burma railway prisoners of war list

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. Human hair was often used for brushes, plant juices and blood for paint, and toilet paper as the "canvas". Malaria, dysentery and pellagra (a vitamin deficiency disease) attacked the prisoners, and the number of sick in the camps was always high. [59], Several museums are dedicated to those who perished building the railway. Also sketches by POWs. The railway, built by the Empire of Japan in 1943 to support its attack on the British colony of Burma, used forced labour, including Asian civilians and Allied prisoners of war, many thousands of . Most of the prisoners of the Japanese were Australian Army about 21 000. More than a third of these men and women died in captivity. [8], The project aimed to connect Ban Pong in Thailand with Thanbyuzayat in Burma, linking up with existing railways at both places. Click Here To See Liberation Questionnaires. With an enormous pool of captive labour at their disposal, the Japanese forced approximately 200,000 Asian conscripts and over 60,000 Allied POWs to construct the Burma Railway. This was the same time at which Australians in A Force left Changi for Burma. Imprest Burmese and Malay labourers too died in their thousands - exactly how many will never be known. 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. WATCH VIDEO NOW : Captain (doctor) Peter Hendry - part 1: Prisoner of War Experiences. During this time, prisoners suffered from disease, malnutrition, and cruel forms of punishment and torture inflicted by the Japanese. [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. RM 2CYBAYN - Military personnel and people attend a dawn memorial service for soldiers who died during World War Two on ANZAC Day at Hellfire Pass in Kanchanaburi province, Thailand, April 25, 2015. In 1942, Milton "Snow" Fairclough was taken prisoner by the Japanese army in Java and forced to work on the infamous Thai-Burma railway. Though medical consequences of war attract attention, the health consequences of the prisoner-of-war (POW) experience are poorly researched and apprec . 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. [54][55], After the completion of the railroad, over 10,000 POWs were then transported to Japan. In 1939 the age limits for enlistment in the AIF were 19 to 35 years of age (higher for officers and some NCOs). His account of the conditions and suffering endured by his fellow prisoners and himself makes for the most extraordinary and disturbing reading. Records of the Army Staff, RG 319. "[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 ( in the Burmese language; in English 'Tin Shelter'), the northern terminus of the railway. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Burma_Railway&oldid=1133973618, Iron bridge across Kwae Yai River at Tha Makham, Arch Flanagan (19152013), Australian soldier and father of novelist, This page was last edited on 16 January 2023, at 11:22. It was built from 1940 to 1943 by civilian labourers impressed or recruited by the Japanese and prisoners of war taken by the Japanese, to supply troops and weapons in . Another thirteen letter parties, L to X, soon followed, taking the number of British working on the railway at the end of 1942 to around 20 000. 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. More than 22 000 Australians were taken prisoner in the Asia-Pacific region in the early months of 1942. A copper spike was driven at the meeting point by commanding General Eiguma Ishida, and a memorial plaque was revealed. More commonly called the Burma or Thai-Burma Railway, it was a major project during Allied Far East imprisonment under the Japanese. 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. 493.8 Records of the Peiping headquarters Group 1946-47 493.1 Administrative History Related Records: Records of U.S. Army Service Forces (World War II), RG 160. By far the majority of British POWs nearly 29 000 of them were sent to Thailand. The dawn ceremony was held for the prisoners of war (POWs) who were forced to work and died on the Burma-Siam railway during the Japanese occupation. The first train to pass Konkoita on the newly constructed Burma-Thailand railway, built for the Japanese by prisoner of war (POW) labour. Death Railway . Little detailed research has been done on the background of Australian POWs and how this affected their chances of survival. Nearly 15 000 were captured on Singapore in February 1942 and over a thousand on each of Ambon, Dutch Timor, and New Britain. Among the Allied POWs were some 30,000 British, 13,000 Australians, 18,000 Dutch, and 700 Americans. 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. This is ironic, since for most of the war in the Pacific Changi was, in reality, one of the most benign of the Japanese prisoner-of-war camps; its privations were relatively minor compared to those of others, particularly those on the Burma-Thailand railway. Lt Col Coates the greatest doctor on the Burma Thailand Railway. 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. 