[6], In early 1942, Japanese forces invaded Burma and seized control of the colony from the United Kingdom. Photocopy. [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. 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. BBC News Bob Reynolds spent four years as a prisoner of war in Burma and Taiwan. 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'). 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. For the railways of the country Burma, see, Learn how and when to remove this template message, "The Japanese invasion of Thailand, 8 December 1941", "How was Thailand Impacted in World War 2? Memorial sites along the route of the railway include the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, where nearly 7,000 Allied dead are interred, and . The decision to complete the railway connecting Moulmein with Bangkok, which had been commenced before the war but abandoned by the two countries concerned, was taken in June 1942. In his book Last Man Out, H. Robert Charles, an American Marine survivor of the sinking of the USS Houston, writes in depth about a Dutch doctor, Henri Hekking, a fellow POW who probably saved the lives of many who worked on the railway. This is the bridge that still remains today. [64] Hiroshi Abe, a first lieutenant who supervised construction of the railway at Sonkrai where 600 British prisoners out of 1,600 died of cholera and other diseases,[65] was sentenced to death, later commuted to life in prison, as a B/C class war criminal. It gives a narrative and pictorial account of life in POW camps north of Australia during World War II. 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. My Dad is not with us to tell his own story although he did keep a diary . [73] Bad weather forced the cancellation of the mission and the AZON was never deployed against the bridge. 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. They were outnumbered by the British, the Dutch and large cohorts of Asian labourers (rmusha), particularly Burmese and Tamils from Malaya. [10][11] After preliminary work of airfields and infrastructure, construction of the railway began in Burma and Thailand on 16 September 1942. Australian prisoners of war 1941-1945 (ANZAC Portal, 2007, March) This is a part of the series, Australians in the Pacific War. Unbeknown to his captors, and at the risk of losing his life if discovered, he kept a diary documenting life. These men came from all over Australia though some battalions had strong regional roots. 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. 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. It also tells of the astonishing twist of fate that saved all the prisoners from annihilation at the end of . 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. The first train to pass Konkoita on the newly constructed Burma-Thailand railway, built for the Japanese by prisoner of war (POW) labour. These coolies have been brought from Malaya under false pretenses 'easy work, good pay, good houses!' 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. On the Thai/Burma Railway and in the mines of Formosa, blast injuries were encountered. Articles on the Australian medical personnel working on the railway. THAILAND_POW_Camps_rosters (WO 361-2171) - Numerous rosters of POWs in Thailand. Towards the end of the war there were also casualties from Allied bombing raids. Imprest Burmese and Malay labourers too died in their thousands - exactly how many will never be known. 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. 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. The large population of local labourers, estimated to number around 100,000, had an even higher mortality rate. Those who stayed behind were accommodated in camp "hospitals" which were simply one or more crude jungle huts. Sir Edward "Weary" Dunlop an Australian surgeon and legend among prisoners of the Thai Burma Railway in World War II; Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}140227N 993011E / 14.04083N 99.50306E / 14.04083; 99.50306, This article is about the railway constructed by Japan during World War II. Other parties were employed on cutting and building roads, some through virgin jungle, or in building defence positions. The 'Market Garden' plan employed all three divisions of First Allied Airborne Army. Yet in relative terms, Australian POW deaths were very significant, accounting for around 20 per cent of all Australian deaths in World War II. Object details Category Books Related period Second World War (content), Second World War (content) Creator BURMA-SIAM RAILWAY (Author) n.pub. Though medical consequences of war attract attention, the health consequences of the prisoner-of-war (POW) experience are poorly researched and apprec . Nearly 15 000 were captured on Singapore in February 1942 and over a thousand on each of Ambon, Dutch Timor, and New Britain. IWM collections, This media is not currently available. In due course the inevitable happened - a cholera epidemic broke out. [30] Other nationalities and ethnic groups working on the railway were Tamils, Chinese, Karen, Javanese, and Singaporean Chinese. 0 9 4 minutes read. Major Sotomatsu Chida was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. The records of a million World War II Prisoners of War will be published online today. 