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]. As before, their food and accommodation were minor considerations. [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. 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. [21][22] The railway link between Thailand and Burma was to be separated again for protecting British interests in Singapore. 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. 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. [60] However, authorities agree that the percentage of deaths among the rmusha was much higher than among the Allied military personnel. [2], Thailand was a neutral country at the onset of World War II. 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. 0 9 4 minutes read. The 'Market Garden' plan employed all three divisions of First Allied Airborne Army. [25][26] After the accident, it was decided to end the line at Nam Tok and reuse the remainder to rehabilitate the line. See more ideas about prisoners of war, war, historical. The Prisoner List 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. Thirty-two of them were sentenced to death. The large population of local labourers, estimated to number around 100,000, had an even higher mortality rate. [53], The construction of the Burma Railway is counted as a war crime committed by Japan in Asia. The Prisoner List. Cruelty could take different forms, from extreme violence and torture to minor acts of physical punishment, humiliation, and neglect. More than one in five of them died there. 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. 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. Thus, ferries were needed as an alternative connecting system. 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. [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. 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. ARTICLE 30. It completed the rail link between Bangkok, Thailand, and Rangoon, Burma. [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. "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. [29], The number of Southeast Asian workers recruited or impressed to work on the Burma railway has been estimated to have been more than 180,000 Southeast Asian civilian labourers (rmusha). 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). 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. 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. In due course the inevitable happened - a cholera epidemic broke out. 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. 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. 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. Throughout the building of the railway, food supplies were irregular and totally inadequate. 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. 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 construction of the railway is a heartbreaking story of forced labor, with more than 60,000 Allied prisoners of war . Only the first 130 kilometres (81mi) of the line in Thailand remained, with trains still running as far north as Nam Tok. In all, over 8000 of these men and women around 35 per cent would die during captivity, more than 2800 of them working on the ThaiBurma railway. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. utilisation of prisoner of war labour in japanese prisoner of war camps. Altogether, some 35,000 parachute and glider troops were involved in the operation. [62], Workers in more isolated areas suffered a much higher death rate than did others. The Dutch formed the second largest contingent of Allied prisoners of war on the ThaiBurma railway, after the British. Some rosters show if living, dead or killed in action (KIA), cause of death and burial site. He was one of Dunlop's 1,000 the men under commanding . 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. Jun 9, 2015 - Explore Samm Blake's board "Burma Thai Railway Prisoners of War - Historical Footage / Photos", followed by 2,370 people on Pinterest. 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 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. The British people were now resigned to the fact that Hitler had to be stopped by force. In 1943 Japan's high command decided to build a railway linking Thailand and Burma, to supply its campaign against the Allies in Burma. In 1943 Dutch prisoners were sent to Thailand where they suffered the same hardships as other Allied POWs. Nearly all our Australian POW Books are true stories many written by the Australian POW who worked on the Thai Burma Railway during WW2. 69 miles (111km) of the railway were in Burma and the remaining 189 miles (304km) were in Thailand. This included personnel from USS Houston and the 131st Field Artillery Regiment of the Texas Army National Guard. The bulk of these forces were captured with the fall of Singapore, an event widely characterized as the worst military defeat in British history. The final group of Dutch arrived in Burma as part of Group 5 in April 1943, bringing the total of Dutch in Burma to around 4600. 493.8 Records of the Peiping headquarters Group 1946-47 493.1 Administrative History Related Records: Records of U.S. Army Service Forces (World War II), RG 160. On 17 October 1943, construction gangs originating in Burma working south met up with construction gangs originating in Thailand working north. The Burma- Death Railway. Used with permission of the author, Lilian Sluyter. An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 civilians also . Abstract. [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. 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. Vegetables and other perishables long in transit arrived rotten. From the inmates of Colditz to the men who took part in the 'Great Escape . 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. 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. As a result of war bombing on bridges repeatedly, the Japanese used it to supply their troops in Burma. 368 of the 1,061 on board the USS Houston survived. 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. Williams Force was based at Tanyin and Black Force at Beke Taung camp at Kilo 40. In addition, approximately 130,000 civiliansincluding some 40,000 childrenwere captured by the Japanese. The remains of United States personnel were repatriated. In the years that followed the military units to which the Australians belonged were broken up into work forces to meet the Japanese need for labour. Estimates vary but the number who worked on the railway was possibly as high as 18 000. More than 250 miles of railway, from Thanbyuzayat in Burma to Ban Pong in Thailand, remained to be constructed, much of it through mountainous country and dense jungle, in a region with one of the worst climates in the world.The Japanese aimed at completing the railway in 14 months, or at least by the end of l943. Those who stayed behind were accommodated in camp "hospitals" which were simply one or more crude jungle huts. [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. Photocopy. Memorial sites along the route of the railway include the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, where nearly 7,000 Allied dead are interred, and . Extracts from a report on a search carried out by an officer of the Army Graves Service, 6th to 22nd December 1948. 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. In Burma. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Under Australian legislation prior to 1943 conscripts could be used only for the defence of Australian territories. The majority of the army personnel were from the 8th Division. The Burma Railway was also known as the "Death Railway" as 16,000 allied troops and 100,000 Asian labourers died during its construction. 1, 5 - 9 Their experience under these extreme wartime conditions is examined to discover the likely contribution of malaria-associated mortality to the total number of deaths. On 26 October 1942, British prisoners of war arrived at Tamarkan to construct the bridge. The working conditions were appalling. The only redeeming feature was the ease with which the sick could be evacuated to base hospitals in trains returning empty from Burma. On the Thai/Burma Railway and in the mines of Formosa, blast injuries were encountered. 