Qualla: Taipei Prison

Taipei Prison: Introduction

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, CC BY-SA 3.0. On 19 June 1945, in the early morning hours at Taihoku Prison, fourteen US Army and Navy airmen were executed. They had been found guilty by Japanese military tribunal of what the charge sheet called 'indiscriminate bombing' of Taiwan's civilian population. Their remains were cremated. Their ashes were placed at a local shrine. The war would end less than two months later. That morning, and those fourteen men, belong to the long and layered history of the place now known as Taipei Prison — an institution that began under the Qing Dynasty, expanded under Japanese colonial rule, and has continued under the Republic of China into the present day.

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Image: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas | CC BY-SA 3.0

Taipei Prison: Origins Under Two Empires

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mx. Granger, CC0. The institution that would become Taipei Prison was established in 1895 as the Taihoku Penalty Institute. The name Taihoku was the Japanese rendering of Taipei; the year marks the beginning of Japanese colonial rule following the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which ceded Taiwan from Chi...

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Image: Mx. Granger | CC0

Taipei Prison: The Weight of June 1945

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. The executions of fourteen Allied airmen at Taihoku Prison in June 1945 represent one of the most specific and documented episodes in the facility's wartime history. These were men from US Army Air Forces and naval aviation units who had been shot down over or near Taiwan during ...

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Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

Taipei Prison: From Colony to Republic

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Winertai, CC BY-SA 3.0. When Imperial Japan surrendered in August 1945, the Republic of China took administrative control of Taiwan. The prison received its current name — Taiwan Taipei Prison — in October of that year, a renaming that marked the transfer of authority without interrupting the institutio...

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Image: Winertai | CC BY-SA 3.0

Taipei Prison: Guishan: The Prison in the Present

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 李元顥, CC BY-SA 4.0. The current Taipei Prison sits in Guishan District, Taoyuan City — outside Taipei proper but still considered the city's primary detention facility for the north of the island. It can hold up to 2,705 people and houses those convicted of serious crimes and sentenced to at least t...

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Image: 李元顥 | CC BY-SA 4.0