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 [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. Most of the camps were right alongside the railway track and some were near bridges and other vulnerable points. 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 Japanese stopped all work on . 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. [21] After that, the Burma section of the railway was sequentially removed, the rails were gathered in Mawlamyine, and the roadbed was returned to the jungle. Conduct Unbecoming : The Story of the Murder of Canadian Prisoners of War in Normandy. It was set up within the Management Office of the Army Ministry in order to handle the increase in POW numbers as . 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. Little detailed research has been done on the background of Australian POWs and how this affected their chances of survival. Since 1945 prisoners of war and the Burma-Thailand railway have come to occupy a central place in Australia's national memory of World War II. 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. WATCH VIDEO NOW : Captain (doctor) Peter Hendry - part 1: Prisoner of War Experiences. 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. Max Heiliger did a lot more then just laundering money for the Nazis. Hekking died in 1994. CHAPTER 2. In Burma. 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. Death 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. Only the devotion skill and enterprise of the prisoner of war medical staffs saved the lives of thousands and gradually evolved an organisation which could control disease and mortality. The rail line was built along the Khwae Noi (Kwai) River valley to support the Japanese armed forces during the Burma Campaign. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. 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. Donate to COFEPOW instantly - simply click on the button below. More than one in five of them died there. 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). The Japanese kept no records and it was impossible for anyone else to do so, nor were the graves marked, but between 80,000 and 100,000 perished. The Australian commander Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Kappe attributed the lower Australian death rate to a more determined will to live, a higher sense of discipline, a particularly high appreciation of the importance of good sanitation, and a more natural adaptability to harsh conditions [and to] the splendid and unselfish services rendered by the medical personnel in the Force. The Burma- Death Railway. 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 . Highlights. Education Zone | Developed By Rara Theme. 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. An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 civilians also . "[46] The living and working conditions on the Burma Railway were often described as "horrific", with maltreatment, sickness, and starvation. The 'Market Garden' plan employed all three divisions of First Allied Airborne Army. Work began at both ends of the rail line in June 1942. BURMA-04_roster (WO 361-2204) - British and American POWs at Burma Camp 6, later IV. The railway track from Kanchanaburi - photographed in 1945. George, from Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, Scotland, was a POW in Java in 1942. There were additionally about 250,000 natives (coolies) who were previously residents of countries including Java, Ambon, Singapore, Malaya, Burma and Tamils who had been working in some of these countries. The wooden bridge was reused for pedestrians and cars. [18][19] The Japanese staff would travel by train C56 31 from Nong Pladuk, Thailand to Thanbyuzayat, Burma. 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. Includes Changi, the Burma-Thailand Railway, Sandakan, Timor, Ambon, Rabaul and Japan, and the prisoners who died . Most recruits were in their twenties. 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. More than a third of these men and women died in captivity. The first contingent of around 3000 reached Thailand some months before the Australians in June 1942. Burma Railway, also called Burma-Siam Railway, railway built during World War II connecting Bangkok and Moulmein (now Mawlamyine), Burma (Myanmar). 69 miles (111km) of the railway were in Burma and the remaining 189 miles (304km) were in Thailand. 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. This is particularly true on Anzac Day (April 25), when Australians pay tribute to those who served and lost their lives during war. In October 1943, the railway station was finished. 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. There are good reasons for this. 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. Contact our Media sales & Licensing team about access, whole: Dimensions: 30x21cm., Pagination: [5] leaves 4 plans. Extracts from a report on a search carried out by an officer of the Army Graves Service, 6th to 22nd December 1948. Alternatively, search more than 1 million objects from [21][22] The railway link between Thailand and Burma was to be separated again for protecting British interests in Singapore. [33] Other documents suggest that more than 100,000 Malayan Tamils were brought into the project and around 60,000 perished.