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. 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. 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. One factor was that many European and US doctors had little experience with tropical diseases. 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. Surviving Australian veterans will attend a commemorative . Though medical consequences of war attract attention, the health consequences of the prisoner-of-war (POW) experience are poorly researched and apprec . A copper spike was driven at the meeting point by commanding General Eiguma Ishida, and a memorial plaque was revealed. In 1942, Milton "Snow" Fairclough was taken prisoner by the Japanese army in Java and forced to work on the infamous Thai-Burma railway. For much of its . The name Changi is synonymous with the suffering of Australian prisoners of the Japanese during the Second World War. This was the same time at which Australians in A Force left Changi for Burma. When you got back to your sleeping platform you only had a tin of water to wash your feet. [56] Those left to maintain the line still suffered from appalling living conditions as well as increasing Allied air raids. [13], Estimates of deaths among Southeast Asian civilians subject to forced labour, often known as rmusha, vary widely, because statistics are incomplete and fragmented. This was to be over 400 Km long through inhospitable jungle and hills. 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 . George, from Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, Scotland, was a POW in Java in 1942. The Factors of Survival. [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. The British POWs suffered the highest number of dead of any Allied group on the ThaiBurma railway. Listed under D-Day - The Normandy Invasion. Over 22 000 Australians were captured by the Japanese when they conquered South East Asia in early 1942. ", "Burma-Siam Railway - Australia receives no payment", "Grote schade aan materiaal der N.I. In 1939 the age limits for enlistment in the AIF were 19 to 35 years of age (higher for officers and some NCOs). Little detailed research has been done on the background of Australian POWs and how this affected their chances of survival. More than one in five of them died there. 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. Probably their motives were mixed: a desire for adventure, a sense of duty, nationalism and a conviction that they were part of a proud Australian military tradition dating from Gallipoli. 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. [17] A holiday was declared for 25 October which was chosen as the ceremonial opening of the line. In the War Cemetery at Thanbyuzayat in Burma lie those from the northern half of the line. Education Zone | Developed By Rara Theme. Around 90,000 civilians died, as did more than 12,000 Allied prisoners. Construction was extremely difficult, with the route crossing through thick, mosquito-infested jungle and uneven terrain while monsoon conditions prevailed. 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. 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. 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. 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. On 16 January 1946, the British ordered Japanese POWs to remove a four kilometre stretch of rail between Nikki (Ni Thea) and Sonkrai. Privacy Policy. [42][43] Workers were moved up and down the railway line as needed. [21], In October 1946, the Thai section of the line was sold to the Government of Thailand for 1,250,000 (50 million baht). Some 30 000 of these prisoners of war later worked on the ThaiBurma railway. 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). A bridge was not built until the Thanlwin Bridge (carrying both regular road and railroad traffic) was constructed between 2000 and 2005. Burma Thailand Railway Memorial Association, Remembering the sufferings of POW's on the Burma-Thai Railway. Articles on the Australian medical personnel working on the railway. [8], The project aimed to connect Ban Pong in Thailand with Thanbyuzayat in Burma, linking up with existing railways at both places. 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. [63] The most important trial was against the general staff. The two parties met at Nieke in November 1943, and the line - 263 miles long - was completed by December. 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. 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 quality of medical care received by different groups of prisoners varied enormously. [75] Repair work soon commenced afterwards and continued again and both bridges were operational again by the end of May. Another cohort of 450 US personnel suffered 100 deaths. 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. This is the bridge that still remains today. Major Sotomatsu Chida was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. Published by Marsworth. 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. The barracks were about 60m (66yd) long with sleeping platforms raised above the ground on each side of an earthen floor. 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. 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 remains of the notorious F-Force camp in Thailand. On 8 December 1941, Japan invaded Thailand which quickly surrendered. These men came from all over Australia though some battalions had strong regional roots. Photo taken on Aug. 19, 2020 shows the bridge over the River Kwai, the most notable part of the "Death Railway," in Kanchanaburi, Thailand. [69] An unknown number of Malayan workers were housed in a nearby camp. Most recruits were in their twenties. [10][11] After preliminary work of airfields and infrastructure, construction of the railway began in Burma and Thailand on 16 September 1942. 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. 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. 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 . [48][49] In the foreword to Charles's book, James D. Hornfischer summarizes: "Dr. Henri Hekking was a tower of psychological and emotional strength, almost shamanic in his power to find and improvise medicines from the wild prison of the jungle". [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. This route was vulnerable to attack by Allied submarines, especially after the Japanese defeat at the Battle of Midway in June 1942. [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. Among the Allied POWs were some 30,000 British, 13,000 Australians, 18,000 Dutch, and 700 Americans. 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. 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. Source 4 - Sleepers Map of the Thai-Burma Railway Sleepers from Hellfire Pass Source 1 - The Wreaths [14][15][16], The railway was completed ahead of schedule. Prisoners of War 330,000 people worked on building the railway, including 250,000 Asian laborers and 61,000 prisoners of war (POWs). More than 11 percent of civilian internees and 27 percent of Allied POWs died or were killed while in Japanese custody; by contrast, the death rate for Allied POWs in German camps was around 4 percent. 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. The Japanese stopped all work on . The Battle of Sidi Barrani (10-11 December 1940) was the opening battle of Operation Compass, the first big British attack of the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War. [23][24] The money was used to compensate neighbouring countries and colonies for material stolen by Japan during the construction of the railway. Many men in the railway workforce bore the brunt of pitiless or uncaring guards. At both camp and base hospitals, for the greater part of the time, the doctors had only such drugs and equipment as they had been able to carry with them. 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. 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