After the war ended some Australian POWs remembered their captivity as a time in which the typical qualities of the Australian soldier came to the fore. Theatres of bamboo and attap (palm fronds) were built, sets, lighting, costumes and makeup devised, and an array of entertainment produced that included music halls, variety shows, cabarets, plays, and musical comedies even pantomimes. Fifty-nine were women from the Australian Army Nursing Service. [53], The construction of the Burma Railway is counted as a war crime committed by Japan in Asia. Another group, numbering 190 US personnel, to whom Lieutenant Henri Hekking, a Dutch medical officer with experience in the tropics was assigned, suffered only nine deaths. Highlights. There, approximately 20% of the Allied POWs died during its construction. The rail line was built along the Khwae Noi (Kwai) River valley to support the Japanese armed forces during the Burma Campaign. [13], Estimates of deaths among Southeast Asian civilians subject to forced labour, often known as rmusha, vary widely, because statistics are incomplete and fragmented. Thus, ferries were needed as an alternative connecting system. The total number of rmusha working on the railway may have reached 300,000 and according to some estimates, the death rate among them was as high as 50 percent. During World War II, the Japanese forced more than 60,000 allied prisoners of war and nearly 300,000 Southeast Asian laborers to build a 415km railway across the mountains and jungles between Thailand and Myanmar (then Burma). [10][11] After preliminary work of airfields and infrastructure, construction of the railway began in Burma and Thailand on 16 September 1942. THAILAND_POW_Camps_rosters (WO 361-2171) - Numerous rosters of POWs in Thailand. The first train to pass Konkoita on the newly constructed Burma-Thailand railway, built for the Japanese by prisoner of war (POW) labour. They were outnumbered by the British, the Dutch and large cohorts of Asian labourers (rmusha), particularly Burmese and Tamils from Malaya. ", "Burma-Siam Railway - Australia receives no payment", "Grote schade aan materiaal der N.I. Among the Allied POWs were some 30,000 British, 13,000 Australians, 18,000 Dutch, and 700 Americans. He was one of Dunlop's 1,000 the men under commanding . In 1960, because of discrepancies between facts and fiction, the portion of the Mae Klong which passes under the bridge was renamed the Khwae Yai ( in the Thai language; in English, 'big tributary'). Listed under D-Day - The Normandy Invasion. Red Cross parcels helped, but these were invariably held up by the Japanese. Many are now held by the Australian War Memorial, State Library of Victoria, and the Imperial War Museum in London. This owes something to the fact that in F Force, where British and Australian numbers were roughly equal, some 2036 British died compared to 1060 Australians in the period up to May 1944. Also sketches by POWs. Contact our Media sales & Licensing team about access. Abstract. Camps were usually named after the kilometre where they were located. The wooden bridge was reused for pedestrians and cars. Troops from the 7th Division embarked on the HMT Orcades arriving at Batavia from the Middle East in early 1942 in a last-minute effort to defend the Netherlands East Indies from Japanese attack. At main camps such as Chungkai, Tamarkan, Non Pladuk and Thanbyuzayat were "base Hospitals" which were also huts of bamboo and thatch, staffed by such medical officers and orderlies as were allowed by the Japanese to care for the sick prisoners. Even though defeated, they displayed the Anzac skills of resourcefulness, laconic humour, mateship and survival against the odds. A Bill Aldag Fergus Anckorn Charles Groves Wright Anderson Ken Anderson (politician) Harold Atcherley B Henri Baaij Edmund W. Barker Theo Bot Russell Braddon Jim Bradley (British Army officer) Gerard Bruggink C John Carrick (Australian politician) Johannes Gijsbertus de Casparis Forde Everard de Wend Cayley Fred Chadwick Jack Bridger Chalker The line was abandoned beyond Nam Tok Sai Yok Noi;[27][22] the steel rails were salvaged for reuse in expanding the Bang Sue railway yard, reinforcing the BangkokBan Phachi Junction double track, rehabilitating the track from Thung Song Junction to Trang, and constructing both the Nong Pla DukSuphan Buri and Ban Thung PhoKhiri Rat Nikhom branch lines. The Burmese had welcomed the invasion by Japan and cooperated with Japan in recruiting workers. [42][43] Workers were moved up and down the railway line as needed. The railway, built by the Empire of Japan in 1943 to support its attack on the British colony of Burma, used forced labour, including Asian civilians and Allied prisoners of war, many thousands of . Dancing Along the Deadline : The Andersonville Memoir of a Prisoner of the Confederacy. BBC News Bob Reynolds spent four years as a prisoner of war in Burma and Taiwan. The Japanese hoped to capture the Indian region of Assam, with the intention of using it as the base for an insurrection under the Japanese-backed Indian revolutionary leader Subhas Chandra Bose. [47] Coast's work is noted for its detail on the brutality of some Japanese and Korean guards as well as the humanity of others. [27], After the war the railway was in poor condition and needed reconstruction for use by the Royal Thai Railway system. The Japanese assumed that if Chiang Kai-sheks Nationalist forces were deprived of this key logistical resource, their conquest of China could be easily completed. More recently, the motion picture The Railway Man (based on the book of the same name) also gives insight into the barbaric conditions and suffering that were inflicted upon the workers who built the railway. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. The working conditions were appalling. On this end of the railway the workforce was largely Australian, Dutch and local rmusha. It was built from 1940 to 1943 by civilian laborers impressed or recruited by the Japanese and prisoners of war taken by the Japanese, to supply troops and weapons in the Burma campaign of World War II. See more ideas about prisoners of war, war, historical. [57][58], In addition to malnutrition and physical abuse, malaria, cholera, dysentery and tropical ulcers were common contributing factors in the death of workers on the Burma Railway. However, it is known that all of them had volunteered to serve. Parts of the abandoned route have been converted into a walking trail.