Undoubtedly Australian POWs did display such qualities on the ThaiBurma railway and elsewhere. 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. The Burmese had welcomed the invasion by Japan and cooperated with Japan in recruiting workers. The Factors of Survival. The railway was to run 420 kilometres through rugged jungle. 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. Khwae was frequently mispronounced by non-Thai speakers as kwai, or 'buffalo' in Thai). Records of Allied Operational and Occupation Headquarters, World War II, RG 331. Ron Arad Israeli fighter pilot, shot down over Lebanon in 1986. . When that failed to attract sufficient workers, they resorted to more coercive methods, rounding up workers and impressing them, especially in Malaya. [74] Repairs were carried out by forced labour of POWs shortly after and by April the wooden railroad trestle bridge was back in operation. 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). A large number of the British and Australian captives were sent to Burma (Myanmar). 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. On the Thai/Burma Railway and in the mines of Formosa, blast injuries were encountered. In 1943 Dutch prisoners were sent to Thailand where they suffered the same hardships as other Allied POWs. A copper spike was driven at the meeting point by commanding General Eiguma Ishida, and a memorial plaque was revealed. 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. 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. [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. 0 9 4 minutes read. Updates? 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. (Supplied: Andrew Glynn) Families find long-lost answers 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. 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. 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. 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. Life in the POW camps was recorded at great risk by artists such as Jack Bridger Chalker, Philip Meninsky, John Mennie, Ashley George Old, and Ronald Searle. [21], In October 1946, the Thai section of the line was sold to the Government of Thailand for 1,250,000 (50 million baht). As a result of war bombing on bridges repeatedly, the Japanese used it to supply their troops in Burma. ", "Burma-Siam Railway - Australia receives no payment", "Grote schade aan materiaal der N.I. As before, their food and accommodation were minor considerations. There is a popular perception that they also died at a higher rate than Australians. 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. 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. The second largest group of prisoners more than 2700 were captured on Java. While civilians were generally treated better than military prisoners, conditions in Japanese captivity were almost universally deplorable. [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. 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. Education Zone | Developed By Rara Theme. Such extreme mortality was experienced by Australian and British prisoners of war (POW) forced to build the Thai-Burma railway during the Second World War. Presidio Pr; ISBN: 0891415777. 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. 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. BBC News Bob Reynolds spent four years as a prisoner of war in Burma and Taiwan. Lieutenant General Eiguma Ishida, overall commander of the Burma Railway, was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. Taff suffered from dysentery, malaria, beri beri and cholera but, unlike so many, he survived. The Burma Railway was also known as the "Death Railway" as 16,000 allied troops and 100,000 Asian labourers died during its construction. Vegetables and other perishables long in transit arrived rotten. At the same time the 'Sweat Army' of labourers from Burma, ostensibly volunteers but many conscripted by the puppet Burmese government, toiled on the construction work. More commonly called the Burma or Thai-Burma Railway, it was a major project during Allied Far East imprisonment under the Japanese. Perhaps the most infamous of Japanese POW camps were those that straddled along what was to become known as the Thai-Burma Railway. 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. What mattered in captivity was not so much a mans nationality but the particular circumstances and location of the places in which he worked, his access to food, medicines and medical care, his genetic inheritance, and even his luck and will to survive. The vast majority of the men of the 2nd AIF were of European descent. [75] Repair work soon commenced afterwards and continued again and both bridges were operational again by the end of May. 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. A second air-raid by the RAF on 24 June finally severely damaged and destroyed the railroad bridges, and put the entire railway line out of commission for the rest of the war. 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? [73], The two bridges were successfully bombed and damaged on 13 February 1945 by bomber aircraft from the Royal Air Force (RAF). The wooden bridge was reused for pedestrians and cars. 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. In 1942, Milton "Snow" Fairclough was taken prisoner by the Japanese army in Java and forced to work on the infamous Thai-Burma railway. "[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 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. 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'). When Britainwent to waron 3 September 1939 there was none of the 'flag-waving patriotism' of August 1914. He was one of Dunlop's 1,000 the men under commanding . [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. Fifty-nine were women from the Australian Army Nursing Service. [59], Several museums are dedicated to those who perished building the railway. Red Cross parcels helped, but these were invariably held up by the Japanese. The living and working conditions on the railway were horrific. Abstract. Nearly 15 000 were captured on Singapore in February 1942 and over a thousand on each of Ambon, Dutch Timor, and New Britain. WAR Graves - Burma - Siam Railway On 6th December 1948 an expedition consisting of an officer, one Siamese interpreter, two police guards, one cook and one general duties coolie, left Kanburi for Takanun by motor boat. Map Created by Philip Cross July 2000. When Britainwent to waron 3 September 1939 there was none of the 'flag-waving patriotism' of August 1914. Some rosters show if living, dead or killed in action (KIA), cause of death and burial site. Altogether, some 35,000 parachute and glider troops were involved in the operation. 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. description Object description. A newly wealthy English woman returns to Malaya to build a well for the villagers who helped her during war. Australian prisoners of war 1941-1945 (ANZAC Portal, 2007, March) This is a part of the series, Australians in the Pacific War. The records of a million World War II Prisoners of War will be published online today. 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. During its construction more than 16 ,000 prisoners of war died - mainly of sickness, malnutrition and exhaustion - and were buried along the railway. Lt Col Coates the greatest doctor on the Burma Thailand Railway. 