The rail line was built along the Khwae Noi (Kwai) River valley to support the Japanese armed forces during the Burma Campaign. The bulk of these forces were captured with the fall of Singapore, an event widely characterized as the worst military defeat in British history. BURMA-04_roster (WO 361-2204) - British and American POWs at Burma Camp 6, later IV. 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. 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. WATCH VIDEO NOW : Captain (doctor) Peter Hendry - part 1: Prisoner of War Experiences. The Prisoner List. There is a popular perception that they also died at a higher rate than Australians. The Burma- Death Railway. 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. Deel 8 De tragedie van de Birma-Siam Spoorweg", "The Railway Man: Australian keeps legacy of Thailand's 'Death Railway' alive helping relatives of POWs gain closure", Captive Audiences/Captive Performers: Music and Theatre as Strategies for Survival on the Thailand-Burma Railway 19421945, Works of Ashley George Old held by the State Library of Victoria. At the end of the war, the Japanese Armed Forces destroyed all documents related to the POW Camps. 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. The Burma Railway was also known as the "Death Railway" as 16,000 allied troops and 100,000 Asian labourers died during its construction. 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. New options were needed to support the Japanese forces in the Burma Campaign, and an overland route offered the most direct alternative. Records of the Army Staff, RG 319. The cook-house and huts for the working parties came next and accommodation for the sick last of all. 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. 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. The majority of the army personnel were from the 8th Division. The remaining sailors and marines, including Marvin Sizemore, were captured by the Japanese and found themselves building the Burma - Thailand railway as prisoners of war. Prisoners were made to work around the clock, with individual shifts lasting as long as 18 hours. 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. In 1943 Japan's high command decided to build a railway linking Thailand and Burma, to supply its campaign against the Allies in Burma. Includes Changi, the Burma-Thailand Railway, Sandakan, Timor, Ambon, Rabaul and Japan, and the prisoners who died . When Britainwent to waron 3 September 1939 there was none of the 'flag-waving patriotism' of August 1914. Click Here To See Liberation Questionnaires. He was taken to Ambon and apparently died in 1944 on board ship returning from Ambon to Java, After the war he was officially reported to have died on 6th September 1944 and buried at sea. Brought up by barge on the Kwai Noi river, or by lorry on a road which was merely a converted jungle track, a consistent service could not be maintained by either method, and rations were nearly always below even the Japanese official scales. Since the 1990s various proposals have been made to rebuild the complete railway, but as of 2021[update] these plans had not been realised. [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. Contact our Media sales & Licensing team about access. Omissions? Australian prisoners of war 1941-1945 (ANZAC Portal, 2007, March) This is a part of the series, Australians in the Pacific War. Labor furnished by prisoners of war shall have no direct relation with war operations. 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. 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. Thirty-two of them were sentenced to death. Work on the railway started at Thanbyuzayat on 1st October 1942 and somewhat later at Ban Pong. [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). 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. 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 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. 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 living and working conditions on the railway were horrific. This is particularly true on Anzac Day (April 25), when Australians pay tribute to those who served and lost their lives during war. 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. 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. Burma-Siam Railway list of prisoner of war work camps in Thailand during the construction of the death railway, with diagram. [62], At the end of World War II, 111 Japanese military officials were tried for war crimes for their brutality during the construction of the railway. 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. Max Heiliger-Laundering money for the Nazis. Little detailed research has been done on the background of Australian POWs and how this affected their chances of survival. 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. 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. THAILAND_POW_Camps_rosters (WO 361-2171) - Numerous rosters of POWs in Thailand. [47] Coast's work is noted for its detail on the brutality of some Japanese and Korean guards as well as the humanity of others. Second, the occupation of Burma would also put Japanese armies on the doorstep of British India. Education Zone | Developed By Rara Theme. From the inmates of Colditz to the men who took part in the 'Great Escape . The construction of the railway has been the subject of a novel and an award-winning film, The Bridge on the River Kwai (itself an adaptation of the French language novel The Bridge over the River Kwai); a novel, The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan, and a large number of personal accounts of POW experiences. [69] An unknown number of Malayan workers were housed in a nearby camp. More than 12,000 Allied prisoners of war (POWs) and tens of thousands of forced labourers perished during its construction. 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. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Download Ground News for free here: https://ground.news/megaprojectsSimo. [61], Weight loss among Allied officers who worked on construction was, on average, 914kg (2030lb) less than that of enlisted personnel. No prisoner of war may be employed at labors for which he is physically unfit. 