[28]. The Prisoner of War Management Office (Furyo Kanribu) The Prisoner of War Management Office (Furyo Kanribu) was established by the Minister for the Army on 31 March 1942 as an additional office to deal with the treatment of POWs. The Factors of Survival. In these camps entertainment flourished as an essential part of their rehabilitation. There are good reasons for this. Probably their motives were mixed: a desire for adventure, a sense of duty, nationalism and a conviction that they were part of a proud Australian military tradition dating from Gallipoli. It is also the case that Australians distinctive national characteristics did not give them a greater chance of survival, as is sometimes assumed. The prisoners were sent to various destinations throughout the Pacific and Southeast Asia to provide forced labour for the Japanese army, journeys that carried with them a taste of the nightmare to come. As a result of war bombing on bridges repeatedly, the Japanese used it to supply their troops in Burma. Lt Col Coates the greatest doctor on the Burma Thailand Railway. An Australian memorial is at Hellfire Pass. In 1943 Japan's high command decided to build a railway linking Thailand and Burma, to supply its campaign against the Allies in Burma. There is a popular perception that they also died at a higher rate than Australians. Max Heiliger did a lot more then just laundering money for the Nazis. Presidio Pr; ISBN: 0891415777. The Japanese had been surprised by the reaction of world opinion against their treatment of prisoners of war, and there is evidence that they began to feel apprehensive about the heavy casualties of 1943, and made efforts to counteract their reputation for uncivilised treatment of prisoners. Only the first 130 kilometres (81mi) of the line in Thailand remained, with trains still running as far north as Nam Tok. For much of its . [30] Other nationalities and ethnic groups working on the railway were Tamils, Chinese, Karen, Javanese, and Singaporean Chinese. Special British prisoner parties at Kinsaiyok bury about 20 coolies a day. The Australian, British, Dutch and other Allied prisoners of war, along with Chinese, Malay, and Tamil labourers, were required by the Japanese to complete the cutting. Director: Jack Lee | Stars: Virginia McKenna, Peter Finch, Kenji Takaki, Tran Van Khe. Subcategories Grid List There are 23 products. More than 11 percent of civilian internees and 27 percent of Allied POWs died or were killed while in Japanese custody; by contrast, the death rate for Allied POWs in German camps was around 4 percent. The British people were now resigned to the fact that Hitler had to be stopped by force. This is particularly true on Anzac Day (April 25), when Australians pay tribute to those who served and lost their lives during war. In the opening months of the Pacific War, Japanese forces struck Allied bases throughout the western Pacific and Southeast Asia as part of the so-called Southern Operation. [70], The bridge was made famous by Pierre Boulle's novel The Bridge over the River Kwai and its film adaptation, The Bridge on the River Kwai. [78][79], In 1946,[89] the remains of most of the war dead were moved from former POW camps, burial grounds and lone graves along the rail line to official war cemeteries. [28] One museum is in Myanmar side Thanbyuzayat,[95] and two other museums are in Kanchanaburi: the ThailandBurma Railway Centre,[96] opened in January 2003,[97] and the JEATH War Museum. Major Sotomatsu Chida was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. 493.8 Records of the Peiping headquarters Group 1946-47 493.1 Administrative History Related Records: Records of U.S. Army Service Forces (World War II), RG 160. [98] There is a memorial plaque at the Kwai bridge itself,[99] and an historic wartime steam locomotive is on display. Alternatively, search more than 1 million objects from Since the 1990s various proposals have been made to rebuild the complete railway, but as of 2021[update] these plans had not been realised. [44], The construction camps consisted of open-sided barracks built of bamboo poles with thatched roofs. The Prisoner List. Many remember Japanese soldiers as being cruel and indifferent to the fate of Allied prisoners of war and the Asian rmusha. The horrendous experiences endured by the thousands of POWs has made the Burma Railway a place of pilgrimage and commemoration. A lower death rate among Dutch POWs and internees, relative to those from the UK and Australia, has been linked to the fact that many personnel and civilians taken prisoner in the Dutch East Indies had been born there, were long-term residents and/or had Eurasian ancestry; they tended thus to be more resistant to tropical diseases and to be better acclimatized than other Western Allied personnel. IWM collections, This media is not currently available. Rivers and canyons had to be bridged and sections of mountains had to be cut away to create a bed that was straight and level enough to accommodate the narrow-gauge track. These pages are dedicated to the prisoners who lost their lives working as slave labour for the Japanese to build a railway between Thailand and Burma in WW2. Nearly 15 000 were captured on Singapore in February 1942 and over a thousand on each of Ambon, Dutch Timor, and New Britain. The overwhelming majority of Allied POWs were from Commonwealth countries; they included approximately 22,000 Australians (of whom 21,000 were from the Australian Army, 354 from the Royal Australian Navy, and 373 from the Royal Australian Air Force), more than 50,000 British troops, and at least 25,000 Indian troops. Powered by WordPress. On 3 April, a second bombing raid, this time by Liberator heavy bombers of the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF), damaged the wooden railroad bridge once again. When that failed to attract sufficient workers, they resorted to more coercive methods, rounding up workers and impressing them, especially in Malaya. [7] The Japanese began this project in June 1942. [21], In