On 17 October 1943, construction gangs originating in Burma working south met up with construction gangs originating in Thailand working north. 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. My Dad is not with us to tell his own story although he did keep a diary . Since the 1990s various proposals have been made to rebuild the complete railway, but as of 2021[update] these plans had not been realised. Second, the occupation of Burma would also put Japanese armies on the doorstep of British India. It also describes the living and working conditions experienced by the POWs, together with the culture of the Thai towns and countryside that became many POWs' homes after leaving Singapore with the working parties sent to the railway. [62], Workers in more isolated areas suffered a much higher death rate than did others. 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 horrendous experiences endured by the thousands of POWs has made the Burma Railway a place of pilgrimage and commemoration. 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. 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. Most of the camps were right alongside the railway track and some were near bridges and other vulnerable points. The railway was overworked carrying troops and military supplies, and local traders seldom visited the camps of the working parties, small compared with those of 1943 and therefore not so profitable; so that supplementary food supplies were scanty, and again sickness took its toll. If you are joining after August, please choose the month you are joining in below. The two parties met at Nieke in November 1943, and the line - 263 miles long - was completed by December. These activities engaged numerous POWs as actors, singers, musicians, designers, technicians, and female impersonators. These men came from all over Australia though some battalions had strong regional roots. The Burmese had welcomed the invasion by Japan and cooperated with Japan in recruiting workers. Labor furnished by prisoners of war shall have no direct relation with war operations. 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. There is a popular perception that they also died at a higher rate than Australians. Director: Jack Lee | Stars: Virginia McKenna, Peter Finch, Kenji Takaki, Tran Van Khe. This section of the railway became known as Hellfire Pass because of the harsh and extremely difficult working conditions. The records of a million World War II Prisoners of War will be published online today. Part Two: Capture Examines the shock of capture for Australians, with first-hand accounts describing the physical circumstances of internment, and the feelin. 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. An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 civilians also . However, the film and book contain many historical inaccuracies, and should be considered works of fiction. [18][19] The Japanese staff would travel by train C56 31 from Nong Pladuk, Thailand to Thanbyuzayat, Burma. By far the majority of British POWs nearly 29 000 of them were sent to Thailand. From Thai-Burma railway to Sandakan, WWII history buff unearths stories of Australian POWs. [68] In February 1943, 1,000 Dutch prisoners of war were added to Tamarkan. 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. Thailand - Burma Railway. 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. 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. However, it is known that all of them had volunteered to serve. The British people were now resigned to the fact that Hitler had to be stopped by force. 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. 3:09pm Oct 16, 2018. No prisoner of war may be employed at labors for which he is physically unfit. After the railway was completed, the POWs still had almost two years to survive before liberation. Some 30 000 of these prisoners of war later worked on the Thai-Burma railway. 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. In 1941 these were adjusted to 19 and 40 years. In contrast, only 4000 Australians were captured by the Germans and Ottomans in World War I. Java was the place where the second largest group of Australians was captured. Two hundred men were housed in each barracks, giving each man a two-foot wide space in which to live and sleep. Published by Marsworth. 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. (Publisher) [54][55], After the completion of the railroad, over 10,000 POWs were then transported to Japan. 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. 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'. 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. The railway connected Thailand and Burma and was shut down in 1947, after the war. The Americans were called the Lost Battalion as their fate was unknown to the United States for more than two years after their capture. Some 30 000 of these prisoners of war later worked on the ThaiBurma railway. This gave rise to the name of "River Kwai" in English. In addition, approximately 130,000 civiliansincluding some 40,000 childrenwere captured by the Japanese. One of the earliest and most respected accounts is ex-POW John Coast's Railroad of Death, first published in 1946 and republished in a new edition in 2014. His account of the conditions and suffering endured by his fellow prisoners and himself makes for the most extraordinary and disturbing reading. In October 1943, the railway station was finished. [75] Repair work soon commenced afterwards and continued again and both bridges were operational again by the end of May. 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. [21][22] The railway link between Thailand and Burma was to be separated again for protecting British interests in Singapore. Only the first 130 kilometres (81mi) of the line in Thailand remained, with trains still running as far north as Nam Tok. Thinking back, she recalls the Australian man who made a great sacrifice to aid her and her fellow prisoners of war. Photo taken on Aug. 19, 2020 shows the bridge over the River Kwai, the most notable part of the "Death Railway," in Kanchanaburi, Thailand. [40][41] Construction camps housing at least 1,000 workers each were established every 510 miles (817km) of the route. They worked on airfields and other infrastructure initially before beginning construction of the railway in October 1942. 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). Little is known of why the men of the 2nd AIF volunteered to serve. 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. The Japanese stopped all work on . They were treated brutally by the Japanese, and struggled with tropical diseases and the effects of malnutrition. This was the same time at which Australians in A Force left Changi for Burma. The Burma- Death Railway. Their death rates on the ThaiBurma railway were little different from the British and higher than the Dutch. THAILAND_POW_Camps_rosters (WO 361-2171) - Numerous rosters of POWs in Thailand. Of the 668 US personnel forced to work on the railway, 133 died. BBC News Bob Reynolds spent four years as a prisoner of war in Burma and Taiwan. 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. A bridge was not built until the Thanlwin Bridge (carrying both regular road and railroad traffic) was constructed between 2000 and 2005. For example, a group of 400 Dutch prisoners, which included three doctors with extensive tropical medicine experience, suffered no deaths at all. 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. [30] Other nationalities and ethnic groups working on the railway were Tamils, Chinese, Karen, Javanese, and Singaporean Chinese. 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