The second largest group of prisoners more than 2700 were captured on Java. 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. Steve White-do-not-use. 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. Jayma April 17, 2022. The movement of POWs northward from Changi Prison in Singapore and other prison camps in Southeast Asia began in May 1942. Death Railway . When the Japanese were not satisfied with the pace of work, prisoners were forced to endure atrocious physical punishment, and some 700 Allied prisoners died or were killed at Hellfire Pass. Railway Construction Camp - Kanya, Thailand. Many men in the railway workforce bore the brunt of pitiless or uncaring guards. Human hair was often used for brushes, plant juices and blood for paint, and toilet paper as the "canvas". When Britainwent to waron 3 September 1939 there was none of the 'flag-waving patriotism' of August 1914. [66][67] No compensation or reparations have been provided to Southeast Asian victims. Lieutenant General Eiguma Ishida, overall commander of the Burma Railway, was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. Imprest Burmese and Malay labourers too died in their thousands - exactly how many will never be known. [56] Those left to maintain the line still suffered from appalling living conditions as well as increasing Allied air raids. [42][43] Workers were moved up and down the railway line as needed. Among the Allied POWs were some 30,000 British, 13,000 Australians, 18,000 Dutch, and 700 Americans. 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. 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]. 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. 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 . [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. In the War Cemetery at Thanbyuzayat in Burma lie those from the northern half of the line. Max Heiliger did a lot more then just laundering money for the Nazis. ", "Burma-Siam Railway - Australia receives no payment", "Grote schade aan materiaal der N.I. 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 largest of these is at Hellfire Pass (north of the current terminus at Nam Tok), a cutting where the greatest number of people died. Sort by: POW Thai Burma Death. Corrections? Only the first 130 kilometres (81mi) of the line in Thailand remained, with trains still running as far north as Nam Tok. Those who stayed behind were accommodated in camp "hospitals" which were simply one or more crude jungle huts. Parts of the abandoned route have been converted into a walking trail.[28]. [14][15][16], The railway was completed ahead of schedule. [98] There is a memorial plaque at the Kwai bridge itself,[99] and an historic wartime steam locomotive is on display. 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 each: rank, serial number, regiment, date of birth, home address, next-of-kin, religion, date on which arrived at the camp, and date of leaving because of illness (the type of illness is stated in each case) or, as in many cases, death. Powered by WordPress. Accommodation for the Japanese guards had to be built first, and at all the staging camps built subsequently along the railway this rule applied. A further 354 were from the Royal Australian Navy and 373 from the Royal Australian Air Force. 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. From June 1942 onwards large groups of prisoners were transferred periodically to Thailand and Burma from Java, Sumatra and Borneo. [17] A holiday was declared for 25 October which was chosen as the ceremonial opening of the line. 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. 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. Some 30 000 of these prisoners of war later worked on the Thai-Burma railway. Four prisoners of war with beri-beri, Nam Tok, 1943 Life and death on the railway The railway took 12 months to build, with final completion on 16 October 1943. The Death Railway is only one of the names describing the Japanese project built in 1943 to provide support to its forces during World War II. Since the 1990s various proposals have been made to rebuild the complete railway, but as of 2021[update] these plans had not been realised. 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. Taff suffered from dysentery, malaria, beri beri and cholera but, unlike so many, he survived. 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. 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. Source 4 - Sleepers Map of the Thai-Burma Railway Sleepers from Hellfire Pass Source 1 - The Wreaths 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. This is particularly true on Anzac Day (April 25), when Australians pay tribute to those who served and lost their lives during war. Education Zone | Developed By Rara Theme. BBC News Bob Reynolds spent four years as a prisoner of war in Burma and Taiwan. 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. 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. The large population of local labourers, estimated to number around 100,000, had an even higher mortality rate. "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. Sixty-nine men were beaten to death by Japanese guards in the twelve weeks it took to build the cutting, and many more died from cholera, dysentery, starvation, and exhaustion. [8], The project aimed to connect Ban Pong in Thailand with Thanbyuzayat in Burma, linking up with existing railways at both places. Some rosters show if living, dead or killed in action (KIA), cause of death and burial site. The Burma- Death Railway. The final route was between Bangkok in Thailand and Rangoon, Myanmar (Burma). 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. [3][4] Thailand was forced to accept an alliance,[5] and was used as a staging point for the attack on Singapore. 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. 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. These activities engaged numerous POWs as actors, singers, musicians, designers, technicians, and female impersonators. Australians were not the largest national group on the railway. In these camps entertainment flourished as an essential part of their rehabilitation. 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. 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. 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 name used by the Japanese Government was TaiMen Rensetsu Tetsud (), which means Thailand-Burma-Link-Railway. 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 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. 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. Some have even brought wives and children. Published by Marsworth. 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. 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. BURMA-04_roster (WO 361-2204) - British and American POWs at Burma Camp 6, later IV. [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 defendants were charged with crimes against Western prisoners of war and civilians and with crimes against local people. Privacy Policy. The only redeeming feature was the ease with which the sick could be evacuated to base hospitals in trains returning empty from Burma. An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 civilians also . The majority of the army personnel were from the 8th Division. The British POWs suffered the highest number of dead of any Allied group on the ThaiBurma railway.