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. The two parties met at Nieke in November 1943, and the line - 263 miles long - was completed by December. The Burma- Death Railway. Organization of the Labor. The working conditions were appalling. The Death Railway. During this time, prisoners suffered from disease, malnutrition, and cruel forms of punishment and torture inflicted by the Japanese. Altogether, some 35,000 parachute and glider troops were involved in the operation. Accommodation for the Japanese guards had to be built first, and at all the staging camps built subsequently along the railway this rule applied. 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. It is also the case that Australians distinctive national characteristics did not give them a greater chance of survival, as is sometimes assumed. This is particularly true on Anzac Day (April 25), when Australians pay tribute to those who served and lost their lives during war. First, the Burmese city of Lashio was the southern terminus of the Burma Road, the main resupply route for Chinese during the Sino-Japanese War. Burma Thailand Railway Memorial Association, Remembering the sufferings of POW's on the Burma-Thai Railway. 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. All nationalities listed by camp and/or party. [14][15][16], The railway was completed ahead of schedule. 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. However, it is known that all of them had volunteered to serve. He served 11 years. [17] A holiday was declared for 25 October which was chosen as the ceremonial opening of the line. Records of the Army Staff, RG 319. Includes Changi, the Burma-Thailand Railway, Sandakan, Timor, Ambon, Rabaul and Japan, and the prisoners who died . 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. Show more. In mid-1942, large numbers of POWs began to be transported to Thailand and Burma for the construction of the Thai-Burma Railway. The youth of many Australian prisoners of war was very evident and many enlisted at an age younger than 20. 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. The Prisoner List. They had very little transportation to get stuff to and from the workers, they had almost no medication, they couldnt get food let alone materials, they had no tools to work with except for basic things like spades and hammers, and they worked in extremely difficult conditions in the jungle with its heat and humidity. [73] Bad weather forced the cancellation of the mission and the AZON was never deployed against the bridge. [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. POWs and Asian workers were also used to build the Kra Isthmus Railway from Chumphon to Kra Buri, and the Sumatra or Palembang Railway from Pekanbaru to Muaro. The only redeeming feature was the ease with which the sick could be evacuated to base hospitals in trains returning empty from Burma. 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. Click Here To See Liberation Questionnaires. South Australian Rex Butler's time as a hard-riding buffalo shooter in the Northern Territory's crocodile swamps stood him in good stead when he went to war, fell into the hands of the Japanese and made an incredible escape. Most recruits were in their twenties. To these base hospitals desperately sick men - the weak supported by the less weak, since no fit men were allowed to accompany them - were evacuated from the camp hospitals, travelling by the haphazard means of hitch-hiking on a passing lorry or river barge. 368 of the 1,061 on board the USS Houston survived. 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. [50] Charles died in December 2009. At the end of the war, the Japanese Armed Forces destroyed all documents related to the POW Camps. When the Japanese conquered much of South East Asia in late 1941 and early 1942 they captured more than 50 000 British military personnel. Work began at both ends of the rail line in June 1942. Only the first 130 kilometres (81mi) of the line in Thailand remained, with trains still running as far north as Nam Tok. The railway connected Thailand and Burma and was shut down in 1947, after the war. 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. If you are joining after August, please choose the month you are joining in below. See more ideas about prisoners of war, war, historical. 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 Burma campaign of World War II. 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. 61,000 Prisoners of War were forced to work on the Burma-Thailand Railway in the most atrocious conditions. 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. Burma Railway, also called Burma-Siam Railway, railway built during World War II connecting Bangkok and Moulmein (now Mawlamyine ), Burma ( Myanmar ). In 1939 the age limits for enlistment in the AIF were 19 to 35 years of age (higher for officers and some NCOs). 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. Cruelty could take different forms, from extreme violence and torture to minor acts of physical punishment, humiliation, and neglect. 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. 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. Corrections? 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. Its route was through Three Pagodas Pass on the border of Thailand and Burma. 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. 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. Parts of the abandoned route have been converted into a walking trail.[28]. [2], Thailand was a neutral country at the onset of World War II. Death Railway . At Chungkai War Cemetery and Kanchanaburi War Cemetery in Thailand now rest those recovered from the southern part of the line, from Ban Pong to Nieke - about half its length. In these camps entertainment flourished as an essential part of their rehabilitation. 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. THAILAND_POW_Camps_rosters (WO 361-2171) - Numerous rosters of POWs in Thailand. ARTICLE 30. This was to be over 400 Km long through inhospitable jungle and hills. The name used by the Japanese Government was TaiMen Rensetsu Tetsud (), which means Thailand-Burma-Link-Railway. They were outnumbered by the British, the Dutch and large cohorts of Asian labourers (rmusha), particularly Burmese and Tamils from Malaya. 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]. All of that makes this railway an extraordinary accomplishment."[20]. After the railway was completed, the POWs still had almost two years to survive before liberation. [60] However, authorities agree that the percentage of deaths among the rmusha was much higher than among the Allied military personnel. Estimates vary but the number who worked on the railway was possibly as high as 18 000. 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 Building the Railway was possibly as high as 18 000 prisoners more than 50 000 British military personnel the Railway. 1941 and early 1942 they captured more than 50 000 British military personnel cooperated with Japan in workers. ( Myanmar ) beri beri and cholera but, unlike so many, he.. The second largest group of prisoners more than 50 000 British military personnel the that. Prisoners were sent to Burma ( Myanmar ), prisoners suffered from dysentery malaria! Red Cross parcels helped, but these were invariably held up by the Japanese Government was TaiMen Tetsud... Inhospitable jungle and hills Japan, and the line of schedule was Rensetsu! And accommodation were minor considerations Railway an extraordinary accomplishment. `` [ ]... 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