69 miles (111km) of the railway were in Burma and the remaining 189 miles (304km) were in Thailand. The Dutch formed the second largest contingent of Allied prisoners of war on the ThaiBurma railway, after the British. George, from Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, Scotland, was a POW in Java in 1942. If you are joining after August, please choose the month you are joining in below. Object details Category Books Related period Second World War (content), Second World War (content) Creator BURMA-SIAM RAILWAY (Author) n.pub. [27], After the war the railway was in poor condition and needed reconstruction for use by the Royal Thai Railway system. Yet in relative terms, Australian POW deaths were very significant, accounting for around 20 per cent of all Australian deaths in World War II. Some have even brought wives and children. The Japanese had been surprised by the reaction of world opinion against their treatment of prisoners of war, and there is evidence that they began to feel apprehensive about the heavy casualties of 1943, and made efforts to counteract their reputation for uncivilised treatment of prisoners. In 1939 the age limits for enlistment in the AIF were 19 to 35 years of age (higher for officers and some NCOs). While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Conditions were significantly worse than at Changi, with forced hard labour and severely inadequate supplies of food and medicines. Two hundred men were housed in each barracks, giving each man a two-foot wide space in which to live and sleep. An Australian memorial is at Hellfire Pass. They worked on airfields and other infrastructure initially before beginning construction of the railway in October 1942. 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. Photo taken on Aug. 19, 2020 shows the bridge over the River Kwai, the most notable part of the "Death Railway," in Kanchanaburi, Thailand. Dutch chemist Van Boxtell. The Australian, British, Dutch and other Allied prisoners of war, along with Chinese, Malay, and Tamil labourers, were required by the Japanese to complete the cutting. 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. Japanese Medical Orderly. 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. [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". A large number of the British and Australian captives were sent to Burma (Myanmar). Listed under D-Day - The Normandy Invasion. 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. An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 civilians also . The 'Death Railway' was very well named. 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'). Lieutenant General Eiguma Ishida, overall commander of the Burma Railway, was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. 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. 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 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 . 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). [18][19] The Japanese staff would travel by train C56 31 from Nong Pladuk, Thailand to Thanbyuzayat, Burma. [98] There is a memorial plaque at the Kwai bridge itself,[99] and an historic wartime steam locomotive is on display. The final route was between Bangkok in Thailand and Rangoon, Myanmar (Burma). When that failed to attract sufficient workers, they resorted to more coercive methods, rounding up workers and impressing them, especially in Malaya. Nearly 15 000 were captured on Singapore in February 1942 and over a thousand on each of Ambon, Dutch Timor, and New Britain. These men came from all over Australia though some battalions had strong regional roots. Extracts from a report on a search carried out by an officer of the Army Graves Service, 6th to 22nd December 1948. 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). This is a list of notable prisoners of war (POW) whose imprisonment attracted notable attention or influence, or who became famous afterwards. In October 1943, the railway station was finished. The Burmese had welcomed the invasion by Japan and cooperated with Japan in recruiting workers. 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. utilisation of prisoner of war labour in japanese prisoner of war camps. 61,000 Prisoners of War were forced to work on the Burma-Thailand Railway in the most atrocious conditions. [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. One factor was that many European and US doctors had little experience with tropical diseases. 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. His account of the conditions and suffering endured by his fellow prisoners and himself makes for the most extraordinary and disturbing reading. 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. by Ezra Hoyt Ripple (Editor), Mark A. Snell (Editor) Hardcover - 168 pages. It gives a narrative and pictorial account of life in POW camps north of Australia during World War II. Hekking died in 1994. The British people were now resigned to the fact that Hitler had to be stopped by force. Votes: 1,734. The name used by the Japanese Government was TaiMen Rensetsu Tetsud (), which means Thailand-Burma-Link-Railway. Cruelty could take different forms, from extreme violence and torture to minor acts of physical punishment, humiliation, and neglect. When Britainwent to waron 3 September 1939 there was none of the 'flag-waving patriotism' of August 1914. 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. Little is known of why the men of the 2nd AIF volunteered to serve. 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. Most of the railway was dismantled shortly after the war. Organization of the Labor. [72] Human hair was often used for brushes, plant juices and blood for paint, and toilet paper as the "canvas". [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. Sort by: POW Thai Burma Death. [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. 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. [21][22] The railway link between Thailand and Burma was to be separated again for protecting British interests in Singapore. 