October 1946, the Thai section of the line was sold to the Government of Thailand for 1,250,000 (50 million baht). More than a third of these men and women died in captivity. The British POWs suffered the highest number of dead of any Allied group on the ThaiBurma railway. The Japanese wanted the railway completed as quickly as possible, and working units were comprised of massive numbers of prisoners scattered over the entire length of the proposed route. April 1942 to October 1943. Records of Allied Operational and Occupation Headquarters, World War II, RG 331. It was to be built by a captive labour force of about 60,000 Allied prisoners of war and 200,000 romusha, or Asian labourers. ARTICLE 30. [73] Bad weather forced the cancellation of the mission and the AZON was never deployed against the bridge. Such extreme mortality was experienced by Australian and British prisoners of war (POW) forced to build the Thai-Burma railway during the Second World War. [54][55], After the completion of the railroad, over 10,000 POWs were then transported to Japan. These were men from the 7th Division who had been brought back from the Middle East to help defend the Netherlands East Indies (now Indonesia) from the Japanese attack in early 1942. [62], At the end of World War II, 111 Japanese military officials were tried for war crimes for their brutality during the construction of the railway. [9] On 23 June 1942, 600 British soldiers arrived at Camp Nong Pladuk, Thailand to build a camp to serve as a transit camp for the work camps along the railway. A further 354 were from the Royal Australian Navy and 373 from the Royal Australian Air Force. Updates? List of Australian Army Medical Corp Officers on the Burma-Thailand Railway A FORCE To Burma May 1942 D FORCE To Southern end of line March 1943 DUNLOP FORCE To Southern end of line January 1943 F FORCE To Northern Thailand April 1943 H FORCE To Southern end of line 1943 L FORCE Deployed in medical support of natives August 1943 In addition, approximately 130,000 civiliansincluding some 40,000 childrenwere captured by the Japanese. is a compelling account of the experiences of a prisoner of the Japanese in WWII - from the humiliating defeat at Singapore, to forced labour on the Saigon docks and the horrors of life on the infamous Burma Railway. 69 miles (111km) of the railway were in Burma and the remaining 189 miles (304km) were in Thailand. Yet many of them have shown extraordinary kindness to sick British prisoners passing down the river, giving them sugar and helping them into the railway trucks at Tarsao. As well as these deaths, Japanese civilians were nearly 10,000 lost at sea in this attack and Australia lost about 2800 soldiers to American operations. Corrections? Burma-Siam Railway 1942-1945, Second World War. Published by Marsworth. For example, a group of 400 Dutch prisoners, which included three doctors with extensive tropical medicine experience, suffered no deaths at all. [29], The number of Southeast Asian workers recruited or impressed to work on the Burma railway has been estimated to have been more than 180,000 Southeast Asian civilian labourers (rmusha). The only redeeming feature was the ease with which the sick could be evacuated to base hospitals in trains returning empty from Burma. WAR Graves - Burma - Siam Railway On 6th December 1948 an expedition consisting of an officer, one Siamese interpreter, two police guards, one cook and one general duties coolie, left Kanburi for Takanun by motor boat. But this phase soon passed and from May 1944 until the capitulation of Japan in August 1945 parties of prisoners were sent from the various base camps to work on railway maintenance, cut fuel for the locomotives, and handle stores at dumps along the line. The Japanese Army transported 500,000 tonnes of freight[citation needed] over the railway before it fell into Allied hands. Work on the railway started at Thanbyuzayat on 1st October 1942 and somewhat later at Ban Pong. Under Australian legislation prior to 1943 conscripts could be used only for the defence of Australian territories. At both camp and base hospitals, for the greater part of the time, the doctors had only such drugs and equipment as they had been able to carry with them. On 26 October 1942, British prisoners of war arrived at Tamarkan to construct the bridge. Burma-Siam Railway list of prisoner of war work camps in Thailand during the construction of the death railway, with diagram. Conditions were significantly worse than at Changi, with forced hard labour and severely inadequate supplies of food and medicines. If you are joining after August, please choose the month you are joining in below. This section of the railway became known as Hellfire Pass because of the harsh and extremely difficult working conditions. What mattered in captivity was not so much a mans nationality but the particular circumstances and location of the places in which he worked, his access to food, medicines and medical care, his genetic inheritance, and even his luck and will to survive. The defendants were charged with crimes against Western prisoners of war and civilians and with crimes against local people. Thinking back, she recalls the Australian man who made a great sacrifice to aid her and her fellow prisoners of war. Though medical consequences of war attract attention, the health consequences of the prisoner-of-war (POW) experience are poorly researched and apprec . The notorious Burma-Siam railway, built by British, Australian, Dutch and American prisoners of war, was a Japanese project inspired by the need for improved communications to maintain the large Japanese army in Burma. [69] It was this Bridge 277 that was to be attacked with the help of one of the world's first examples of a precision-guided munition, the US VB-1 AZON MCLOS-guided 1,000lb aerial ordnance, on 23 January 1945. To pursue those ends and to support their continued offensives in the Burma theatre, the Japanese began construction of what came to be known as the Burma Railway. Sir Edward "Weary" Dunlop an Australian surgeon and legend among prisoners of the Thai Burma Railway in World War II; [9] Much of the construction materials, including tracks and sleepers, were brought from dismantled branches of Malaya's