burma railway prisoners of war list

[73], The two bridges were successfully bombed and damaged on 13 February 1945 by bomber aircraft from the Royal Air Force (RAF). Coast also details the camaraderie, pastimes, and humour of the POWs in the face of adversity.[47]. After the railway was completed, the POWs still had almost two years to survive before liberation. 3:09pm Oct 16, 2018. More than one in five of them died there. Conduct Unbecoming : The Story of the Murder of Canadian Prisoners of War in Normandy. 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. 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 each: rank, serial number, regiment, date of birth, home address, next-of-kin, religion, date on which arrived at the camp, and date of leaving because of illness (the type of illness is stated in each case) or, as in many cases, death. Organization of the Labor. The records of a million World War II Prisoners of War will be published online today. [59], Several museums are dedicated to those who perished building the railway. [33] Other documents suggest that more than 100,000 Malayan Tamils were brought into the project and around 60,000 perished.[35][36]. 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 . [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). [21][22] The railway link between Thailand and Burma was to be separated again for protecting British interests in Singapore. Their death rates on the ThaiBurma railway were little different from the British and higher than the Dutch. The youth of many Australian prisoners of war was very evident and many enlisted at an age younger than 20. 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. 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. [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 before, their food and accommodation were minor considerations. 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. ", "Yamashita: the greatest Japanese general of World War II? 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. The Battle of Sidi Barrani (10-11 December 1940) was the opening battle of Operation Compass, the first big British attack of the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War. 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. Most of the camps were right alongside the railway track and some were near bridges and other vulnerable points. Votes: 1,734. 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. The second largest group of prisoners more than 2700 were captured on Java. From late 1942 more than 13 000 Australians were sent from Singapore, Java and Timor to work on the ThaiBurma railway. 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. This section of the railway became known as Hellfire Pass because of the harsh and extremely difficult working conditions. 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 Factors of Survival. Over 60,000 prisoners worked on its construction, the majority of whom were British, and some 20% died before release in 1945. 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. Many remember Japanese soldiers as being cruel and indifferent to the fate of Allied prisoners of war and the Asian rmusha. The two parties met at Nieke in November 1943, and the line - 263 miles long - was completed by December. They were set to work building a camp at Nong Pladuk which would form a base for future groups of POWs. Over 22 000 Australians were captured by the Japanese when they conquered South East Asia in early 1942. April 1942 to October 1943. This included personnel from USS Houston and the 131st Field Artillery Regiment of the Texas Army National Guard. 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. More than 250 miles of railway, from Thanbyuzayat in Burma to Ban Pong in Thailand, remained to be constructed, much of it through mountainous country and dense jungle, in a region with one of the worst climates in the world.The Japanese aimed at completing the railway in 14 months, or at least by the end of l943. Camps were usually named after the kilometre where they were located. [53], The construction of the Burma Railway is counted as a war crime committed by Japan in Asia. 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. Some workers were attracted by the relatively high wages, but the working conditions for the rmusha were deadly. [40][41] Construction camps housing at least 1,000 workers each were established every 510 miles (817km) of the route. 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. Burma was a key strategic objective for the Japanese for two reasons. Many are now held by the Australian War Memorial, State Library of Victoria, and the Imperial War Museum in London. In these camps entertainment flourished as an essential part of their rehabilitation. Khwae was frequently mispronounced by non-Thai speakers as kwai, or 'buffalo' in Thai). 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. It is also known from a study of the Australians who joined the army in World War II that they were generally young and unmarried. 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. 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. 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. Burma-Siam Railway 1942-1945, Second World War. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. (Supplied: Andrew Glynn) Families find long-lost answers Major Sotomatsu Chida was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. Subcategories Grid List There are 23 products. The Burma- Death Railway. [69] An unknown number of Malayan workers were housed in a nearby camp. Death Railway . An Australian memorial is at Hellfire Pass. Special British prisoner parties at Kinsaiyok bury about 20 coolies a day. Prisoners of war from Java (Williams Force, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel J. M. Williams, and Black Force, including 593 Australians commanded by Lieutenant Colonel C. M. Black) travelled via Singapore and thence to Moulmein, arriving in Burma on 29-30 October 1942. Accommodation for the Japanese guards had to be built first, and at all the staging camps built subsequently along the railway this rule applied. More than 22 000 Australians were taken prisoner in the Asia-Pacific region in the early months of 1942. The defendants were charged with crimes against Western prisoners of war and civilians and with crimes against local people. The final group of Dutch arrived in Burma as part of Group 5 in April 1943, bringing the total of Dutch in Burma to around 4600. All nationalities listed by camp and/or party. Used with permission of the author, Lilian Sluyter. During this time, prisoners suffered from disease, malnutrition, and cruel forms of punishment and torture inflicted by the Japanese. 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. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. The railway track from Kanchanaburi - photographed in 1945. 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. This video is sponsored by Ground News - The world's first news comparison platform. [68] In February 1943, 1,000 Dutch prisoners of war were added to Tamarkan. 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 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). 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.

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