Death Railway
Designation for the
Thailand-Burma Railway built by
the Imperial Japanese Army during WW II (fig.) and which ran from Nong Pladuk in
Thailand to Thanbuyuzayat in Burma, with its main section running through
the Thai province of
Kanchanaburi
and crossing the border near the
Three Pagoda
Pass
(fig.). During WW I, Japan
honours its
treaty with Britain and declares war on Germany. Japanese forces
on to seize the German naval base at
Tsingtao
in northeast China (wartime
maps) and thus
on 7 November 1914
gained a foothold in
China when it captured the German fortress.
After WWI, former German possessions in China were handed to
Japan, to China's outrage. The Japanese army subsequently became well established in
Shandong (Shantung) and
Manchuria, and by the mid 1930's Manchuria had become the Japanese
protectorate of Manchukuo. The Japanese envisaged a similar fate for the
whole of China. However, further territorial demands by the Japanese on a
weak and divided China subsequently led to war. In an attempt to force Japan
to end this war Britain, Holland and the United States imposed a trade
embargo on Japan. At the same time they provided the Chinese forces
led by Chiang Kai Chek with weapons and supplies via a
road across the foothills of the Himalayas. In order to cut this
vital supply link and to obtain the raw materials of Burma for themselves,
the Japanese needed to enter Burma. After the Japanese offensive, which
began in December 1941 with the attack on Pearl Harbor and the invasion of
Malaya, the Imperial Army's forces were by mid ‘42 fighting the British in
Burma, their aim being to cut the above mentioned Allied supply link into
China and ultimately an offensive against India. To maintain their armies in
Burma the Japanese needed a more secure supply route than the vulnerable
sea-lines between Singapore and Rangoon through the Andaman Sea, where
Allied forces operating from Ceylon were attacking their supply ships. Thus
realizing the need for a safe land route the Japanese decided to construct a
415 km long railway through dense jungle and mountains. Work on the line
began in southern Burma in October 1942 while at the same time construction
also started in Thailand. To build the railway the Japanese assembled a
multi-national workforce of approximately 250,000 Asian labourers and over
60,000 Australian, British, Dutch and American prisoners of war (POWs). On
16 October 1943 the two ends of the railway were joined at Kongkiwtah in
Thailand. Of all POWs who worked on the railway 12,399 died (about 20%), and
between 70,000 and 90,000 civilian labourers are also believed to have died,
mainly as a result of lack of proper food, totally inadequate medical
facilities and, at times, the brutal treatment from their guards,
usually ethnic Korean soldiers who fought in the Imperial Japanese Army and
themselves ranked among
the lowest in the pecking order, not just lower than ordinary
Japanese soldiers but below even
a Japanese military pigeon. Due to heavy casualties of the
Japanese Army
in the ongoing Sino-Japanese war that began in July 1937, Japan's
human resources were stretched thin and thus Korean men were
conscripted into the Japanese military while Korea was under
Japanese rule as an occupied territory between 1910 and 1945. The
appalling death toll that arose during construction −it is said one life for each
sleeper− led to the use of the name ‘the Death Railway’.
Allied military personnel who died or were killed during its
construction, as well as those killed in action in the region, are
buried at the war cemeteries of
Don Rak (map
-
fig.) and
Chong Kai (map
-
fig.) in Thailand, and at
Taukkyan/Htauk Kyant (map
-
fig.) in
Myanmar, which also
has graves of victims of other regional wars. These fields of honour are situated on land donated to and purchased by the
Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which is also in charge of their
overall maintenance.
A famous part of the
infamous
railway is the
297 metre long and 10 metre wide
bridge over the River
Kwae (fig.)
near
the city centre of
Kanchanaburi.
Although it is just one of over
600 bridges on the Thailand-Burma Railway and officially referred to
as Bridge 277, it was made famous in the 1957 epic war movie Bridge
on the River Kwai, which was filmed in a mountainous area of Sri Lanka nonetheless.
See also
Thailand-Burma Railway Centre,
Hellfire Pass Memorial. In Thai
called
Thahng Rot Fai Mareutayu.
See also
samurai,
THEMATIC STREET
LIGHT,
and
MAP Tham Krasae Section.
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