Federated Malay States Railway network and the East Indies' various rail networks. Frequently men were sent to work on the line long before their accommodation was completed. Some 30 000 of these prisoners of war later worked on the Thai-Burma railway. The Americans were called the Lost Battalion as their fate was unknown to the United States for more than two years after their capture. The Dutch formed the second largest contingent of Allied prisoners of war on the ThaiBurma railway, after the British. The larger number of British deaths overall reflects the fact that there were simply more British working on the railway than Australians or Dutch POWs. [69] An unknown number of Malayan workers were housed in a nearby camp. Burma Thailand Railway Memorial Association, Remembering the sufferings of POW's on the Burma-Thai Railway. [40][41] Construction camps housing at least 1,000 workers each were established every 510 miles (817km) of the route. During its construction more than 16 ,000 prisoners of war died - mainly of sickness, malnutrition and exhaustion - and were buried along the railway. The notorious Burma-Siam railway, built by British, Australian, Dutch and American prisoners of war, was a Japanese project inspired by the need for improved communications to maintain the large Japanese Armv in Burma. The Burma- Death Railway. Aside from the classic British-American film in 1957, Bridge on the River Kwai, the struggles prisoners of war endured in Burma and the making of the "death railway" became a "forgotten war" - it got lost in the Western Front's heroics and the ugly truth about the horrifying gas chambers found in the Nazis' prison camps. Stolen banknotes and jewelry along with Holocaust victims' dental gold, wedding rings, and even scrap gold melted down from spectacles-frames flooded into the Max Heiliger accounts, completely filling several bank vaults by 1942. Steve White-do-not-use. When you got back to your sleeping platform you only had a tin of water to wash your feet. (Publisher) An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 civilians also . Those who have no known grave are commemorated by name on memorials elsewhere; the land forces on either the Rangoon Memorial or the Singapore Memorial and the naval casualties on memorials at the manning ports. The greater part of the Thai section of the river's route followed the valley of the Khwae Noi River (khwae, 'stream, river' or 'tributary'; noi, 'small'. Thailand - Burma Railway. In 1939 the age limits for enlistment in the AIF were 19 to 35 years of age (higher for officers and some NCOs). [66][67] No compensation or reparations have been provided to Southeast Asian victims. Their death rates on the ThaiBurma railway were little different from the British and higher than the Dutch. [56] Those left to maintain the line still suffered from appalling living conditions as well as increasing Allied air raids. 368 of the 1,061 on board the USS Houston survived. Used with permission of the author, Lilian Sluyter. First, the Burmese city of Lashio was the southern terminus of the Burma Road, the main resupply route for Chinese during the Sino-Japanese War. Some have even brought wives and children. It completed the rail link between Bangkok, Thailand, and Rangoon, Burma. The notorious Burma-Siam railway, built by British, Australian, Dutch and American prisoners of war, was a Japanese project inspired by the need for improved communications to maintain the large Japanese Armv in Burma. [61], Weight loss among Allied officers who worked on construction was, on average, 914kg (2030lb) less than that of enlisted personnel. Gradually more forces were sent to Burma and Thailand; in total more than 60,000 prisoners of war were transported to the railway project during 1942-3. From British mathematician Arthur Thomas Doodson's Tide-prediction machine, and PLUTO (short for 'pipeline under the ocean' - supplied petrol from Britain to Europe), to the German's 'Rommel's Asparagus', discover 7 clever innovations used on D-Day. notebook kept by captain harold lord, regular officer in the royal army service corps (rasc), whilst a japanese prisoner of war working on the burma-thailand railway in 1943, listing neatly and chronologically the names of the british prisoners of war who worked on the railway, may - december 1943, together with the following information about The cuttings at Hellfire Pass became known as the speedo period, after a solecistic command shouted by Japanese guards and engineers to their English-speaking prisoners. In due course the inevitable happened - a cholera epidemic broke out. Except for the worst months of the construction period, known as the "Speedo" (mid-spring to mid-October 1943),[51][52] one of the ways the Allied POWs kept their spirits up was to ask one of the musicians in their midst to play his guitar or accordion, or lead them in a group sing-along, or request their camp comedians to tell some jokes or put on a skit. Tens of thousands of POWs were packed onto vessels that came to be known as Hell ships; one in five prisoners did not survive the cramped, disease-ridden journey. Although it was often possible to supplement this diet by purchases from the local civilian population, men sometimes had to live for weeks on little more than a small daily ration of rice flavoured with salt. More than 12,000 Allied prisoners of war (POWs) and tens of thousands of forced labourers perished during its construction. The Japanese stopped all work on . The Prisoner List is a compelling account of the experiences of a prisoner of the Japanese in WWII - from the humiliating defeat at Singapore, to forced labour on the Saigon docks and the horrors of life on the infamous Burma Railway. All of that makes this railway an extraordinary accomplishment."[20]. The railway has been purchased by the Thai Government from its starting point at Ban Pong to the Burmese border, and it is now part of the Royal State railways. Brought up by barge on the Kwai Noi river, or by lorry on a road which was merely a converted jungle track, a consistent service could not be maintained by either method, and rations were nearly always below even the Japanese official scales. Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, in the city of Kanchanaburi, contains the graves of 6,982 personnel comprising: A memorial at the Kanchanaburi cemetery lists 11 other members of the Indian Army, who are buried in nearby Muslim cemeteries.[94]. Sidi Barrani, on the Mediterranean coast in Egypt, had been occupied by the Italian 10th Army, during the Italian invasion of Egypt (9-16 September 1940) and was attacked by British, Commonwealth and imperial . [23][24] The money was used to compensate neighbouring countries and colonies for material stolen by Japan during the construction of the railway. Spoorweg Mij", "----198111", "Historical Fact on the Burma Death Railroad Thailand Hellfire pass Prisoners conditions", "Hellfire Pass Interpretive Centre and Memorial Walking Trail", "Stories of Death Railway heroes to be kept alive", "Cast into oblivion: Malayan Tamils of the Death Railway", "The forgotten Malayan labourers of Burma Railway during WWII", "Notes on the Thai-Burma Railway. The first prisoners of war to work in Thailand, 3,000 British soldiers, left Changi by train in June 1942 to Ban Pong, the southern terminus of the railway. Japanese Medical Orderly. These became more and more frequent when, towards the end of October 1943, trains full of Japanese troops and supplies began to go through from Thailand to Burma. Konkoita is approximately 263 kilometres north of Nong Pladuk (also known as Non Pladuk), or 151 kilometres south of Thanbyuzayat. [74] Repairs were carried out by forced labour of POWs shortly after and by April the wooden railroad trestle bridge was back in operation. Articles on the Australian medical personnel working on the railway. Show more. The railway connected Thailand and Burma and was shut down in 1947, after the war. On 24 June 1949, the portion from Kanchanaburi to Nong Pla Duk (Thai ) was finished; on the first of April 1952, the next section up to Wang Pho (Wangpo) was done. Much of the excavation was carried out with inadequate hand tools, and, because work on the railway had fallen behind schedule, the pace of work was increased. Repeated reconnaissance flights over the Burma end of the railway started early in 1943, followed by bombings at intervals. Estimates vary but the number who worked on the railway was possibly as high as 18 000. During its construction, approximately 13,000 prisoners of war died and were buried along the railway. [50] Charles died in December 2009. They were set to work building a camp at Nong Pladuk which would form a base for future groups of POWs. Most of the camps were right alongside the railway track and some were near bridges and other vulnerable points. A newly wealthy English woman returns to Malaya to build a well for the villagers who helped her during war. Since the upper part of the Khwae valley is now flooded by the Vajiralongkorn Dam,[19] and the surrounding terrain is mountainous, it would take extensive tunnelling to reconnect Thailand with Burma by rail. Malaria, dysentery and pellagra (a vitamin deficiency disease) attacked the prisoners, and the number of sick in the camps was always high. Surviving Australian veterans will attend a commemorative . My Dad is not with us to tell his own story although he did keep a diary . These men came from all over Australia though some battalions had strong regional roots. [76], The new railway line did not fully connect with the Burmese railroad network as no railroad bridges were built which crossed the river between Moulmein and Martaban (the former on the river's southern bank and the latter to the opposite on the northern bank). The total length of miles, the total number of bridges over 600, including six to eight long-span bridges the total number of people who were involved (one-quarter of a million), the very short time in which they managed to accomplish it, and the extreme conditions they accomplished it under. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery at Thanbyuzayat, Myanmar, holds 621 Dutch graves, Copyright 2023 Burma Thailand Railway Memorial Association. This was the same time at which Australians in A Force left Changi for Burma. They have no latrines. [62], Workers in more isolated areas suffered a much higher death rate than did others. Jayma April 17, 2022. In mid-1942, large numbers of POWs began to be transported to Thailand and Burma for the construction of the Thai-Burma Railway. Some 30 000 of these prisoners of war later worked on the ThaiBurma railway. Some workers were attracted by the relatively high wages, but the working conditions for the rmusha were deadly. From the inmates of Colditz to the men who took part in the 'Great Escape . Throughout the building of the railway, food supplies were irregular and totally inadequate. [17] A holiday was declared for 25 October which was chosen as the ceremonial opening of the line. The Japanese would not allow the prisoners to construct a symbol (a white triangle on a blue base) indicating the presence of a prisoner of war camp, and these raids added their quota to the deaths on the line. This is ironic, since for most of the war in the Pacific Changi was, in reality, one of the most benign of the Japanese prisoner-of-war camps; its privations were relatively minor compared to those of others, particularly those on the Burma-Thailand railway. All nationalities listed by camp and/or party. The Burma Railway, also known as the Death Railway, the Siam-Burma Railway, the Thai-Burma Railway and similar names, is a 415km (258miles) railway between Ban Pong, Thailand and Thanbyuzayat, Burma (now called Myanmar).It was built from 1940 to 1943 by civilian labourers impressed or recruited by the Japanese and prisoners of war taken by the Japanese, to supply troops and weapons in the . More than 22 000 Australians were taken prisoner in the Asia-Pacific region in the early months of 1942. