Burma Railway

On 16 January 1946, the British ordered Japanese POWs to remove a four-kilometre stretch of rail between Nikki (Ni Thea) and Sonkrai.[21][22] The railway link between Thailand and Burma was to be separated again for protecting British interests in Singapore.[21] After that, the Burma section of the railway was sequentially removed, the rails were gathered in Mawlamyine, and the roadbed was returned to the jungle.[21]

In October 1946, the Thai section of the line was sold to the Government of Thailand for £1,250,000 (50 million baht; equivalent to US$55,161,760 in 2021).[23][24] The money was used to compensate neighbouring countries and colonies for material stolen by Japan during the construction of the railway.[23] On 1 February 1947, two people—including Momluang Kri Dechatiwong, the Thai Minister of Transport—were killed on an inspection tour because the bridge near Konkoita had collapsed.[25][26] After the accident, it was decided to end the line at Nam Tok and reuse the remainder to rehabilitate the line.[27]

After the war, the railway was in poor condition and needed reconstruction for use by the Royal Thai Railway system. On 24 June 1949, the portion from Kanchanaburi to Nong Pla Duk (Thai หนองปลาดุก) was finished; on the first of April 1952, the next section up to Wang Pho (Wangpo) was done. 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. Finally, on 1 July 1958, the rail line was completed to Nam Tok (Thai น้ำตก, 'waterfall', referring to the nearby Sai Yok Noi Waterfall) The portion in use today is some 130 km (81 mi) long. 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 Bangkok–Ban Phachi Junction double track, rehabilitating the track from Thung Song Junction to Trang, and constructing both the Nong Pla Duk–Suphan Buri and Ban Thung Pho–Khiri Rat Nikhom branch lines. Parts of the abandoned route have been converted into a walking trail.[28]

The first locomotive used for goods transport on the Death Railway on display in Thanbyuzayat, Myanmar

Since the 1990s various proposals have been made to rebuild the complete railway, but as of 2021 these plans had not been realised. 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.

The start point in Myanmar

Japanese soldiers, 12,000 of them, including 800 Koreans, were employed on the railway as engineers, guards, and supervisors of the POW and rōmusha labourers. Although working conditions were far better for the Japanese than the POWs and rōmusha workers, about 1,000 (eight percent) of them died during construction. Many remember Japanese soldiers as being cruel and indifferent to the fate of Allied prisoners of war and the Asian rōmusha. 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.[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 (rōmusha). Javanese, Malayan Tamils of Indian origin, Burmese, Chinese, Thai, and other Southeast Asians, forcibly drafted by the Imperial Japanese Army to work on the railway, died in its construction.[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. The Burmese had welcomed the invasion by Japan and cooperated with Japan in recruiting workers.[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. When that failed to attract sufficient workers, they resorted to more coercive methods, rounding up workers and imprisoning them, especially in Malaya.[34] Approximately 90,000 Burmese and 75,000 Malayans worked on the railroad.[30] Other nationalities and ethnic groups working on the railway were Tamils, Chinese, Karen, Javanese, and Singaporean Chinese.[33] Other documents suggest that more than 100,000 Malayan Tamils were brought into the project and around 60,000 perished.[35][36]

Malayan Tamils during the construction of the railway between June 1942 and October 1943

Some workers were attracted by the relatively high wages, but the working conditions for the rōmusha were deadly.[37] British doctor Robert Hardie wrote:

"The conditions in the coolie camps down river are terrible," Basil says, "They are kept isolated from Japanese and British camps. They have no latrines. Special British prisoner parties at Kinsaiyok bury about 20 coolies a day. These coolies have been brought from Malaya under false pretenses – 'easy work, good pay, good houses!' Some have even brought wives and children. 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. Yet many of them have shown extraordinary kindness to sick British prisoners passing down the river, giving them sugar and helping them into the railway trucks at Tarsao."[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 (သံဖြူဇရပ် in the Burmese language; in English 'Tin Shelter'), the northern terminus of the railway. They worked on airfields and other infrastructure initially before beginning construction of the railway in October 1942. 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.[39] More prisoners of war were imported from Singapore and the Dutch East Indies as construction advanced.[40][41] Construction camps housing at least 1,000 workers each were established every 5–10 miles (8–17 km) of the route.[42][43] Workers were moved up and down the railway line as needed.[44]

The construction camps consisted of open-sided barracks built of bamboo poles with thatched roofs. The barracks were about 60 m (66 yd) long with sleeping platforms raised above the ground on each side of an earthen floor. Two hundred men were housed in each barracks, giving each man a two-foot wide space in which to live and sleep. Camps were usually named after the kilometre where they were located.[45]

Portrait of POW "Dusty" Rhodes; a three-minute sketch by Ashley George Old painted in Thailand in 1944

The prisoners of war "found themselves at the bottom of a social system that was harsh, punitive, fanatical, and often deadly."[46] The living and working conditions on the Burma Railway were often described as "horrific", with maltreatment, sickness, and starvation. The estimated number of civilian labourers and POWs who died during construction varies considerably, but the Australian Government figures suggest that of the 330,000 people who worked on the line (including 250,000 Asian labourers and 61,000 Allied POWs) about 90,000 of the labourers and about 16,000 Allied prisoners died.[30]

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. Human hair was often used for brushes, plant juices and blood for paint, and toilet paper as the "canvas". Some of their works were used as evidence in the trials of Japanese war criminals. Many are now held by the Australian War Memorial, State Library of Victoria, and the Imperial War Museum in London.