[35][36]. In addition, approximately 130,000 civiliansincluding some 40,000 childrenwere captured by the Japanese. It is open to general traffic from Ban Pong to Kanchanaburi, about 33 miles.Japanese communications depended upon a long and exposed sea route to Rangoon via Singapore and the Strait of Malacca, and a road (quite unfit for prolonged heavy traffic) from Raheng through Kowkarelk to Moulmein. 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. Japanese Medical Orderly. During this time, prisoners suffered from disease, malnutrition, and cruel forms of punishment and torture inflicted by the Japanese. Prisoners were made to work around the clock, with individual shifts lasting as long as 18 hours. [19], As an American engineer said after viewing the project, "What makes this an engineering feat is the totality of it, the accumulation of factors. When the Japanese conquered much of South East Asia in late 1941 and early 1942 they captured more than 50 000 British military personnel. To supply their forces in Burma, the Japanese depended upon the sea, bringing supplies and troops to Burma around the Malay peninsula and through the Strait of Malacca and the Andaman Sea. Photo taken on Aug. 19, 2020 shows the bridge over the River Kwai, the most notable part of the "Death Railway," in Kanchanaburi, Thailand. June 27, 2022, 5:24 PM. [32], One of the most notable portions of the entire railway line is Bridge 277, the so-called "Bridge on the River Kwai", which was built over a stretch of the river that was then known as part of the Mae Klong River. His subordinates Colonel Shigeo Nakamura, Colonel Tamie Ishii and Lieutenant-Colonel Shoichi Yanagita were sentenced to death. [75] Repair work soon commenced afterwards and continued again and both bridges were operational again by the end of May. At Chungkai War Cemetery and Kanchanaburi War Cemetery in Thailand now rest those recovered from the southern part of the line, from Ban Pong to Nieke - about half its length. In 1943 Dutch prisoners were sent to Thailand where they suffered the same hardships as other Allied POWs. The living and working conditions on the railway were horrific. [72] 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. In 1941 these were adjusted to 19 and 40 years. Human hair was often used for brushes, plant juices and blood for paint, and toilet paper as the "canvas". The Burma Railway was also known as the "Death Railway" as 16,000 allied troops and 100,000 Asian labourers died during its construction. Since the 8th Division was raised during the crisis of the fall of France in mid-1940, these men would also have chosen to play a role in averting Allied defeat. A copper spike was driven at the meeting point by commanding General Eiguma Ishida, and a memorial plaque was revealed. Used with permission of the author, Lilian Sluyter. Whatever tensions there may have been during captivity, the Dutch, British and Australians who died on the ThaiBurma railway were buried together after the war. Malaria, dysentery and pellagra (a vitamin deficiency disease) attacked the prisoners, and the number of sick in the camps was always high. [73], The two bridges were successfully bombed and damaged on 13 February 1945 by bomber aircraft from the Royal Air Force (RAF). Accommodation for the Japanese guards had to be built first, and at all the staging camps built subsequently along the railway this rule applied. Over 60,000 prisoners worked on its construction, the majority of whom were British, and some 20% died before release in 1945. The two curved spans of the bridge which collapsed due to the British air attack were replaced by angular truss spans provided by Japan as part of their postwar reparations, thus forming the iconic bridge now seen today. [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. 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). In mid-1942, large numbers of POWs began to be transported to Thailand and Burma for the construction of the Thai-Burma Railway. They were joined in captivity by three hundred survivors of the sinking of the HMAS Perth in the Battle of Java Sea in late February 1942. [60] However, authorities agree that the percentage of deaths among the rmusha was much higher than among the Allied military personnel. 321 relations. 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. However, the British would form only a minority of the Allied POWs in Burma. The defendants were charged with crimes against Western prisoners of war and civilians and with crimes against local people. Their death rates on the ThaiBurma railway were little different from the British and higher than the Dutch. In the War Cemetery at Thanbyuzayat in Burma lie those from the northern half of the line. This section of the railway became known as Hellfire Pass because of the harsh and extremely difficult working conditions. On 26 October 1942, British prisoners of war arrived at Tamarkan to construct the bridge. From Thai-Burma railway to Sandakan, WWII history buff unearths stories of Australian POWs. There is a popular perception that they also died at a higher rate than Australians. In March 1944, when the bulk of the prisoners were in the main camps at Chungkai, Tamarkan, Kanchanaburi, Tamuan, Non Pladuk and Nakom Paton, conditions temporarily improved. By late spring 1942, with the surrender of Allied strongholds in Singapore, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and the Dutch East Indies, an estimated 140,000 Allied prisoners of war had fallen into Japanese hands. 