after my grandfather refused to participate in the transport of “Comfort Women” for Governor-General Kobayashi, the family was devastated by confiscation. Both Uncle Kun-Yi and my father were forcibly conscripted, an act that clearly amounted to an attempt at exterminating the family line. My father, though sent into the perilous navy, survived — allowing our lineage to continue.

Fig 3: Happiness Family Portrait of Kuo Biao, 1930

My father often mentioned that his elder brother had impaired vision in one eye — something that should have disqualified him from military service. Yet the servant who had seized our family’s property insisted that the Japanese military conscript Uncle Kun-Yi and send him to the South Seas, fearing that he might one day restore the Kuo family’s reputation after the war. In recent years, as my own eyesight has deteriorated with age, I consulted a skilled ophthalmologist and asked whether my left eye could be treated. After a thorough examination, he concluded, “I can treat almost anything — but for a case like your amblyopia, I must admit defeat.” He added that "amblyopia" (idle eye) can be hereditary. It was said that Uncle Kun-Yi’s condition was severe — essentially monocular vision — yet he was still forced to sign a “Volunteer Form” and sent to his death in the South Seas.

After decades of effort, we finally confirmed that Uncle Kun-Yi was killed in Papua New Guinea, and his name is recorded at "Yasukuni Shrine" in Tokyo. I visited Yasukuni Shrine in early 1979. In 1980, we went to the Tainan Household Registration Office to formally register his death. As the exact date of death was unknown, we recorded it as the 15th day of the 7th lunar month, so that future generations could properly perform ancestral rites.

After our marriage, my wife, Ting Ling-hung, always kept Uncle Kun-Yi in her thoughts. After we moved to Taipei in 1982, she, a devout Buddhist, frequently went to Pumen Temple on Minquan East Road, founded by Venerable Hsing Yun, to worship. On one occasion during a repentance ritual, she suddenly felt as if she were engulfed in flames and saw Uncle Kun-Yi’s body burning. We later understood that he had died in “Papua New Guinea, in Yakaji,” where General MacArthur had ordered the total annihilation of Japanese forces by any means necessary. From then on, we continually prayed for Uncle Kun-Yi’s spirit to return home and receive our family’s offerings.

Unfortunately, our plan to list on NASDAQ was obstructed by attacks from the corrupt cartel groups. When the Australian government noticed irregularities, we were invited to report progress at the “APEC CEO Summit 2006 in Hanoi.” Thus, in 2006, I had the opportunity in Hanoi to raise with then–Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his delegation the matter of bringing Uncle Kun-Yi’s spirit home. Although the Japanese side responded politely at the time, nothing further came of it. Some have said that during his first term as prime minister, Abe encountered a ghost and resigned abruptly — I do not know whether this had anything to do with Uncle Kun-Yi’s spirit at Yasukuni Shrine.

After enduring relentless persecution by corrupt forces and the abuse of public power, my wife Linda Din —who practiced daily spiritual cultivation — finally devised a way to welcome Uncle Kun-Yi’s spirit home. In 2016, we first arranged a resting place for him at "Fu Gui Nan Shan in Tainan" and invited a master to conduct a spirit-inviting ritual, establishing a bridge of communication. At the same time, we set up a sacred altar there and home and played recorded Shingon mantras continuously, 24 hours a day, to form a spiritual boundary. We then took his photograph and traveled to Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, calling out along the way, “Kuo Kun-Yi, come home.”

I stood quietly at Yasukuni Shrine in silent prayer for ten minutes, when a Japanese-speaking attendant rudely tugged at my sleeve, signaling me to leave. Nevertheless, we had already sensed Uncle Kun-Yi’s spirit. We immediately set off for Narita Airport, continuing to call, “Kuo Kun-Yi, come home,” all the way back to Taiwan. The Shingon mantra recitation continued for six months.

On November 5, 2016, we went to "Cijin Windmill Park" in Kaohsiung to pay our respects to the dedicated members of the Association for the Care of Taiwanese Veterans (who had served as Japanese soldiers). However, upon arrival, we were unable to enter; plainclothes officers and police stopped us about 100 meters away, saying that “the President is coming.” We had no choice but to leave in frustration and walk several hundred meters to hail a taxi. The driver remarked, “This is unbelievable. I’d estimate there were at least a thousand military police and plainclothes officers protecting that ‘Ah-Ying.’” He then asked in confusion, “Aren’t we already a democratic country? What is this?”

The issue remains that more than 30,000 Taiwanese spirits are still confined at Yasukuni Shrine, unable to return to their homeland. There is therefore a need for committed individuals to continue working together and making effective use of resources to establish a proper memorial center dedicated to Taiwanese soldiers who served in the Japanese military—so that these spirits may finally cease wandering abroad and have a home in their native land.

Peter Li-Chang Kuo, the author created Taiwan's Precision Industry in his early years. Peter was a representative of the APEC CEO Summit and an expert in the third sector. He advocated "anti-corruption (AC)/cashless/e-commerce (E-Com)/ICT/IPR/IIA-TES / Micro-Business (MB)…and etc." to win the international bills and regulations.