Humid and sticky days of suffering

The Detention Center of the Military Law Office under the Navy Command (the Navy Detention Center) was set up in the Zuoying District in Kaohsiung between June 1949 and 1954. Today, it is the site of the Navy’s “Zhenhai Base.” The building was used as a temporary detention center and a court of law for internal matters pertaining to the navy during the Navy White Terror Incident in the 1950s. The Navy Command moved to Taipei in 1954, and the site was taken over by the 1st Military District Command of the Navy. The new division retained the use of the detention center and renamed it the Detention Center of the Military Law Office under the 1st Military District Command of the Navy.

The “Zuoying Avenue Third-Floor Iced Tea House,” the “Fongshan Guest House,” the “Navy Anti-Communist Pioneer Training Camp,” the “Marine Corps Training Unit” (Navy Disciplinary Team) and the “Detention Center of the Military Law Office under the Navy Command” were all used in 1949 as temporary units for the interrogation, detention and sentencing of navy officers and sailors arrested during the Navy White Terror Incident. The reason for their establishment were the Navy’s internal clean-ups.

The most enduring memory shared by many victims of their time in detention were of the conditions of their imprisonment. Each poorly-ventilated cell had just one hole the size of a bowl that served as the only passage for the supply of air, food, cold water and drinking water for the more than 40 people in one cell. Furthermore, the latrine was located within the cells, and given he tropical climate of southern Taiwan, this meant that the air in the cells was perpetually saturated with the smell of sweat and human waste, a silent torment that was always present. As a result, the prisoners initiated “nude walks” within their cells: they would remove all their clothes when in their cells in order to pass the days in these horrendous conditions.

One of the sites that witnessed Navy White Terror Cases

The Navy Detention Center was initially set up to be a designated detention center and court of law for the navy officers and soldiers detained during the Navy White Terror Cases, an internal purge that took place from 1949 to the early 1950s. However, only a small number of the people arrested in the purge were detained in the center, as most of them were executed in secret or sent to other correctional facilities (such as the Navy Anti-Communist Pioneer Camp) without being tried. According to the testimonies of the victims, the “trials” held in the Navy Detention Center were just formalities for show. In the first “court session,” the accused were asked to provide basic personal information such as their name, ancestral home, military unit, rank etc. In the second “court session,” the accused were to give a standardized or fabricated testimony before being judged guilty. After that, the military court proceedings would be deemed to have been completed. Up to this day, many of these men still have no idea why they were convicted, but nonetheless have lost decades of their lives.