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Burma Railway

The railroad bridge over the Mae Klong River (or the Kwai Yai River) in Kanchanaburi Province, Thailand. The span of this bridge is composed of nine curved-truss segments (originals dating back to WWII) and two angular-truss segments (replacements (under war reparations) from Japan after 1945).
Locale	Ban Pong, Thailand to Thanbyuzayat, Burma
Dates of operation	1942–1943 (Section to Nam Tok reopened in 1957)
Track gauge	1,000 mm (3 ft 3 3⁄8 in) metre gauge[1]
Length	415 kilometres (258 mi)

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[ v t e ] Burma Railway
Legend
State Railway of Thailand Nong Pla Duk Nong Pla Duk Junction State Railway of Thailand Ban Pong Mai Ruk Khe Tha Rua Noi Tha Muang Kanchanaburi Khwae Yai Bridge Bridge on the River Kwai Khao Pun Chungkai POW Camp Wang Lan Wang Yen Tha Pong Ban Khao Tha Kilen Lum Sum Ai Hit Tham Krasae Bridge Wang Pho Viaduct Wang Pho Wang Yai Nam Tok Nam Tok Sai Yok Noi Tha Sao Tha Sao POW Camp Tonchan Tampii Hellfire Pass Hin Tok Kannyu Saiyok Kinsaiyok Lin Thin Kui Yae Hindat Prang Kasi Yongthi Tha Kanun Nam Chon Yai Tha Mayo Tamrong Patho Kroeng Krai Kurikonta Konkoita Thimongtha Shimo Ni Thea Ni Thea Sonkrai Thai–Burmese border Chaunggahla-ya Paya-thanzu Tuang Aungganaung Regue Kyondaw Lawa Apalon Bridge Apalon Apalaine Mezali Kami Mezali Lonsi Taungzun Thanbaya POW Camp Thanbaya Anankwin Myettaw Beketaung Tanyin Retphaw Konnoki Rabao Thetkaw Wagale Sin-Thanbyuzayat Myanmar Railways Thanbyuzayat Myanmar Railways

The Burma Railway, also known as the Death Railway, the Siam–Burma Railway, the Thai–Burma Railway and similar names, was a 415-kilometre (258 mi) railway between Ban Pong, Thailand, and Thanbyuzayat, Burma, built by the Empire of Japan in 1943 to support its forces in the Burma campaign of World War II. This railway completed the rail link between Bangkok, Thailand, and Rangoon, Burma (now Yangon). The name used by the Japanese Government is Thai–Men-Rensetsu-Tetsudou (泰緬連接鉄道), which means Thailand-Myanmar-Link-Railway.

The line was closed in 1947, but the section between Nong Pla Duk and Nam Tok was reopened ten years later.

Between 180,000 and 250,000 Southeast Asian civilian labourers (rōmusha) and about 61,000 Allied prisoners of war were subjected to forced labour during its construction. About 90,000 civilian labourers and more than 12,000 Allied prisoners died.

History

A railway route between Burma and Thailand, crossing Three Pagodas Pass and following the valley of the Kwhae 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.^[2]

In early 1942, Japanese forces invaded Burma and seized control of the colony from the United Kingdom. To supply their forces in Burma, the Japanese depended upon the sea, bringing supplies and troops to Burma around the Malay peninsula and through the Strait of Malacca and the Andaman Sea. This route was vulnerable to attack by Allied submarines, especially after the Japanese defeat at the Battle of Midway in June 1942. To avoid a hazardous 2,000-mile (3,200 km) sea journey around the Malay peninsula, a railway from Bangkok to Rangoon seemed a feasible alternative.^[3] The Japanese began this project in June 1942.^[4]

The project aimed to connect Ban Pong in Thailand with Thanbyuzayat in Burma, linking up with existing railways at both places. Its route was through Three Pagodas Pass on the border of Thailand and Burma. 69 miles (111 km) of the railway were in Burma and the remaining 189 miles (304 km) were in Thailand. The movement of POWs northward from Changi prison in Singapore and other prison camps in Southeast Asia began in May 1942. After preliminary work of airfields and infrastructure, construction of the railway began in Burma on 15 September 1942 and in Thailand in November. The projected or goal completion date was December 1943.^[5] Most of the construction materials, including tracks and sleepers, were brought from dismantled branches of Malaya's Federated Malay States Railway network and the East Indies' various rail networks.