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Extracts from a report on a search carried out by an officer of the Army Graves Service, 6th to 22nd December 1948. In 1943 Dutch prisoners were sent to Thailand where they suffered the same hardships as other Allied POWs. Sort by: POW Thai Burma Death. Altogether, some 35,000 parachute and glider troops were involved in the operation. [34] Approximately 90,000 Burmese and 75,000 Malayans worked on the railroad. The youth of many Australian prisoners of war was very evident and many enlisted at an age younger than 20. Part II: Asian Romusha: The Silenced Voices of History", "Distances between camps on the Burma-Thailand Railway", "Last Man Out: A Memoir of the Burma-Thailand Death Railway", "Stolen Years: Australian prisoners of war The BurmaThailand Railway", "The Thailand-Burma Railway, 19421946: documents and selected writings", "Tamarkan, Tha Makham 56.20km - Thailand", "Forgotten Sikhs of the Siam -Burma Death Railway", "The lies that built The Bridge on the River Kwai", "Old China Hands, Tales & Stories The Azon Bomb", "Aerial photograph of Kanchanaburi, Thailand during a raid by Allied aircraft including", "Thanlwin Bridge (Mawlamyine), longest and largest in Myanmar, emerges to serve interests of State and region", "Railway of Death: Images of the construction of the BurmaThailand Railway 19421943", "Birma-Siam Spoorweg en de Pakan Baroe Spoorweg. The two sections of the line met at kilometre 263, about 18km (11mi) south of the Three Pagodas Pass at Konkoita (nowadays: Kaeng Khoi Tha, Sangkhla Buri District, Kanchanaburi Province). Prisoners of war from Java (Williams Force, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel J. M. Williams, and Black Force, including 593 Australians commanded by Lieutenant Colonel C. M. Black) travelled via Singapore and thence to Moulmein, arriving in Burma on 29-30 October 1942. [33] Other documents suggest that more than 100,000 Malayan Tamils were brought into the project and around 60,000 perished.[35][36]. Since the Netherlands East Indies had been under Dutch control for centuries, the Dutch POWs included not only Europeans but Eurasians, who had acquired full civil rights, and indigenous soldiers, including Sundanese, Javanese, Menadonese, Ambonese and Timorese. The first cut at Konyu was approximately 1,500 feet (450 metres) long and 23 feet (7 metres) deep, and the second was approximately 250 feet (75 metres) long and 80 feet (25 metres) deep. Cruelty could take different forms, from extreme violence and torture to minor acts of physical punishment, humiliation, and neglect. Finally, on 1 July 1958, the rail line was completed to Nam Tok (Thai , 'waterfall', referring to the nearby Sai Yok Noi Waterfall) The portion in use today is some 130km (81mi) long. They were treated brutally by the Japanese, and struggled with tropical diseases and the effects of malnutrition. Contact our Media sales & Licensing team about access, whole: Dimensions: 30x21cm., Pagination: [5] leaves 4 plans. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Burma_Railway&oldid=1133973618, Iron bridge across Kwae Yai River at Tha Makham, Arch Flanagan (19152013), Australian soldier and father of novelist, This page was last edited on 16 January 2023, at 11:22. Prisoners were made to work around the clock, with individual shifts lasting as long as 18 hours. Unbeknown to his captors, and at the risk of losing his life if discovered, he kept a diary documenting life. The construction of the railway is a heartbreaking story of forced labor, with more than 60,000 Allied prisoners of war . Chungkai War Cemetery, near Kanchanaburi, has a further 1,693 war graves. Yet in relative terms, Australian POW deaths were very significant, accounting for around 20 per cent of all Australian deaths in World War II. [3][4] Thailand was forced to accept an alliance,[5] and was used as a staging point for the attack on Singapore. A great deal of equipment was improvised by the medical officers and orderlies, and food and medicines were clandestinely obtained. However, the film and book contain many historical inaccuracies, and should be considered works of fiction. More than one in five of them died there. [8], The project aimed to connect Ban Pong in Thailand with Thanbyuzayat in Burma, linking up with existing railways at both places. POWs and Asian workers were also used to build the Kra Isthmus Railway from Chumphon to Kra Buri, and the Sumatra or Palembang Railway from Pekanbaru to Muaro. In October 1942 a similar-sized group of British POWs left Singapore for Thailand and were employed around Kanchanaburi and on building the steel bridge at Tha Markam which would later become known as The Bridge on the River Kwai. Another thirteen letter parties, L to X, soon followed, taking the number of British working on the railway at the end of 1942 to around 20 000. To avoid a hazardous 2,000-mile (3,200km) sea journey around the Malay peninsula, a railway from Bangkok to Rangoon seemed a feasible alternative. Alternatively, search more than 1 million objects from The graves of those who died during the construction and maintenance of the Burma-Siam railway (except Americans, who were repatriated) have been transferred from the camp burial grounds and solitary sites along the railway into three war cemeteries. [77], Hellfire Pass in the Tenasserim Hills was a particularly difficult section of the line to build: it was the largest rock cutting on the railway, it was in a remote area and the workers lacked proper construction tools during building. [25][26] After the accident, it was decided to end the line at Nam Tok and reuse the remainder to rehabilitate the line. The Japanese demanded from each camp a certain percentage of its strength for working parties, irrespective of the number of sick, and to make up the required quota the Japanese camp commandants insisted on men totally unfit for work being driven out and sometimes carried out. Now they find themselves dumped in these charnel houses, driven and brutally knocked about by the Jap and Korean guards, unable to buy extra food, bewildered, sick, frightened. The dawn ceremony was held for the prisoners of war (POWs) who were forced to work and died on the Burma-Siam railway during the Japanese occupation. Neither drugs or surgical instruments were supplied by the Japanese, and although later on certain medical supplies were made available they were always inadequate. Organization of the Labor. The 'Death Railway' was very well named. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Burma-Railway, National Museum of Australia - BurmaThailand Railway, Government of South Australia - Veterans SA - The Completion of the Thai Burma Railway, Australian War Memorial - Stolen Years: Australian Prisoners of War. Accommodation for the Japanese guards had to be built first, and at all the staging camps built subsequently along the railway this rule applied. Records of Naval Operating Forces, RG 313. Click Here To See Liberation Questionnaires. RM 2CYBAYN - Military personnel and people attend a dawn memorial service for soldiers who died during World War Two on ANZAC Day at Hellfire Pass in Kanchanaburi province, Thailand, April 25, 2015. In October 1943, the railway station was finished. [100], A preserved section of line has been rebuilt at the National Memorial Arboretum in England.[101]. The Burma Railway, also known as the SiamBurma Railway, ThaiBurma Railway and similar names, or as the Death Railway, is a 415km (258mi) railway between Ban Pong, Thailand and Thanbyuzayat, Burma (now called Myanmar). Its route was through Three Pagodas Pass on the border of Thailand and Burma. This video is sponsored by Ground News - The world's first news comparison platform. The construction of the railway has been the subject of a novel and an award-winning film, The Bridge on the River Kwai (itself an adaptation of the French language novel The Bridge over the River Kwai); a novel, The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan, and a large number of personal accounts of POW experiences. The first contingent of British to work on the ThaiBurma railway was sent to Burma (now Myanmar) from Sumatra in May 1942, as part of the 500-strong Medan Force. A bridge was not built until the Thanlwin Bridge (carrying both regular road and railroad traffic) was constructed between 2000 and 2005. Coast also details the camaraderie, pastimes, and humour of the POWs in the face of adversity.[47]. His subordinates Colonel Shigeo Nakamura, Colonel Tamie Ishii and Lieutenant-Colonel Shoichi Yanagita were sentenced to death. This is the bridge that still remains today. Omissions? 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The rice was of poor quality, frequently maggoty or in other ways contaminated, and fish, meat, oil, salt and sugar were on a minimum scale. After the Japanese were defeated in the Battles of the Coral Sea (May 48, 1942) and Midway (June 36, 1942), the sea-lanes between the Japanese home islands and Burma were no longer secure. "About a dozen on the Burma side and more again on the Thailand side of the railway, in camps like F-Force and D-Force, and about eight men who were with 'Weary' Dunlop at Hintok," he said. These coolies have been brought from Malaya under false pretenses 'easy work, good pay, good houses!' [30][33], In early 1943, the Japanese advertised for workers in Malaya, Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies, promising good wages, short contracts, and housing for families. The notorious Burma-Siam railway, built by Commonwealth, Dutch and American prisoners of war, was a Japanese project, driven by the need for improved communication to support the large Japanese army in Burma. The estimated number of civilian labourers and POWs who died during construction varies considerably, but the Australian Government figures suggest that of the 330,000 people who worked on the line (including 250,000 Asian labourers and 61,000 Allied POWs) about 90,000 of the labourers and about 16,000 Allied prisoners died.[30]. [21][22] The railway link between Thailand and Burma was to be separated again for protecting British interests in Singapore. The 75th anniversary of the infamous Thai-Burma Railway built by World War II prisoners of war will be marked today. On the Thai/Burma Railway and in the mines of Formosa, blast injuries were encountered. While civilians were generally treated better than military prisoners, conditions in Japanese captivity were almost universally deplorable. During this time, prisoners suffered from disease, malnutrition, and cruel forms of punishment and torture inflicted by the Japanese. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. During this time, most of the POWs were moved to hospital and relocation camps where they could be available for maintenance crews or sent to Japan to alleviate the manpower shortage there. The only cover for the prisoners was that afforded by the flimsy bamboo and thatch huts, where they were made to shelter while the raids were in progress, and the inevitable casualties were heavy. On 17 October 1943, construction gangs originating in Burma working south met up with construction gangs originating in Thailand working north. The railway was to run 420 kilometres through rugged jungle. The Burma Railway, also called the Death Railway, was built between Ban Pong, Thailand and Thanbyuzayat in Burma, put together with a ready supply of labour in the form of. Elsewhere in the Pacific some 10 000 British, Canadian and Indian troops were captured when Hong Kong fell in December 1941 and further 5000 in the Netherlands East Indies (now Indonesia) in early 1942. A railway route between Burma and Thailand, crossing Three Pagodas Pass and following the valley of the Khwae Noi river in Thailand, had been surveyed by the British government of Burma as early as 1885, but the proposed course of the line through hilly jungle terrain divided by many rivers was considered too difficult to undertake. Japanese soldiers, 12,000 of them, including 800 Koreans, were employed on the railway as engineers, guards, and supervisors of the POW and rmusha labourers. On 16 January 1946, the British ordered Japanese POWs to remove a four kilometre stretch of rail between Nikki (Ni Thea) and Sonkrai. New options were needed to support the Japanese forces in the Burma Campaign, and an overland route offered the most direct alternative. One factor was that many European and US doctors had little experience with tropical diseases. It is also known from a study of the Australians who joined the army in World War II that they were generally young and unmarried. Includes Changi, the Burma-Thailand Railway, Sandakan, Timor, Ambon, Rabaul and Japan, and the prisoners who died . Prisoners of War 330,000 people worked on building the railway, including 250,000 Asian laborers and 61,000 prisoners of war (POWs). Human hair was often used for brushes, plant juices and blood for paint, and toilet paper as the "canvas". The railway track from Kanchanaburi - photographed in 1945. Around 90,000 civilians died, as did more than 12,000 Allied prisoners. Australian POW Prisoners of War Books about Thai Burma Railway Hellfire Pass Military Books DVD Docos. Life in the POW camps was recorded at great risk by artists such as Jack Bridger Chalker, Philip Meninsky, John Mennie, Ashley George Old, and Ronald Searle. The Burma Railway, also known as the Siam-Burma Railway, Thai-Burma Railway and similar names, or as the Death Railway, is a 415 km (258 mi) railway between Ban Pong, Thailand and Thanbyuzayat, Burma (now called Myanmar).It was built from 1940 to 1943 by civilian laborers impressed or recruited by the Japanese and prisoners of war taken by the Japanese, to supply troops and weapons in the . 