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. The railway was to run 420 kilometres through rugged jungle. Alternatively, search more than 1 million objects from 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. 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. [17] A holiday was declared for 25 October which was chosen as the ceremonial opening of the line. 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. [73], The two bridges were successfully bombed and damaged on 13 February 1945 by bomber aircraft from the Royal Air Force (RAF). 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. 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 . The vast majority of the men of the 2nd AIF were of European descent. More than a third of these men and women died in captivity. Work on the railway started at Thanbyuzayat on 1st October 1942 and somewhat later at Ban Pong. This was to be over 400 Km long through inhospitable jungle and hills. 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. 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. [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. Vegetables and other perishables long in transit arrived rotten. Most of the camps were right alongside the railway track and some were near bridges and other vulnerable points. ARTICLE 29. This gave rise to the name of "River Kwai" in English. 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. Little detailed research has been done on the background of Australian POWs and how this affected their chances of survival. Thereafter work on the railway consisted of maintenance, and repairs to damage caused by Allied bombing. 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. The remains of United States personnel were repatriated. Omissions? If you are joining after August, please choose the month you are joining in below. [45], The prisoners of war "found themselves at the bottom of a social system that was harsh, punitive, fanatical, and often deadly. Second, the occupation of Burma would also put Japanese armies on the doorstep of British India. Thailand - Burma Railway. [23][24] The money was used to compensate neighbouring countries and colonies for material stolen by Japan during the construction of the railway. 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. Unbeknown to his captors, and at the risk of losing his life if discovered, he kept a diary documenting life. Dancing Along the Deadline : The Andersonville Memoir of a Prisoner of the Confederacy. 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. 0 9 4 minutes read. The defendants were charged with crimes against Western prisoners of war and civilians and with crimes against local people. The majority of the army personnel were from the 8th Division. Many remember Japanese soldiers as being cruel and indifferent to the fate of Allied prisoners of war and the Asian rmusha. [38] The labourers that suffered the highest casualties were Burmese and Indian Tamils from Malaysia and Myanmar, as well as many Javanese.[30]. CHAPTER 2. 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. An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 civilians also . 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. 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). 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. More than one in five of them died there. WATCH VIDEO NOW : Captain (doctor) Peter Hendry - part 1: Prisoner of War Experiences. [2], Thailand was a neutral country at the onset of World War II. Nearly 15 000 were captured on Singapore in February 1942 and over a thousand on each of Ambon, Dutch Timor, and New Britain. Many are now held by the Australian War Memorial, State Library of Victoria, and the Imperial War Museum in London. 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 wooden bridge was reused for pedestrians and cars. 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. 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. When that failed to attract sufficient workers, they resorted to more coercive methods, rounding up workers and impressing them, especially in Malaya. 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. A great deal of equipment was improvised by the medical officers and orderlies, and food and medicines were clandestinely obtained. 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. A newly wealthy English woman returns to Malaya to build a well for the villagers who helped her during war. 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. 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. 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. Only the first 130 kilometres (81mi) of the line in Thailand remained, with trains still running as far north as Nam Tok. Human hair was often used for brushes, plant juices and blood for paint, and toilet paper as the "canvas". Flanagan's 2013 book The Narrow Road to the Deep North centres on a group of Australian POWs and their experiences building the railway as slave labour, and was awarded the 2014 Man Booker Prize. 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. 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. The large population of local labourers, estimated to number around 100,000, had an even higher mortality rate. Powered by WordPress. 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. Repeated reconnaissance flights over the Burma end of the railway started early in 1943, followed by bombings at intervals. The youth of many Australian prisoners of war was very evident and many enlisted at an age younger than 20. 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. IWM collections, This media is not currently available. 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. Privacy Policy. The Burmese had welcomed the invasion by Japan and cooperated with Japan in recruiting workers. 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 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. "[38], The first prisoners of war, 3,000 Australians, to go to Burma left Changi Prison in Singapore on 14 May 1942 and journeyed by sea to near Thanbyuzayat ( in the Burmese language; in English 'Tin Shelter'), the northern terminus of the railway. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). [8], The project aimed to connect Ban Pong in Thailand with Thanbyuzayat in Burma, linking up with existing railways at both places. Even though defeated, they displayed the Anzac skills of resourcefulness, laconic humour, mateship and survival against the odds. Prisoners were made to work around the clock, with individual shifts lasting as long as 18 hours. Articles on the Australian medical personnel working on the railway. Includes Changi, the Burma-Thailand Railway, Sandakan, Timor, Ambon, Rabaul and Japan, and the prisoners who died . The Prisoner List: The Film A short film about prisoners of the Japanese in WWII based on the book by Richard Kandler About the book The above film, made by Kate Owen and Danny Roberts, is based on Richard Kandler's book: The Prisoner List: A true story of defeat, captivity and salvation in the Far East 1941-45. 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). On 16 January 1946, the British ordered Japanese POWs to remove a four kilometre stretch of rail between Nikki (Ni Thea) and Sonkrai. 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. Hekking died in 1994. 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. 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. At the end of the war, the Japanese Armed Forces destroyed all documents related to the POW Camps. It is also the case that Australians distinctive national characteristics did not give them a greater chance of survival, as is sometimes assumed. Dutch chemist Van Boxtell. 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. The full year membership runs from August to the end of July the following year. Since the 1990s various proposals have been made to rebuild the complete railway, but as of 2021[update] these plans had not been realised. In 1943 Dutch prisoners were sent to Thailand where they suffered the same hardships as other Allied POWs. Taff suffered from dysentery, malaria, beri beri and cholera but, unlike so many, he survived. 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. 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). [53], The construction of the Burma Railway is counted as a war crime committed by Japan in Asia. 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. [71], A first wooden railroad bridge over the Khwae Yai was finished in February 1943, which was soon accompanied by a more modern ferro-concrete bridge in June 1943, with both bridges running in a NNESSW direction across the river. Subcategories Grid List There are 23 products. 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 . 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