The railway was completed ahead of schedule. On 17 October 1943, construction gangs originating in Burma and working south met up with construction gangs originating in Thailand and working north. The two sections of the line met at kilometre 263, about 18 km (11 mi) south of the Three Pagodas Pass at Konkuita (Kaeng Khoi Tha, Sangkhla Buri District, Kanchanaburi Province).^[6]

As an American engineer said after viewing the project, "What makes this an engineering feat is the totality of it, the accumulation of factors. 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. They had very little transportation to get stuff to and from the workers, they had almost no medication, they couldn’t 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. All of that makes this railway an extraordinary accomplishment."^[7]

The total freight carried during the war was 500,000 tonnes by two Japanese Army divisions.

The line was closed in 1947, but the section between Nong Pla Duk and Nam Tok was reopened ten years later in 1957.^[1]

On 16 January 1946, the British ordered Japanese POWs to remove the 4 km rail between Nikki and Sonkrai.^[8] The railway link between Thailand and Burma was to be separated again for protecting British interests in Singapore.^[8] After that, the Burma section of the Railway was sequentially removed, the rails were gathered in Mawlamyaing, and the roadbed was returned to the jungle.^[8] The British government sold the railway and related materials to the Thai government for 50 million bahts.^[9]

Workers

Japanese

12,000 Japanese soldiers, 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 POW and rōmusha workers, about 1,000 (8 percent) of them died during the construction. Japanese soldiers are widely remembered 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.^[10]

Civilian labourers

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.^{[better source needed][11][12]} During the initial stages of the construction of the railway, Burmese and Thai 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 to end British rule and cooperated with Japan in recruiting workers.^[13][14]

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 impressing them, especially in Malaya. Most of the rōmusha working on the railway were probably coerced, rather than being volunteers. Approximately 90,000 Burmese and 75,000 Malayans worked on the railroad. Other nationalities and ethnic groups working on the railway were Tamils, Chinese, Karen, Javanese, and Singaporean Chinese.^[14] Other documents suggest that more than 100,000 Malayan Tamils were brought into the project and around 60,000 perished.^[15][16]

The working conditions for the rōmusha were deadly. British doctor Robert Hardie wrote:

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"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 pretences – '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."^[17]

Prisoners of war

The first prisoners of war, 3,000 Australians, to go to Burma left Changi prison at Singapore on 14 May 1942 and journeyed by sea to near Thanbyuzayat, 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.^[18] More prisoners of war were imported from Singapore and the Dutch East Indies as construction advanced. Construction camps housing at least 1,000 workers each were established every five to 10 miles (8 to 17 km) of the route. Workers were moved up and down the railway line as needed.

The construction camps consisted of open-sided barracks built of bamboo poles with thatched roofs. The barracks were about sixty metres (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.^[19]

Conditions during construction

The prisoners of war "found themselves at the bottom of a social system that was harsh, punitive, fanatical, and often deadly."^[20] The living and working conditions on the Burma Railway were often described as "horrific", with maltreatment, sickness, and starvation. The estimated total number of civilian labourers and POWs who died during construction varies considerably, but the Australian Government figures suggest that of the 330,000 people that 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.^[21][13]

Life in the POW camps was recorded at great risk to themselves 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.

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.^[22] 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.^[22]

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 "Death Railway". 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. Charles died in December 2009.

Except for the worst months of the construction period, known as the "Speedo" (mid-spring to mid-October 1943), 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 their 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, set, 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.

