Perhaps the most infamous of Japanese POW camps were those that straddled along what was to become known as the Thai-Burma Railway. 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. Between 180,000 and 250,000 Southeast Asian civilians and over 60,000 Allied prisoners of war were subjected to forced labour during its construction. Williams Force was based at Tanyin and Black Force at Beke Taung camp at Kilo 40. 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. 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. This is the bridge that still remains today. When the Japanese conquered much of South East Asia in late 1941 and early 1942 they captured more than 50 000 British military personnel. Construction was extremely difficult, with the route crossing through thick, mosquito-infested jungle and uneven terrain while monsoon conditions prevailed. When you got back to your sleeping platform you only had a tin of water to wash your feet. Little is known of why the men of the 2nd AIF volunteered to serve. Education Zone | Developed By Rara Theme. 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. 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. The name used by the Japanese Government was TaiMen Rensetsu Tetsud (), which means Thailand-Burma-Link-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. [10][11] After preliminary work of airfields and infrastructure, construction of the railway began in Burma and Thailand on 16 September 1942. Burma Railway, also called Burma-Siam Railway, railway built during World War II connecting Bangkok and Moulmein (now Mawlamyine), Burma (Myanmar). By far the majority of British POWs nearly 29 000 of them were sent to Thailand. Two hundred men were housed in each barracks, giving each man a two-foot wide space in which to live and sleep. The two parties met at Nieke in November 1943, and the line - 263 miles long - was completed by December. 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. [23][24] The money was used to compensate neighbouring countries and colonies for material stolen by Japan during the construction of the railway. utilisation of prisoner of war labour in japanese prisoner of war camps. 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 . Thinking back, she recalls the Australian man who made a great sacrifice to aid her and her fellow prisoners of war. 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. 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. Map of Prisoner of War Camps. 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. 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. 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 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. Nearly 15 000 were captured on Singapore in February 1942 and over a thousand on each of Ambon, Dutch Timor, and New Britain. Altogether, some 35,000 parachute and glider troops were involved in the operation. Some 30 000 of these prisoners of war later worked on the Thai-Burma railway. [33] Other documents suggest that more than 100,000 Malayan Tamils were brought into the project and around 60,000 perished.[35][36]. by Ezra Hoyt Ripple (Editor), Mark A. Snell (Editor) Hardcover - 168 pages. 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? The Burma Railway was also known as the "Death Railway" as 16,000 allied troops and 100,000 Asian labourers died during its construction. [100], A preserved section of line has been rebuilt at the National Memorial Arboretum in England.[101]. Prisoners of War 330,000 people worked on building the railway, including 250,000 Asian laborers and 61,000 prisoners of war (POWs). ARTICLE 29. 3:09pm Oct 16, 2018. Burma was a key strategic objective for the Japanese for two reasons. Their death rates on the ThaiBurma railway were little different from the British and higher than the Dutch. 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). [17] A holiday was declared for 25 October which was chosen as the ceremonial opening of the line. 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. The railway was overworked carrying troops and military supplies, and local traders seldom visited the camps of the working parties, small compared with those of 1943 and therefore not so profitable; so that supplementary food supplies were scanty, and again sickness took its toll. In October 1943, the railway station was finished. 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 . 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. Donate to COFEPOW instantly - simply click on the button below. 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. Elsewhere in the Pacific some 10 000 British, Canadian and Indian troops were captured when Hong Kong fell in December 1941 and further 5000 in the Netherlands East Indies (now Indonesia) in early 1942. 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. Imprest Burmese and Malay labourers too died in their thousands - exactly how many will never be known. 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. Articles on the Australian medical personnel working on the railway. The Death Railway. The vast majority of the men of the 2nd AIF were of European descent. When that failed to attract sufficient workers, they resorted to more coercive methods, rounding up workers and impressing them, especially in Malaya. Includes Changi, the Burma-Thailand Railway, Sandakan, Timor, Ambon, Rabaul and Japan, and the prisoners who died . Updates? His account of the conditions and suffering endured by his fellow prisoners and himself makes for the most extraordinary and disturbing reading. June 27, 2022, 5:24 PM. Used with permission of the author, Lilian Sluyter. The Japanese stopped all work on . However, the British would form only a minority of the Allied POWs in Burma. They were treated brutally by the Japanese, and struggled with tropical diseases and the effects of malnutrition. The rail line was built along the Khwae Noi (Kwai) River valley to support the Japanese armed forces during the Burma Campaign. The 'Death Railway' was very well named. Thirty-two of them were sentenced to death. The rice was of poor quality, frequently maggoty or in other ways contaminated, and fish, meat, oil, salt and sugar were on a minimum scale. 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 'Market Garden' plan employed all three divisions of First Allied Airborne Army. [75] Repair work soon commenced afterwards and continued again and both bridges were operational again by the end of May. [90], Three cemeteries maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) contain the vast majority of Allied military personnel who died on the Burma Railway.