Estimates vary but the number who worked on the railway was possibly as high as 18 000. 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. Some 30 000 of these prisoners of war later worked on the ThaiBurma railway. Source 4 - Sleepers Map of the Thai-Burma Railway Sleepers from Hellfire Pass Source 1 - The Wreaths 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. 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. More than 12,000 Allied prisoners of war (POWs) and tens of thousands of forced labourers perished during its construction. The railway was to run 420 kilometres through rugged jungle. Australian POW Prisoners of War Books about Thai Burma Railway Hellfire Pass Military Books DVD Docos. 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. Konkoita is approximately 263 kilometres north of Nong Pladuk (also known as Non Pladuk), or 151 kilometres south of Thanbyuzayat. Accommodation for the Japanese guards had to be built first, and at all the staging camps built subsequently along the railway this rule applied. 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. A large number of the British and Australian captives were sent to Burma (Myanmar). Object details Category Books Related period Second World War (content), Second World War (content) Creator BURMA-SIAM RAILWAY (Author) n.pub. 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. Little is known of why the men of the 2nd AIF volunteered to serve. 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. Australians were not the largest national group on the railway. utilisation of prisoner of war labour in japanese prisoner of war camps. Extracts from a report on a search carried out by an officer of the Army Graves Service, 6th to 22nd December 1948. Director Jonathan Teplitzky Writers Frank Cottrell Boyce (screenplay) Andy Paterson (screenplay) Eric Lomax (book) Stars Red Cross parcels helped, but these were invariably held up by the Japanese. 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. [25][26] After the accident, it was decided to end the line at Nam Tok and reuse the remainder to rehabilitate the line. 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? Cruelty could take different forms, from extreme violence and torture to minor acts of physical punishment, humiliation, and neglect. [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. These pages are dedicated to my father Ken Heyes (Lance Corporal, 1st Aust Corps Troop Supply Column AIF, POW), his good friend, Ernie Badham and all the other brave soldiers who spent so many years in the hell-holes that were the Japanese P.O.W camps during World War II. [39] More prisoners of war were imported from Singapore and the Dutch East Indies as construction advanced. 321 relations. The remains of the notorious F-Force camp in Thailand. [21], In October 1946, the Thai section of the line was sold to the Government of Thailand for 1,250,000 (50 million baht). Alternatively, search more than 1 million objects from The youth of many Australian prisoners of war was very evident and many enlisted at an age younger than 20. 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. These POWs, day after day, have their bodies pushed to extremes in an effort to complete the construction of the 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. In due course the inevitable happened - a cholera epidemic broke out. 3:09pm Oct 16, 2018. The rail line was built along the Khwae Noi (Kwai) River valley to support the Japanese armed forces during the Burma Campaign. Lt Col Coates the greatest doctor on the Burma Thailand Railway. The railway track from Kanchanaburi - photographed in 1945. For much of its . [12][13] The projected completion date was December 1943. One factor was that many European and US doctors had little experience with tropical diseases. Show more. With an enormous pool of captive labour at their disposal, the Japanese forced approximately 200,000 Asian conscripts and over 60,000 Allied POWs to construct the Burma Railway. 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. 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. From late 1942 more than 13 000 Australians were sent from Singapore, Java and Timor to work on the ThaiBurma railway. See more ideas about prisoners of war, war, historical. The 'Death Railway' was very well named. 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. Altogether, some 35,000 parachute and glider troops were involved in the operation. Frequently men were sent to work on the line long before their accommodation was completed. CHAPTER 2. 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. A further 354 were from the Royal Australian Navy and 373 from the Royal Australian Air Force. [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. Prisoners of War 330,000 people worked on building the railway, including 250,000 Asian laborers and 61,000 prisoners of war (POWs). 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. A copper spike was driven at the meeting point by commanding General Eiguma Ishida, and a memorial plaque was revealed. The defendants were charged with crimes against Western prisoners of war and civilians and with crimes against local people. More than a third of these men and women died in captivity. 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]. After the railway was completed, the POWs still had almost two years to survive before liberation. 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. Human hair was often used for brushes, plant juices and blood for paint, and toilet paper as the "canvas". The map shows the significance of the building of the Thai-Burma railway by the Australian prisoners of war to Australia because it shows where the POWs were located whilst being prisoners. 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 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. 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. When Britainwent to waron 3 September 1939 there was none of the 'flag-waving patriotism' of August 1914. [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. 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. 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. description Object description. As before, their food and accommodation were minor considerations. Altogether, some 35,000 parachute and glider troops were involved in the operation. 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. For example, a group of 400 Dutch prisoners, which included three doctors with extensive tropical medicine experience, suffered no deaths at all. A bridge was not built until the Thanlwin Bridge (carrying both regular road and railroad traffic) was constructed between 2000 and 2005. 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. 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. The 'Market Garden' plan employed all three divisions of First Allied Airborne Army. Highlights. 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. Some rosters show if living, dead or killed in action (KIA), cause of death and burial site. Thereafter work on the railway consisted of maintenance, and repairs to damage caused by Allied bombing. 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. ARTICLE 29. [7] The Japanese began this project in June 1942. Conditions were significantly worse than at Changi, with forced hard labour and severely inadequate supplies of food and medicines. Photocopy. [10][11] After preliminary work of airfields and infrastructure, construction of the railway began in Burma and Thailand on 16 September 1942. The Japanese Army transported 500,000 tonnes of freight[citation needed] over the railway before it fell into Allied hands. Thirty-two of them were sentenced to death. 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 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. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. 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 Burma Railway, also known as the Death Railway, the Siam-Burma Railway, the Thai-Burma Railway and similar names, was a railway between Ban Pong, Thailand, and Thanbyuzayat, Burma, built by the Empire of Japan in 1943 to support its forces in the Burma campaign of World War II. Special British prisoner parties at Kinsaiyok bury about 20 coolies a day. From Thai-Burma railway to Sandakan, WWII history buff unearths stories of Australian POWs. 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. BURMA-04_roster (WO 361-2204) - British and American POWs at Burma Camp 6, later IV. Around 90,000 civilians died, as did more than 12,000 Allied prisoners. The records of a million World War II Prisoners of War will be published online today. [90], Three cemeteries maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) contain the vast majority of Allied military personnel who died on the Burma Railway.[90]. The railway connected Thailand and Burma and was shut down in 1947, after the war. [30] Other nationalities and ethnic groups working on the railway were Tamils, Chinese, Karen, Javanese, and Singaporean Chinese.
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