More recently, the motion picture The Railway Man (based on the book of the same name) also gives insight into the barbaric conditions and suffering that were inflicted upon the workers who built the railway. Accommodation for the Japanese guards had to be built first, and at all the staging camps built subsequently along the railway this rule applied. All nationalities listed by camp and/or party. It was set up within the Management Office of the Army Ministry in order to handle the increase in POW numbers as . Altogether, some 35,000 parachute and glider troops were involved in the operation. Records of Allied Operational and Occupation Headquarters, World War II, RG 331. Imprest Burmese and Malay labourers too died in their thousands - exactly how many will never be known. Other parties were employed on cutting and building roads, some through virgin jungle, or in building defence positions. No prisoner of war may be employed at labors for which he is physically unfit. His subordinates Colonel Shigeo Nakamura, Colonel Tamie Ishii and Lieutenant-Colonel Shoichi Yanagita were sentenced to death. 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. 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. 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. [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. In 1943 Dutch prisoners were sent to Thailand where they suffered the same hardships as other Allied POWs. (Publisher) Surviving Australian veterans will attend a commemorative . During its construction, approximately 13,000 prisoners of war died and were buried along the railway. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Burma-Railway, National Museum of Australia - BurmaThailand Railway, Government of South Australia - Veterans SA - The Completion of the Thai Burma Railway, Australian War Memorial - Stolen Years: Australian Prisoners of War. Navy and the auxiliary forces of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army. However, the film and book contain many historical inaccuracies, and should be considered works of fiction. 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. The remains of United States personnel were repatriated. 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. Burma Railway, also called Burma-Siam Railway, railway built during World War II connecting Bangkok and Moulmein (now Mawlamyine ), Burma ( Myanmar ). utilisation of prisoner of war labour in japanese 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. [38] The labourers that suffered the highest casualties were Burmese and Indian Tamils from Malaysia and Myanmar, as well as many Javanese.[30]. 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. Construction was extremely difficult, with the route crossing through thick, mosquito-infested jungle and uneven terrain while monsoon conditions prevailed. [74] Repairs were carried out by forced labour of POWs shortly after and by April the wooden railroad trestle bridge was back in operation. 61,000 Prisoners of War were forced to work on the Burma-Thailand Railway in the most atrocious conditions. Object details Category Books Related period Second World War (content), Second World War (content) Creator BURMA-SIAM RAILWAY (Author) n.pub. 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. Thinking back, she recalls the Australian man who made a great sacrifice to aid her and her fellow prisoners of war. Fifty-nine were women from the Australian Army Nursing Service. 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. Taff suffered from dysentery, malaria, beri beri and cholera but, unlike so many, he survived. Coast also details the camaraderie, pastimes, and humour of the POWs in the face of adversity.[47]. [21], In October 1946, the Thai section of the line was sold to the Government of Thailand for 1,250,000 (50 million baht). The name Changi is synonymous with the suffering of Australian prisoners of the Japanese during the Second World War. 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. However, it is known that all of them had volunteered to serve. Neither drugs or surgical instruments were supplied by the Japanese, and although later on certain medical supplies were made available they were always inadequate. Another cohort of 450 US personnel suffered 100 deaths. Presidio Pr; ISBN: 0891415777. [13], Estimates of deaths among Southeast Asian civilians subject to forced labour, often known as rmusha, vary widely, because statistics are incomplete and fragmented. Abstract. 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. 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. Listed under D-Day - The Normandy Invasion. Little is known of why the men of the 2nd AIF volunteered to serve. The first train to pass Konkoita on the newly constructed Burma-Thailand railway, built for the Japanese by prisoner of war (POW) labour. [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. In mid-1942, large numbers of POWs began to be transported to Thailand and Burma for the construction of the Thai-Burma Railway. 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. 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 . Dutch chemist Van Boxtell. notebook kept by captain harold lord, regular officer in the royal army service corps (rasc), whilst a japanese prisoner of war working on the burma-thailand railway in 1943, listing neatly and chronologically the names of the british prisoners of war who worked on the railway, may - december 1943, together with the following information about 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. Repeated reconnaissance flights over the Burma end of the railway started early in 1943, followed by bombings at intervals. It gives a narrative and pictorial account of life in POW camps north of Australia during World War II. During its construction more than 16 ,000 prisoners of war died - mainly of sickness, malnutrition and exhaustion - and were buried along the railway. 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. by Ezra Hoyt Ripple (Editor), Mark A. Snell (Editor) Hardcover - 168 pages. There is a popular perception that they also died at a higher rate than Australians. 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. These POWs, day after day, have their bodies pushed to extremes in an effort to complete the construction of the railway. [53], The construction of the Burma Railway is counted as a war crime committed by Japan in Asia. 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. [12][13] The projected completion date was December 1943. 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. 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. 