Australian and Dutch prisoners of war, suffering from beriberi, at Tarsau in Thailand in 1943

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.[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. 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. Coast also details the camaraderie, pastimes, and humour of the POWs in the face of adversity.[47]

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.[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". Hekking died in 1994.[50] Charles died in December 2009.

Except for the worst months of the construction period, known as the "Speedo" (mid-spring to mid-October 1943),[51][52] one of the ways the Allied POWs kept their spirits up was to ask one of the musicians in their midst to play his guitar or accordion, or lead them in a group sing-along, or request their camp comedians to tell some jokes or put on a skit.

After the railway was completed, the POWs still had almost two years to survive before liberation. 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. In these camps entertainment flourished as an essential part of their rehabilitation. 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. These activities engaged numerous POWs as actors, singers, musicians, designers, technicians, and female impersonators.

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.[53]

The construction of the Burma Railway is counted as a war crime committed by Japan in Asia.[54][55]

After the completion of the railroad, over 10,000 POWs were then transported to Japan.[56] Those left to maintain the line still suffered from appalling living conditions as well as increasing Allied air raids.[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.[13]

Estimates of deaths among Southeast Asian civilians subject to forced labour, often known as rōmusha, vary widely, because statistics are incomplete and fragmented.[60] However, authorities agree that the percentage of deaths among the rōmusha was much higher than among the Allied military personnel. The total number of rōmusha 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.[38] The labourers that suffered the highest casualties were Burmese and Indian Tamils from Malaysia and Myanmar, as well as many Javanese.[30]

A lower death rate among Dutch POWs and internees, relative to those from the UK and Australia, has been linked to the fact that many personnel and civilians taken prisoner in the Dutch East Indies had been born there, were long-term residents and/or had Eurasian ancestry; they tended thus to be more resistant to tropical diseases and to be better acclimatized than other Western Allied personnel.

The quality of medical care received by different groups of prisoners varied enormously. One factor was that many European and US doctors had little experience with tropical diseases. For example, a group of 400 Dutch prisoners, which included three doctors with extensive tropical medicine experience, suffered no deaths at all. 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. Another cohort of 450 US personnel suffered 100 deaths.[61]

Weight loss among Allied officers who worked on construction was, on average, 9–14 kg (20–30 lb) less than that of enlisted personnel.[62]

Workers in more isolated areas suffered a much higher death rate than did others.[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. Thirty-two of them were sentenced to death.[63] The most important trial was against the general staff. Lieutenant General Eiguma Ishida, overall commander of the Burma Railway, was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. His subordinates Colonel Shigeo Nakamura, Colonel Tamie Ishii and Lieutenant-Colonel Shoichi Yanagita were sentenced to death. Major Sotomatsu Chida was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment.[64] Hiroshi Abe, a first lieutenant who supervised construction of the railway at Sonkrai where 600 British prisoners out of 1,600 died of cholera and other diseases,[65] was sentenced to death, later commuted to life in prison, as a B/C class war criminal. He served 11 years.[66][67] No compensation or reparations have been provided to Southeast Asian victims.[32]

Bridge over the River Kwai by Leo Rawlings, a POW who was involved in the line's construction (sketch dated to 1943). It depicts four POWs, waist-deep in the water, carrying a large log during the first bridge's construction.

One of the most notable portions of the entire railway line is Bridge 277, the so-called "Bridge on the River Kwai", which was built over a stretch of the river that was then known as part of the Mae Klong River. 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'. Khwae was frequently mispronounced by non-Thai speakers as kwai, or 'buffalo' in Thai). This gave rise to the name of "River Kwai" in English. 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 (แควใหญ่ in the Thai language; in English, 'big tributary'). On 26 October 1942, British prisoners of war arrived at Tamarkan to construct the bridge. Initially, 1,000 prisoners worked on the bridge and were commanded by Colonel Philip Toosey.[68] In February 1943, 1,000 Dutch prisoners of war were added to Tamarkan.[69] An unknown number of Malayan workers were housed in a nearby camp.[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. However, the film and book contain many historical inaccuracies, and should be considered works of fiction.[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 NNE–SSW direction across the river. The newer steel and concrete bridge was made up of eleven curved-truss bridge spans which the Japanese builders brought from Java in the Dutch East Indies in 1942.[72] This is the bridge that still remains today. The wooden bridge was reused for pedestrians and cars.[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 1,000 lb aerial ordnance, on 23 January 1945.[73] Bad weather forced the cancellation of the mission and the AZON was never deployed against the bridge.[73]

Destroyed bridge (exact date unknown)

The two bridges were successfully bombed and damaged on 13 February 1945 by bomber aircraft from the Royal Air Force (RAF).[74] Repairs were carried out by forced labour of POWs shortly after and by April the wooden railroad trestle bridge was back in operation. 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.[75] Repair work soon commenced afterwards and continued again and both bridges were operational again by the end of May. 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.[76]

The new railway line did not fully connect with the Burmese railroad network as no railroad bridges were built which crossed the river between Moulmein and Martaban (the former on the river's southern bank and the latter to the opposite on the northern bank). Thus, ferries were needed as an alternative connecting system. A bridge was not built until the Thanlwin Bridge (carrying both regular road and railroad traffic) was constructed between 2000 and 2005.[77]

The cutting at Hellfire Pass was one of the most difficult (and deadly for POWs) sections to build

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. 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. Sixty-nine men were beaten to death by Japanese guards in the twelve weeks it took to build the cutting, and many more died from cholera, dysentery, starvation, and exhaustion.[78][79]