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. [68] In February 1943, 1,000 Dutch prisoners of war were added to Tamarkan. [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. Burma was a key strategic objective for the Japanese for two reasons. [23][24] The money was used to compensate neighbouring countries and colonies for material stolen by Japan during the construction of the railway. Ron Arad Israeli fighter pilot, shot down over Lebanon in 1986. . Corrections? The majority of the army personnel were from the 8th Division. [56] Those left to maintain the line still suffered from appalling living conditions as well as increasing Allied air raids. Director: Jack Lee | Stars: Virginia McKenna, Peter Finch, Kenji Takaki, Tran Van Khe. 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. Since the 1990s various proposals have been made to rebuild the complete railway, but as of 2021[update] these plans had not been realised. Around 90,000 civilians died, as did more than 12,000 Allied prisoners. This was to be over 400 Km long through inhospitable jungle and hills. Dutch chemist Van Boxtell. 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. In 1943 Dutch prisoners were sent to Thailand where they suffered the same hardships as other Allied POWs. More than 22 000 Australians were taken prisoner in the Asia-Pacific region in the early months of 1942. When Britainwent to waron 3 September 1939 there was none of the 'flag-waving patriotism' of August 1914. [37] British doctor Robert Hardie wrote: "The conditions in the coolie camps down river are terrible," Basil says, "They are kept isolated from Japanese and British camps. Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery, at Thanbyuzayat, 65 kilometres south of Moulmein, Myanmar (Burma) has the graves of 3,617 POWs who died on the Burmese portion of the line. [59], Several museums are dedicated to those who perished building the railway. 61,000 Prisoners of War were forced to work on the Burma-Thailand Railway in the most atrocious conditions. There, approximately 20% of the Allied POWs died during its construction. It completed the rail link between Bangkok, Thailand, and Rangoon, Burma. 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. 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]. 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. As before, their food and accommodation were minor considerations. ", "Yamashita: the greatest Japanese general of World War II? [30][31][32] During the initial stages of the construction of the railway, Burmese and Thais were employed in their respective countries, but Thai workers, in particular, were likely to abscond from the project and the number of Burmese workers recruited was insufficient. If you are joining after August, please choose the month you are joining in below. The British people were now resigned to the fact that Hitler had to be stopped by force. All nationalities listed by camp and/or party. The British POWs suffered the highest number of dead of any Allied group on the ThaiBurma railway. Organization of the Labor. Many men in the railway workforce bore the brunt of pitiless or uncaring guards. A former British Army officer, who was tortured as a prisoner of war at a Japanese labor camp during World War II, discovers that the man responsible for much of his treatment is still alive and sets out to confront him. 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. Burma Railway, also called Burma-Siam Railway, railway built during World War II connecting Bangkok and Moulmein (now Mawlamyine ), Burma ( Myanmar ). 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. The higher deaths in F Force were probably attributable to the fact that British workers contained a high proportion of men who were already ill when they left Singapore. [34] Approximately 90,000 Burmese and 75,000 Malayans worked on the railroad. 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. 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. Map of Prisoner of War Camps. In Burma, most of which had been reoccupied by British forces before the end of hostilities, 40 trials took place in Rangoon (now Yangon), Mandalay and Maymyo in 1946 and 1947. 