The San Cha Mountain 三叉山 Incident of 1945 – Taiwan Marks 80 Years Since Double Tragedy [S5 Reedited Encore]
![The San Cha Mountain 三叉山 Incident of 1945 – Taiwan Marks 80 Years Since Double Tragedy [S5 Reedited Encore]](https://s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/redwood-labs/showpage/uploads/images/50ecc7e4-b65c-418f-97c1-0c84bc8606aa.jpg "The San Cha Mountain 三叉山 Incident of 1945 – Taiwan Marks 80 Years Since Double Tragedy [S5 Reedited Encore]")
Imagine you’re an Allied soldier in the Pacific during WWII. You’re captured by the Japanese, survive brutal conditions as a POW, and the dangerous voyage in a “hell ship” to Japan, where you endure more years of captivity. Finally, in August 1945, the war ends. You’re freed, ready to go home. But there will be no happy ending.
Some transport planes and ships never make their destination, including a B-24 carrying 20 former POWs, which crashes into a 3,496-meter peak in Taiwan’s southern Central Mountain Range during a typhoon. Compounding the sadness, 26 members of a team made up of Japanese, Taiwanese, and Indigenous people die in a rescue/retrieval attempt.
This once little-known story was featured in Season Two of Formosa Files. In 2025, however – the 80th anniversary – many news organizations featured stories marking the event. Taiwan President Lai offered a moving tribute in a Facebook post, which in part read, “Eighty years ago, a group of people, without regard to nationality, blood, or side in the war, risked their lives to save others.”
Help others find us by rating/reviewing the show.
Video/Cover image via CNA.
READ: Taipei Times - Taiwan marks 80 years since Sancha crash that killed 25, 26 rescuers
From above article: "Only one Taiwanese newspaper, the Taiwan Shinpo (台灣新報), reported the crash on Sancha Mountain — a peak in the southern Central Mountain Range rising 3,496 meters -- at the time of the incident, devoting fewer than 300 words to it on Oct. 24, 1945."
All images below via CNA.
1. Debris from the Sancha Mountain plane crash was pictured in southern Taiwan in June.
2. Four machine guns found at the crash site sit on an apron near Jiaming Lake in Taitung County in an undated photo.
3. The location of 三叉山 San Cha Mt.
READ: 2025 - Two dead, one boy rescued in hiking incident - Taipei Times
Help others find us by rating/reviewing the show.
Do us a favor and rate/review the show! It really helps. Do it on Apple Podcasts or here on our website.
Write us with questions or ideas at formosafiles@gmail.com
AND THE BIGGEST REQUEST: tell others about this free, not-for-profit resource about Taiwan.