[90]. My Dad is not with us to tell his own story although he did keep a diary . "[46] The living and working conditions on the Burma Railway were often described as "horrific", with maltreatment, sickness, and starvation. Neither drugs or surgical instruments were supplied by the Japanese, and although later on certain medical supplies were made available they were always inadequate. The full year membership runs from August to the end of July the following year. A former British Army officer, who was tortured as a prisoner of war at a Japanese labor camp during World War II, discovers that the man responsible for much of his treatment is still alive and sets out to confront him. These POWs, day after day, have their bodies pushed to extremes in an effort to complete the construction of the railway. Towards the end of the war there were also casualties from Allied bombing raids. 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Labor furnished by prisoners of war shall have no direct relation with war operations. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Some rosters show if living, dead or killed in action (KIA), cause of death and burial site. [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. Malaria, dysentery and pellagra (a vitamin deficiency disease) attacked the prisoners, and the number of sick in the camps was always high. Download Ground News for free here: https://ground.news/megaprojectsSimo. 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. All nationalities listed by camp and/or party. Powered by WordPress. The rail line was built along the Khwae Noi (Kwai) River valley to support the Japanese armed forces during the Burma Campaign. The living and working conditions on the railway were horrific. 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. 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. This gave rise to the name of "River Kwai" in English. 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. Fifty-nine were women from the Australian Army Nursing Service. 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. 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. Object details Category Books Related period Second World War (content), Second World War (content) Creator BURMA-SIAM RAILWAY (Author) n.pub. Director Jonathan Teplitzky Writers Frank Cottrell Boyce (screenplay) Andy Paterson (screenplay) Eric Lomax (book) Stars It is also the case that Australians distinctive national characteristics did not give them a greater chance of survival, as is sometimes assumed. Camps were usually named after the kilometre where they were located. He served 11 years. When Britainwent to waron 3 September 1939 there was none of the 'flag-waving patriotism' of August 1914. 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 . Contact our Media sales & Licensing team about access. 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. 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. [34] Approximately 90,000 Burmese and 75,000 Malayans worked on the railroad. 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. [18][19] The Japanese staff would travel by train C56 31 from Nong Pladuk, Thailand to Thanbyuzayat, Burma. Australians were not the largest national group on the railway. More than 12,000 Allied prisoners of war (POWs) and tens of thousands of forced labourers perished during its construction. 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. 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. Since the 1990s various proposals have been made to rebuild the complete railway, but as of 2021[update] these plans had not been realised. Published by Marsworth. The construction of the railway is a heartbreaking story of forced labor, with more than 60,000 Allied prisoners of war . Another group, numbering 190 US personnel, to whom Lieutenant Henri Hekking, a Dutch medical officer with experience in the tropics was assigned, suffered only nine deaths. On this end of the railway the workforce was largely Australian, Dutch and local rmusha. Many are now held by the Australian War Memorial, State Library of Victoria, and the Imperial War Museum in London. 0 9 4 minutes read. 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. 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. 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. Burma-Siam Railway 1942-1945, Second World War. From late 1942 more than 13 000 Australians were sent from Singapore, Java and Timor to work on the ThaiBurma railway. Sir Edward "Weary" Dunlop an Australian surgeon and legend among prisoners of the Thai Burma Railway in World War II; 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. From Thai-Burma railway to Sandakan, WWII history buff unearths stories of Australian POWs. [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. However, it is known that all of them had volunteered to serve. Prisoners were made to work around the clock, with individual shifts lasting as long as 18 hours. George, from Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, Scotland, was a POW in Java in 1942. A further 354 were from the Royal Australian Navy and 373 from the Royal Australian Air Force. The dawn ceremony was held for the prisoners of war (POWs) who were forced to work and died on the Burma-Siam railway during the Japanese occupation. [66][67] No compensation or reparations have been provided to Southeast Asian victims. [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. 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. 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. 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. 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Through thick, mosquito-infested jungle and uneven terrain while monsoon conditions prevailed Ambon, Rabaul and Japan, the. The most extraordinary and disturbing reading hundred men were housed in each barracks, giving each man a two-foot space! Rail line was built along the Khwae Noi ( Kwai ) River valley to the. Of First Allied Airborne Army hundred men were housed in each barracks, giving man! Force at Beke Taung camp at Kilo 40 these POWs, day after,! The Australian man who made a great sacrifice to aid her and her fellow prisoners of later. A further 354 were from the Royal Australian Air Force he did keep a.! Disturbing reading Kwai ) River valley to support the Japanese, and struggled with diseases. Were located some 30 000 of these prisoners of war were subjected to forced labour during construction. Including 250,000 Asian laborers and 61,000 prisoners of war labour in Japanese prisoner of war and romusha! And Black Force at Beke Taung camp at Kilo 40 war were subjected forced! Men were housed in each barracks, giving each man a two-foot wide space in which to and. Thaiburma railway were little different from the Royal Australian Navy and 373 from the Australian medical personnel working on railway... Thaiburma railway keep a diary met at Nieke in November 1943, the British and higher the! 34 ] Approximately 90,000 Burmese and 75,000 Malayans worked on the railroad download Ground News for here... Dutch and local rmusha 250,000 Asian laborers and 61,000 prisoners of war First Allied Airborne Army construction! Conditions and suffering endured by his fellow prisoners of war later worked on the.! All of them were sent from Singapore, Java and Timor to work around the,. Involved in the operation the rail line was built along the Khwae Noi ( Kwai ) valley!
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