In a small urban park in Taiwan, more than 4,000 names are etched into a granite wall -- most of them British and American servicemen held by the Japanese during World War II.

The sombre memorial sits on the site of Kinkaseki, a brutal prisoner of war camp near Taipei and one of more than a dozen run by Japan on the island it ruled from 1895 until its defeat in 1945.

For decades, little was known of the PoW camps, said Michael Hurst, a Canadian amateur military historian in Taipei, who has spent years researching them.

Many survivors had refused to talk about their experiences, while PoWs held elsewhere in Asia had been unaware of "the horrors" in Taiwan, and museums and academics had glossed over them, Hurst told AFP.

After learning of Kinkaseki in 1996, Hurst spearheaded efforts to l

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