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. Work began at both ends of the rail line in June 1942. The greater part of the Thai section of the river's route followed the valley of the Khwae Noi River (khwae, 'stream, river' or 'tributary'; noi, 'small'. Photocopy. [71], A first wooden railroad bridge over the Khwae Yai was finished in February 1943, which was soon accompanied by a more modern ferro-concrete bridge in June 1943, with both bridges running in a NNESSW direction across the river. Sort by: POW Thai Burma Death. June 27, 2022, 5:24 PM. 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. 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. 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. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Stolen banknotes and jewelry along with Holocaust victims' dental gold, wedding rings, and even scrap gold melted down from spectacles-frames flooded into the Max Heiliger accounts, completely filling several bank vaults by 1942. The name used by the Japanese Government was TaiMen Rensetsu Tetsud (), which means Thailand-Burma-Link-Railway. Although it was often possible to supplement this diet by purchases from the local civilian population, men sometimes had to live for weeks on little more than a small daily ration of rice flavoured with salt. Two hundred men were housed in each barracks, giving each man a two-foot wide space in which to live and sleep. 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. On 17 October 1943, construction gangs originating in Burma working south met up with construction gangs originating in Thailand working north. Though medical consequences of war attract attention, the health consequences of the prisoner-of-war (POW) experience are poorly researched and apprec . 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. 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. 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. These coolies have been brought from Malaya under false pretenses 'easy work, good pay, good houses!' Some 30 000 of these prisoners of war later worked on the Thai-Burma railway. This is a list of notable prisoners of war (POW) whose imprisonment attracted notable attention or influence, or who became famous afterwards. In 1943 Dutch prisoners were sent to Thailand where they suffered the same hardships as other Allied POWs. 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. The first contingent of around 3000 reached Thailand some months before the Australians in June 1942. When Britainwent to waron 3 September 1939 there was none of the 'flag-waving patriotism' of August 1914. 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 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. Over 22 000 Australians were captured by the Japanese when they conquered South East Asia in early 1942. Download Ground News for free here: https://ground.news/megaprojectsSimo. April 1942 to October 1943. Human hair was often used for brushes, plant juices and blood for paint, and toilet paper as the "canvas". Some 30 000 of these prisoners of war later worked on the ThaiBurma railway. [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. When you got back to your sleeping platform you only had a tin of water to wash your feet. One factor was that many European and US doctors had little experience with tropical diseases. 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. 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. 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. Also sketches by POWs. The bulk of these forces were captured with the fall of Singapore, an event widely characterized as the worst military defeat in British history. Over 60,000 prisoners worked on its construction, the majority of whom were British, and some 20% died before release in 1945. Japanese Medical Orderly. By far the majority of British POWs nearly 29 000 of them were sent to Thailand. Australian prisoners of war 1941-1945 (ANZAC Portal, 2007, March) This is a part of the series, Australians in the Pacific War. Records of Naval Operating Forces, RG 313. 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 full year membership runs from August to the end of July the following year. When Britainwent to waron 3 September 1939 there was none of the 'flag-waving patriotism' of August 1914. 321 relations. They utilised a labour force composed of prisoners of war taken in the campaigns in South-East Asia and the Pacific, and coolies brought from Malaya and the Dutch East Indies or conscripted in Siam and Burma. The Japanese demanded from each camp a certain percentage of its strength for working parties, irrespective of the number of sick, and to make up the required quota the Japanese camp commandants insisted on men totally unfit for work being driven out and sometimes carried out. The defendants were charged with crimes against Western prisoners of war and civilians and with crimes against local people. In October 1943, the railway station was finished. The Burma Railway was also known as the "Death Railway" as 16,000 allied troops and 100,000 Asian labourers died during its construction. Prisoners of War 330,000 people worked on building the railway, including 250,000 Asian laborers and 61,000 prisoners of war (POWs). 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. [70], The bridge was made famous by Pierre Boulle's novel The Bridge over the River Kwai and its film adaptation, The Bridge on the River Kwai. This is particularly true on Anzac Day (April 25), when Australians pay tribute to those who served and lost their lives during war. The Burma- Death Railway. 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. by Howard Margolian. 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. Click Here To See Liberation Questionnaires. 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. 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. Khwae was frequently mispronounced by non-Thai speakers as kwai, or 'buffalo' in Thai). Since the upper part of the Khwae valley is now flooded by the Vajiralongkorn Dam,[19] and the surrounding terrain is mountainous, it would take extensive tunnelling to reconnect Thailand with Burma by rail. [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. Since the 1990s various proposals have been made to rebuild the complete railway, but as of 2021[update] these plans had not been realised. Its route was through Three Pagodas Pass on the border of Thailand and Burma. Contact our Media sales & Licensing team about access, whole: Dimensions: 30x21cm., Pagination: [5] leaves 4 plans. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Only the first 130 kilometres (81mi) of the line in Thailand remained, with trains still running as far north as Nam Tok. In Saigon, the Brits accused Aussies of exaggerating conditions on the Railway. 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