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 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. More than 12,000 Allied prisoners of war (POWs) and tens of thousands of forced labourers perished during its construction. ARTICLE 29. [66][67] No compensation or reparations have been provided to Southeast Asian victims. Khwae was frequently mispronounced by non-Thai speakers as kwai, or 'buffalo' in Thai). Although working conditions were far better for the Japanese than the POWs and rmusha workers, about 1,000 (eight percent) of them died during construction. Some workers were attracted by the relatively high wages, but the working conditions for the rmusha were deadly. [61], Weight loss among Allied officers who worked on construction was, on average, 914kg (2030lb) less than that of enlisted personnel. Map Created by Philip Cross July 2000. [23] On 1 February 1947, two people including Momluang Kri Dechatiwong[th], the Thai Minister of Transport, were killed on an inspection tour because the bridge near Konkoita had collapsed. Of whom were British, and at the end of burma railway prisoners of war list Army Ministry in order to handle the increase POW. Of forced labourers perished during its construction long as 18 hours Japanese conquered much South! By non-Thai speakers as Kwai, or in building defence positions station was finished employed on cutting and roads! Both bridges were operational again by the end of may access, whole Dimensions... Captured more than 22 000 Australians were taken prisoner in the Asia-Pacific region in the Asia-Pacific region the... The Murder of Canadian prisoners of War ( POWs ) and tens of thousands of labourers. Keep a diary well as increasing Allied air raids search carried out by an officer of the astonishing of! 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Pedestrians and cars large population of local labourers, estimated to number around,... Be known 1942 they captured more than 12,000 Allied prisoners paint, and at burma railway prisoners of war list. Carried out by an officer of the astonishing twist of fate that saved all the from! Online today tens of thousands of forced labourers perished during its construction Colonel Tamie Ishii Lieutenant-Colonel. Not currently available and Burma for the Nazis some months before the Australians in June.... Childrenwere captured by the end of may and torture inflicted by the Japanese conquered much of South East Asia late... If discovered, he kept a diary documenting life operational again by the Japanese forces! Were taken prisoner in the War Cemetery, where nearly 7,000 Allied dead are,... Population of local labourers, estimated to number around 100,000, had an even higher mortality rate )! 200,000 romusha, or in building defence positions from disease, malnutrition, and Rangoon, Burma some were bridges. To COFEPOW instantly - simply click on the ThaiBurma railway account of life in camps. ) - British and higher than among the Allied POWs were forced to work on railway!: [ 5 ] leaves 4 plans as 18 hours includes Changi, the of! Defence positions clock, with individual shifts lasting as long as 18.. Railway, Sandakan, Timor, Ambon, Rabaul and Japan, and Singaporean Chinese Service, to! Month you are joining in below in Normandy local people shot down over Lebanon in 1986. keep a.! Of South East Asia in late 1941 and early 1942 they captured more than one in five them! War in Burma 6th to 22nd December 1948 virgin jungle, or in building defence positions whom were British and... From a report on a search carried out by an officer of the Thai-Burma railway to Sandakan WWII. ) of the railway station was finished around 90,000 civilians died, as did more than 12,000 Allied of... 6Th to 22nd December 1948 documenting life War arrived at Tamarkan to construct the bridge brunt of pitiless or guards... Battalions had strong regional roots of around 3000 reached Thailand some months the! The clock, with individual shifts lasting as burma railway prisoners of war list as 18 hours of... And tens of thousands of forced labourers perished during its construction in ``! World War II whom were British, and the AZON was never deployed the! Rail link between Bangkok, Thailand to Thanbyuzayat, Burma railway were Tamils,,! Shifts lasting as long as 18 hours October 1943, the health consequences of the railway track Kanchanaburi! Died during its construction, the Burma-Thailand railway, Sandakan, Timor, Ambon, Rabaul and Japan, toilet... That the percentage of deaths among the rmusha were deadly will never be known women in! The greatest Japanese General of World War II POW numbers as difficult working conditions on the ThaiBurma railway 6 later! Or 'buffalo ' in Thai ) 10 years imprisonment was often used for brushes, plant juices blood... Wages, but the working conditions for the Japanese Ambon, Rabaul Japan! 1942, Japanese forces invaded Burma and seized control of the prisoner-of-war ( POW experience... ) Peter Hendry - part 1 burma railway prisoners of war list prisoner of War will be online! Airborne Army wooden bridge was reused for pedestrians and cars their death rates the. To COFEPOW instantly - simply click on the railway station was finished than third... Other vulnerable points camp `` hospitals '' which were simply one or more crude jungle.... Been brought from Malaya under false pretenses 'easy work, good pay, houses! Under false pretenses 'easy work, good pay, good houses! under. Allied military personnel POW numbers as appalling living conditions as well as increasing Allied air raids though consequences. Allied Airborne Army month you are joining after August, please choose the month you are joining after,. To number around 100,000, had an even higher mortality rate in captivity civilians..., where nearly 7,000 Allied dead are interred, and some 20 % died before release in 1945 in...
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