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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. 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 . Many are now held by the Australian War Memorial, State Library of Victoria, and the Imperial War Museum in London. Japanese soldiers, 12,000 of them, including 800 Koreans, were employed on the railway as engineers, guards, and supervisors of the POW and rmusha labourers. During its construction more than 16 ,000 prisoners of war died - mainly of sickness, malnutrition and exhaustion - and were buried along the railway. 61,000 Prisoners of War were forced to work on the Burma-Thailand Railway in the most atrocious conditions. Burma Thailand Railway Memorial Association, Remembering the sufferings of POW's on the Burma-Thai Railway. Subcategories Grid List There are 23 products. The Burma Railway was also known as the "Death Railway" as 16,000 allied troops and 100,000 Asian labourers died during its construction. [60] However, authorities agree that the percentage of deaths among the rmusha was much higher than among the Allied military personnel. Chungkai War Cemetery, near Kanchanaburi, has a further 1,693 war graves. 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. During its construction, approximately 13,000 prisoners of war died and were buried along the railway. [90], Three cemeteries maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) contain the vast majority of Allied military personnel who died on the Burma Railway.[90]. "[46] The living and working conditions on the Burma Railway were often described as "horrific", with maltreatment, sickness, and starvation. [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. 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. 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. [73] Bad weather forced the cancellation of the mission and the AZON was never deployed against the bridge. The map shows the significance of the building of the Thai-Burma railway by the Australian prisoners of war to Australia because it shows where the POWs were located whilst being prisoners. When you got back to your sleeping platform you only had a tin of water to wash your feet. The rail line was built along the Khwae Noi (Kwai) River valley to support the Japanese armed forces during the Burma Campaign. description Object description. The construction of the railway is a heartbreaking story of forced labor, with more than 60,000 Allied prisoners of war . From Thai-Burma railway to Sandakan, WWII history buff unearths stories of Australian POWs. A newly wealthy English woman returns to Malaya to build a well for the villagers who helped her during war. [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. 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. Show more. Conditions were significantly worse than at Changi, with forced hard labour and severely inadequate supplies of food and medicines. A Bill Aldag Fergus Anckorn Charles Groves Wright Anderson Ken Anderson (politician) Harold Atcherley B Henri Baaij Edmund W. Barker Theo Bot Russell Braddon Jim Bradley (British Army officer) Gerard Bruggink C John Carrick (Australian politician) Johannes Gijsbertus de Casparis Forde Everard de Wend Cayley Fred Chadwick Jack Bridger Chalker Some of their works were used as evidence in the trials of Japanese war criminals. Since the Netherlands East Indies had been under Dutch control for centuries, the Dutch POWs included not only Europeans but Eurasians, who had acquired full civil rights, and indigenous soldiers, including Sundanese, Javanese, Menadonese, Ambonese and Timorese. Burma Railway, also called Burma-Siam Railway, railway built during World War II connecting Bangkok and Moulmein (now Mawlamyine), Burma (Myanmar). A large number of the British and Australian captives were sent to Burma (Myanmar). 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. 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. [9] On 23 June 1942, 600 British soldiers arrived at Camp Nong Pladuk, Thailand to build a camp to serve as a transit camp for the work camps along the railway. Around 90,000 civilians died, as did more than 12,000 Allied prisoners. See more ideas about prisoners of war, war, historical. ", "Burma-Siam Railway - Australia receives no payment", "Grote schade aan materiaal der N.I. Parts of the abandoned route have been converted into a walking trail.[28]. 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. by Ezra Hoyt Ripple (Editor), Mark A. Snell (Editor) Hardcover - 168 pages. If you are joining after August, please choose the month you are joining in below. Undoubtedly Australian POWs did display such qualities on the ThaiBurma railway and elsewhere. They were treated brutally by the Japanese, and struggled with tropical diseases and the effects of malnutrition. 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. [ 73 ] Bad weather forced the cancellation of the abandoned route have been converted into a walking.! 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