37,583 prisoners from the United Kingdom, Commonwealth and Dominions, 28,500 from Netherlands and 14,473 from the United States were released after the surrender of Japan. Between June 1942 and October 1943 the POWs and forced labourers laid some 258 miles (415 km) of track from Ban Pong, Thailand (roughly 45 miles [72 km] west of Bangkok), to Thanbyuzayat, Burma (roughly 35 miles [56 km] south of Mawlamyine). Conduct Unbecoming : The Story of the Murder of Canadian Prisoners of War in Normandy. [59], Several museums are dedicated to those who perished building the railway. The list contains over 1700 names and is particularly interesting as a record of the decimation, by disease or untreated wounds, of prisoners working on the Burma-Thailand railway. Two forces, one based in Thailand and one in Burma, worked from opposite ends' of the line towards the centre.When the first of the prisoners arrived their initial task was the construction of camps at Kanchanaburi and Ban Pong in Thailand and Thanbyuzayat in Burma. The two parties met at Nieke in November 1943, and the line - 263 miles long - was completed by December. From Thai-Burma railway to Sandakan, WWII history buff unearths stories of Australian POWs. Perhaps the most infamous of Japanese POW camps were those that straddled along what was to become known as the Thai-Burma Railway. It gives a narrative and pictorial account of life in POW camps north of Australia during World War II. The rail line was built along the Khwae Noi (Kwai) River valley to support the Japanese armed forces during the Burma Campaign. [45], The prisoners of war "found themselves at the bottom of a social system that was harsh, punitive, fanatical, and often deadly. The book Through the Valley of the Kwai and the 2001 film To End All Wars are an autobiography of British Army captain Ernest Gordon. The largest of these is at Hellfire Pass (north of the current terminus at Nam Tok), a cutting where the greatest number of people died. Alternatively, send a cheque to our treasurer, Cheques should be made payable to COFEPOW and sent to the following address:-, Mr. David BrownCOFEPOW14 RidgecroftAshton-Under-LyneLancashireOL7 9TGUnited Kingdom, Choose between a single or joint membership. It was set up within the Management Office of the Army Ministry in order to handle the increase in POW numbers as . ", "Yamashita: the greatest Japanese general of World War II? Javanese, Malayan Tamils of Indian origin, Burmese, Chinese, Thai, and other Southeast Asians, forcibly drafted by the Imperial Japanese Army to work on the railway, died in its construction. 1, 5 - 9 Their experience under these extreme wartime conditions is examined to discover the likely contribution of malaria-associated mortality to the total number of deaths. The Death Railway. The remaining sailors and marines, including Marvin Sizemore, were captured by the Japanese and found themselves building the Burma - Thailand railway as prisoners of war. Photocopy. The majority of the army personnel were from the 8th Division. Second, the occupation of Burma would also put Japanese armies on the doorstep of British India. No prisoner of war may be employed at labors for which he is physically unfit. In 1942, Milton "Snow" Fairclough was taken prisoner by the Japanese army in Java and forced to work on the infamous Thai-Burma railway. The Battle of Sidi Barrani (10-11 December 1940) was the opening battle of Operation Compass, the first big British attack of the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War. 0 9 4 minutes read. Dutch chemist Van Boxtell. [48][49] In the foreword to Charles's book, James D. Hornfischer summarizes: "Dr. Henri Hekking was a tower of psychological and emotional strength, almost shamanic in his power to find and improvise medicines from the wild prison of the jungle". Nearly all our Australian POW Books are true stories many written by the Australian POW who worked on the Thai Burma Railway during WW2. As before, their food and accommodation were minor considerations. This gave rise to the name of "River Kwai" in English. This is a list of notable prisoners of war (POW) whose imprisonment attracted notable attention or influence, or who became famous afterwards. He was taken to Ambon and apparently died in 1944 on board ship returning from Ambon to Java, After the war he was officially reported to have died on 6th September 1944 and buried at sea. by Ezra Hoyt Ripple (Editor), Mark A. Snell (Editor) Hardcover - 168 pages. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Thereafter work on the railway consisted of maintenance, and repairs to damage caused by Allied bombing. by Howard Margolian. South Australian Rex Butler's time as a hard-riding buffalo shooter in the Northern Territory's crocodile swamps stood him in good stead when he went to war, fell into the hands of the Japanese and made an incredible escape. It was built from 1940 to 1943 by civilian labourers impressed or recruited by the Japanese and prisoners of war taken by the Japanese, to supply troops and weapons in . In 1941 these were adjusted to 19 and 40 years. This was to be over 400 Km long through inhospitable jungle and hills. They were some of 42 000 Dutch military and naval personnel and 100 000 Dutch civilians who were captured when the Japanese conquered the Netherlands East Indies in early 1942.

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