The construction of the Burma Railway is counted as a war crime committed by Japan in Asia. Hiroshi Abe, the first lieutenant who supervised construction of the railway at Sonkrai where 1400 British prisoners out of 1600 died of cholera and other diseases in 3 months, was sentenced to death, later commuted to 15 years in prison, as a B/C class war criminal.

After the completion of the railroad, most of the POWs were then transported to Japan. Those left to maintain the line still suffered from appalling living conditions as well as increasing Allied air raids.

War crimes trials

After the end of World War II, 111 Japanese military officials were tried for war crimes because of their brutalization of POWs during the construction of the railway, with 32 of these sentenced to death.^[23] No compensation or reparations have been provided to Southeast Asian victims.^[12]

The bridge on the River Kwai

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 a 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 being frequently mispronounced by non-Thai speakers as Kwai, or the buffalo in the Thai language). This thus gave rise to the name of "River Kwai" in English. In 1960, because of discrepancies between actual facts and fiction and non-realism, the portion of the Mae Klong which passes under the bridge was renamed as the Khwae Yai (แควใหญ่ in the Thai language; in English, "Big Tributary").

This bridge was immortalized by Pierre Boulle in his book and the film which was based on it, The Bridge on the River Kwai. However, there are many who point out that both Boulle's story and the film which was adapted from it were utterly unrealistic and do not show how bad and poor the conditions and general treatment of the Japanese-held prisoners-of-war (POWs) were.^[24] On the part of the Japanese, many resented the movie's depiction that their engineers' capabilities were inferior and less advanced to those of their British counterparts. In fact, Japanese engineers had already been surveying and planning the route of the railway line since 1937 and they were also highly organized and skilled.^[25] The Japanese also accused the film of what they regarded as the "glorification of the superiority of Western civilization" because the British POWs in the film were able to construct a bridge that the Japanese engineers and troops could not.^[26]

The first wooden railroad bridge over the Khwae Yai was finished in February 1943, which was soon accompanied by a more-modern concrete-and-steel railroad 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 over from Java in the Dutch East Indies in 1942, which by then was under Japanese occupation, as was much of Southeast Asia; this is also the bridge that still remains to this day and has become iconic around the world. It was this Bridge 277 that was meant to be attacked with the help of one of the world's first examples of a precision-guided munition, which was the American VB-1 AZON MCLOS-guided 1,000 lb aerial ordnance on 23 January 1945^[27] but bad weather prompted the cancellation of the mission and the AZON was never deployed against the bridge.

According to Thai-based Hellfire Tours, the "two bridges were successfully bombed and damaged on 13 February of 1945 by bomber aircraft from the Royal Air Force (RAF). 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. 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 until the Japanese surrender in August. After Japan's capitulation, the British Army removed about 3.9 kilometres of the original Japanese railroad track on the Thai–Burma border. A survey of the track had shown that its poor construction would not support commercial railroad traffic. The recovered tracks were subsequently sold to Thai Railways and the 130 km Ban Pong–Nam Tok section of railway was relaid and is still in use up to today."^[28]

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 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.

Hellfire Pass

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.^[29][30]

Post-war

After the war the railway was in very poor condition and needed heavy 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. Finally, on 1 July 1958 the rail line was completed to Nam Tok (Thai น้ำตก, English Sai Yok "waterfalls".) The portion in use today is some 130 km (81 mi) long. The line was abandoned beyond Nam Tok Sai Yok Noi; the steel rails were salvaged for reuse in expanding the Bangsue railway yard, reinforcing the BKK–Banphachi double track, rehabilitating the track from Thung Song to Trang, and constructing both the Nong Pla Duk–Suphanburi and Ban Thung Pho–Khirirat Nikhom branch lines. Parts of the abandoned route have been converted into a walking trail.

Since the 1990s various proposals have been made to rebuild the complete railway, but as of 2014^[update] these plans had not been realised. Since a large part of the original railway line is now submerged by the Vajiralongkorn Dam, and the surrounding terrain is mountainous, it would take extensive tunneling to reconnect Thailand with Burma by rail.