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. [8], The project aimed to connect Ban Pong in Thailand with Thanbyuzayat in Burma, linking up with existing railways at both places. The second largest group of prisoners more than 2700 were captured on Java. description Object description. Donate to COFEPOW instantly - simply click on the button below. The overwhelming majority of Allied POWs were from Commonwealth countries; they included approximately 22,000 Australians (of whom 21,000 were from the Australian Army, 354 from the Royal Australian Navy, and 373 from the Royal Australian Air Force), more than 50,000 British troops, and at least 25,000 Indian troops. For example, a group of 400 Dutch prisoners, which included three doctors with extensive tropical medicine experience, suffered no deaths at all. Lt Col Coates the greatest doctor on the Burma Thailand Railway. Sir Edward "Weary" Dunlop an Australian surgeon and legend among prisoners of the Thai Burma Railway in World War II; Conduct Unbecoming : The Story of the Murder of Canadian Prisoners of War in Normandy. Around 90,000 civilians died, as did more than 12,000 Allied prisoners. Their death rates on the ThaiBurma railway were little different from the British and higher than the Dutch. 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. 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. On 8 December 1941, Japan invaded Thailand which quickly surrendered. From late 1942 more than 13 000 Australians were sent from Singapore, Java and Timor to work on the ThaiBurma railway. His subordinates Colonel Shigeo Nakamura, Colonel Tamie Ishii and Lieutenant-Colonel Shoichi Yanagita were sentenced to death. [59], Several museums are dedicated to those who perished building the railway. Memorial sites along the route of the railway include the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, where nearly 7,000 Allied dead are interred, and . In the War Cemetery at Thanbyuzayat in Burma lie those from the northern half of the line. 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 . A great deal of equipment was improvised by the medical officers and orderlies, and food and medicines were clandestinely obtained. In due course the inevitable happened - a cholera epidemic broke out. 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. Troops from the 7th Division embarked on the HMT Orcades arriving at Batavia from the Middle East in early 1942 in a last-minute effort to defend the Netherlands East Indies from Japanese attack. [17] A holiday was declared for 25 October which was chosen as the ceremonial opening of the line. Powered by WordPress. Burma Railway, also called Burma-Siam Railway, railway built during World War II connecting Bangkok and Moulmein (now Mawlamyine ), Burma ( Myanmar ). "[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. The construction of the railway is a heartbreaking story of forced labor, with more than 60,000 Allied prisoners of war . 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. Chungkai War Cemetery, near Kanchanaburi, has a further 1,693 war graves. 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. He served 11 years. On the Thai/Burma Railway and in the mines of Formosa, blast injuries were encountered. June 27, 2022, 5:24 PM. 0 9 4 minutes read. The British people were now resigned to the fact that Hitler had to be stopped by force. Part Two: Capture Examines the shock of capture for Australians, with first-hand accounts describing the physical circumstances of internment, and the feelin. [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. A newly wealthy English woman returns to Malaya to build a well for the villagers who helped her during war. Director: Jack Lee | Stars: Virginia McKenna, Peter Finch, Kenji Takaki, Tran Van Khe. 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. In mid-1942, large numbers of POWs began to be transported to Thailand and Burma for the construction of the Thai-Burma Railway. 3:09pm Oct 16, 2018. Towards the end of the war there were also casualties from Allied bombing raids. April 1942 to October 1943. This included personnel from USS Houston and the 131st Field Artillery Regiment of the Texas Army National Guard. [56] Those left to maintain the line still suffered from appalling living conditions as well as increasing Allied air raids. This was the same time at which Australians in A Force left Changi for Burma. [75] Repair work soon commenced afterwards and continued again and both bridges were operational again by the end of May. A bridge was not built until the Thanlwin Bridge (carrying both regular road and railroad traffic) was constructed between 2000 and 2005. List of Australian Army Medical Corp Officers on the Burma-Thailand Railway A FORCE To Burma May 1942 D FORCE To Southern end of line March 1943 DUNLOP FORCE To Southern end of line January 1943 F FORCE To Northern Thailand April 1943 H FORCE To Southern end of line 1943 L FORCE Deployed in medical support of natives August 1943 [2], Thailand was a neutral country at the onset of World War II. 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. [66][67] No compensation or reparations have been provided to Southeast Asian victims. On this end of the railway the workforce was largely Australian, Dutch and local rmusha. [23][24] The money was used to compensate neighbouring countries and colonies for material stolen by Japan during the construction of the railway. [30][33], In early 1943, the Japanese advertised for workers in Malaya, Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies, promising good wages, short contracts, and housing for families. Ron Arad Israeli fighter pilot, shot down over Lebanon in 1986. . In one raid alone on the Non Pladuk area, where the camp was located amongst sidings holding petrol, ammunition and store trains protected by an anti-aircraft post, and prisoners were not allowed to leave the huts.95 were killed and 300 wounded. 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. 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. 000 Australians were sent to Burma ( Myanmar ) Great Escape ( 304km ) were in Burma and remaining... 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To 22nd December 1948 has been made to work around the clock, with individual shifts lasting as long 18... ( POWs ) and tens of thousands of forced labourers perished during its construction war shall no. The ceremonial opening of the death railway & # x27 ; Great Escape from. Was largely Australian, Dutch and local rmusha due course the inevitable -... For the construction of the railway in the war, the Burma-Thailand railway in the Burma Campaign were in... Rabaul and Japan, and food and medicines other infrastructure initially before beginning of! There may be employed at labors for which he is physically unfit doctors... Thousands of forced labor, with diagram sent to Burma ( Myanmar ) [ ]!
Happy Atticus Mapel,
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