The quality of medical care received by different groups of prisoners varied enormously. [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. 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. In contrast, only 4000 Australians were captured by the Germans and Ottomans in World War I. Java was the place where the second largest group of Australians was captured. Dutch chemist Van Boxtell. Contact our Media sales & Licensing team about access. However, the British would form only a minority of the Allied POWs in Burma. 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. Many men in the railway workforce bore the brunt of pitiless or uncaring guards. Cruelty could take different forms, from extreme violence and torture to minor acts of physical punishment, humiliation, and neglect. Chungkai War Cemetery, near Kanchanaburi, has a further 1,693 war graves. [12][13] The projected completion date was December 1943. 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. 0 9 4 minutes read. [61], Weight loss among Allied officers who worked on construction was, on average, 914kg (2030lb) less than that of enlisted personnel. [74] Repairs were carried out by forced labour of POWs shortly after and by April the wooden railroad trestle bridge was back in operation. Published by Marsworth. WATCH VIDEO NOW : Captain (doctor) Peter Hendry - part 1: Prisoner of War Experiences. Presidio Pr; ISBN: 0891415777. These were men from the 7th Division who had been brought back from the Middle East to help defend the Netherlands East Indies (now Indonesia) from the Japanese attack in early 1942. 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. Probably their motives were mixed: a desire for adventure, a sense of duty, nationalism and a conviction that they were part of a proud Australian military tradition dating from Gallipoli. 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]. 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. It gives a narrative and pictorial account of life in POW camps north of Australia during World War II. 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 Death Railway. [2], Thailand was a neutral country at the onset of World War II. 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. Those who stayed behind were accommodated in camp "hospitals" which were simply one or more crude jungle huts. 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. Director: Jack Lee | Stars: Virginia McKenna, Peter Finch, Kenji Takaki, Tran Van Khe. [33] Other documents suggest that more than 100,000 Malayan Tamils were brought into the project and around 60,000 perished.[35][36]. 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. 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. About 60,000 were sent to work on the railway; 13,000 of them were Australian. Four prisoners of war with beri-beri, Nam Tok, 1943 Life and death on the railway The railway took 12 months to build, with final completion on 16 October 1943. 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. On 8 December 1941, Japan invaded Thailand which quickly surrendered. [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. Parts of the abandoned route have been converted into a walking trail.[28]. Little is known of why the men of the 2nd AIF volunteered to serve. 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. [17] A holiday was declared for 25 October which was chosen as the ceremonial opening of the line. Alternatively, send a cheque to our treasurer, Cheques should be made payable to COFEPOW and sent to the following address:-, Mr. David BrownCOFEPOW14 RidgecroftAshton-Under-LyneLancashireOL7 9TGUnited Kingdom, Choose between a single or joint membership. The Burma- Death Railway. For example, a group of 400 Dutch prisoners, which included three doctors with extensive tropical medicine experience, suffered no deaths at all. Rivers and canyons had to be bridged and sections of mountains had to be cut away to create a bed that was straight and level enough to accommodate the narrow-gauge track. In 1941 these were adjusted to 19 and 40 years. 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 The majority of the army personnel were from the 8th Division. In 1939 the age limits for enlistment in the AIF were 19 to 35 years of age (higher for officers and some NCOs). [14][15][16], The railway was completed ahead of schedule. If you are joining after August, please choose the month you are joining in below. The remains of United States personnel were repatriated. The Prisoner of War Management Office (Furyo Kanribu) The Prisoner of War Management Office (Furyo Kanribu) was established by the Minister for the Army on 31 March 1942 as an additional office to deal with the treatment of POWs. Malaria, dysentery and pellagra (a vitamin deficiency disease) attacked the prisoners, and the number of sick in the camps was always high. 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. 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. "[46] The living and working conditions on the Burma Railway were often described as "horrific", with maltreatment, sickness, and starvation. Omissions? Death Railway . Burma was a key strategic objective for the Japanese for two reasons. The 'Market Garden' plan employed all three divisions of First Allied Airborne Army. [30] Other nationalities and ethnic groups working on the railway were Tamils, Chinese, Karen, Javanese, and Singaporean Chinese. It also tells of the astonishing twist of fate that saved all the prisoners from annihilation at the end of . From Thai-Burma railway to Sandakan, WWII history buff unearths stories of Australian POWs. 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 1943 Dutch prisoners were sent to Thailand where they suffered the same hardships as other Allied POWs. 37,583 prisoners from the United Kingdom, Commonwealth and Dominions, 28,500 from Netherlands and 14,473 from the United States were released after the surrender of Japan. As before, their food and accommodation were minor considerations. The cook-house and huts for the working parties came next and accommodation for the sick last of all. Download Ground News for free here: https://ground.news/megaprojectsSimo. 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). Sort by: POW Thai Burma Death. On 26 October 1942, British prisoners of war arrived at Tamarkan to construct the bridge. 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'). 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. 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. 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 larger number of British deaths overall reflects the fact that there were simply more British working on the railway than Australians or Dutch POWs. One factor was that many European and US doctors had little experience with tropical diseases. [72] 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. Over 60,000 prisoners worked on its construction, the majority of whom were British, and some 20% died before release in 1945. 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. [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. 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. Altogether, some 35,000 parachute and glider troops were involved in the operation. The Burma Railway was also known as the "Death Railway" as 16,000 allied troops and 100,000 Asian labourers died during its construction. 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. They worked on airfields and other infrastructure initially before beginning construction of the railway in October 1942. Konkoita is approximately 263 kilometres north of Nong Pladuk (also known as Non Pladuk), or 151 kilometres south of Thanbyuzayat. The full year membership runs from August to the end of July the following year. 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 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. Taff suffered from dysentery, malaria, beri beri and cholera but, unlike so many, he survived. 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'. This was to be over 400 Km long through inhospitable jungle and hills. Imprest Burmese and Malay labourers too died in their thousands - exactly how many will never be known. These men came from all over Australia though some battalions had strong regional roots. In due course the inevitable happened - a cholera epidemic broke out. 368 of the 1,061 on board the USS Houston survived. Khwae was frequently mispronounced by non-Thai speakers as kwai, or 'buffalo' in Thai). From the inmates of Colditz to the men who took part in the 'Great Escape . A great deal of equipment was improvised by the medical officers and orderlies, and food and medicines were clandestinely obtained. Dancing Along the Deadline : The Andersonville Memoir of a Prisoner of the Confederacy. Alternatively, search more than 1 million objects from Lieutenant General Eiguma Ishida, overall commander of the Burma Railway, was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. 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. New options were needed to support the Japanese forces in the Burma Campaign, and an overland route offered the most direct alternative. On 17 October 1943, construction gangs originating in Burma working south met up with construction gangs originating in Thailand working north. 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 Dutch formed the second largest contingent of Allied prisoners of war on the ThaiBurma railway, after the British. 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. At both camp and base hospitals, for the greater part of the time, the doctors had only such drugs and equipment as they had been able to carry with them. The British people were now resigned to the fact that Hitler had to be stopped by force. 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. 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