Death rates and causes

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.

Estimates of deaths among South East Asian civilians subject to forced labour, often known as rōmusha, vary widely^[how?]. 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 amongst them was as high as 50%.^[17]

Prisoner of war workers and deaths on the Burma Railway, 1942–1945 ^[13][31]

Country of origin	POWs	Number of deaths	Death rate
UK, British India or crown colony	30,131	6,904	7001230000000000000♠23%
Netherlands or Dutch East Indies	17,990	2,782	7001150000000000000♠15%
Australia	13,004	2,802	7001220000000000000♠22%
United States	686	133	7001190000000000000♠19%
Total	61,811	12,621	7001200000000000000♠20%

A lower death rate amongst 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 Luitenant Henri Hekking, a Dutch medical officer with experience in the tropics was assigned, suffered only nine deaths. Whereas another cohort of 450 US personnel suffered 100 deaths .^[32]

Weight loss among Allied officers who worked on construction was, on average, 20–30 lb (9–14 kg) less than that of enlisted personnel.^[33]

Workers in more isolated areas suffered a much higher death rate than others.^[33]

Cemeteries and memorials

After the war, the remains of most of the war dead were moved from former POW camps, burial grounds and lone graves along the rail line to official war cemeteries.

Three cemeteries maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) contain the vast majority of Allied military personnel who died on the Burma Railway.

Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, in the city of Kanchanaburi, contains the graves of 6,982 personnel comprising:

• 3,585 British


• 1,896 Dutch


• 1,362 Australians


• 12 members of the Indian Army (including British officers)


• 2 New Zealanders


• 2 Danes


• 8 Canadians^[34][35][36]
  

A memorial at the Kanchanaburi cemetery lists 11 other members of the Indian Army, who are buried in nearby Muslim cemeteries.

Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery, at Thanbyuzayat, 65 kilometres south of Moulmein has the graves of 3,617 POWs who died on the Burmese portion of the line.

• 1,651 British


• 1,335 Australians


• 621 Dutch


• 15 Indian Army


• 3 New Zealanders


• 1 Canadian^[34][35]
  

Chungkai War Cemetery, near Kanchanaburi, has a further 1,693 war graves.

• 1,373 British


• 314 Dutch


• 6 Indian Army^[34][35]
  

The remains of United States personnel were repatriated. Of the 668 US personnel forced to work on the railway, 133 died. This included personnel from USS Houston and the 131st Field Artillery Regiment of the Texas Army National Guard. The Americans were called the Lost Battalion as their fate was unknown to the United States for more than two years after their capture.^[31]

Several museums are dedicated to those who perished building the railway. The largest of these is at Hellfire Pass (north of the current terminus at Nam Tok), a cutting where the greatest number of lives were lost. An Australian memorial is at Hellfire Pass. Two other museums are in Kanchanaburi: the Thailand–Burma Railway Centre, opened in March 2003, and the JEATH War Museum. There is a memorial plaque at the Kwai bridge itself and an historic wartime steam locomotive is on display.

A preserved section of line has been rebuilt at the National Memorial Arboretum in England.

Prominent people coerced into building the line

• Sir Harold Atcherley, businessman, public figure and arts administrator in the United Kingdom


• 
  Idris James Barwick, author of In the Shadow of Death, died in 1974


• 
  Leo Britt, British theatrical producer in Chungkai, Kachu Mountain, and Nakhon Nai


• 
  Sir John Carrick, Australian senator


• 
  Norman Carter, Australian theatrical producer in Bicycle Camp, Java, in numerous camps on the Burma side of the construction, and later in Tamarkan, Thailand


• 
  Jack Bridger Chalker, artist best known for his work recording the lives of prisoners of war in World War II


• 
  Anthony Chenevix-Trench (10 May 1919 – 21 June 1979), headmaster of Eton College, 1964–1970 and Fettes College 1972–1979


• 
  Sir Albert Coates, chief Australian medical officer on the railway


• 
  John Coast, (30 October 1916 – 1989), British writer and music promoter. He wrote one of the earliest and most respected POW memoirs, Railroad of Death (1946).^[37]
  


• 
  Col. John Harold Henry Coombes, founder and the first Principal of Cadet College Petaro in Pakistan


• 
  Sir Ernest Edward "Weary" Dunlop, Australian surgeon renowned for his leadership of POWs on the railway


• 
  Ringer Edwards, Australian soldier who survived crucifixion at the hands of Japanese soldiers while working on the line


• Arch Flanagan, (1915–2013), Australian soldier and father of novelist Richard Flanagan and Martin Flanagan
  


• 
  Keith Flanagan (d. 2008) Australian soldier, journalist and campaigner for recognition of Weary Dunlop


• 
  William Frankland, British immunologist whose achievements include the popularisation of the pollen count as a piece of weather-related information to the British public and the prediction of increased levels of allergy to penicillin


• 
  Ernest Gordon, the former Presbyterian dean of the chapel at Princeton University
  


• 
  R. M. Hare, philosopher


• 
  Wim Kan, Dutch comedian and cabaret producer on the Burma side of the railway during the construction period and later in Nakhon Pathom Hospital Camp in Thailand


• 
  Hamilton Lamb (d. 7 December 1943), Australian politician and member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly, died of illness and malnutrition at railway camp 131 Kilo in Thailand


• 
  Eric Lomax, author of The Railway Man, an autobiography based on these events, which has been made into a film of the same name starring Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman


• 
  Jacob Markowitz, Romanian-born Canadian physician (1901–1969), AKA the "Jungle Surgeon", who enlisted with the RAMC


• Tan Sri Professor Sir Alexander Oppenheim, British mathematician, started a POW university for his fellow workers


• 
  Frank Pantridge, British physician


• 
  Donald Purdie (d. 27 May 1943), British chemistry professor and department head at Raffles College, Singapore; Purdie died during construction of the railway


• 
  Rowley Richards, Australian doctor who kept detailed notes of his time as a medical officer on the railway. He later wrote a book detailing his experiences


• 
  Rohan Rivett, Australian war correspondent in Singapore; captured after travelling 700 km, predominantly by rowboat, from Singapore; Rivett spent three years working on the Burma railway and later wrote a book chronicling the events.


• 
  Ronald Searle, British cartoonist, creator of the St Trinian's School characters


• 
  E. W. Swanton (1907–2000), Cricket writer and broadcaster. Mentioned in his autobiography — Sort of a cricket person
  


• 
  Arie Smit (15 April 1916 – 23 March 2016), Dutch artist and colonial army lithographer; captured in East Java by Japanese in March 1942, sent to Changi Prison and worked on Thai section of railway


• 
  Philip Toosey, senior Allied officer at the Bridge on the River Kwai


• 
  Reg Twigg (1913–2013), British author Survivor on the River Kwai: Life on the Burma Railway, Private in the Leicestershire Regiment


• 
  Tom Uren, Deputy Leader of the Australian Labor Party; Minister for Urban and Regional Development in Whitlam government


• 
  Alistair Urquhart, former Gordon Highlander, born in Aberdeen, Scotland. (8 September 1919 – 7 October 2016), author of the book The Forgotten Highlander in which he recalls how he survived his three years on the railway


• 
  Ian Watt (9 March 1917 – 13 December 1999), literary critic, literary historian and professor of English at Stanford University
  

Significant bridges along the line

• 346.40-metre iron bridge across Kwae Yai river at Tha Makham km. 56 + 255.1


• 90-metre wooden trestle across Songkalia river km. 294 + 418


• 56-metre wooden trestle across Mekaza river km. 319 + 798


• 75-metre wooden trestle across Zamithi river km. 329 + 678


• 50-metre concrete bridge across Apalong river km. 333 + 258.20


• 60-metre wooden trestle across Anakui river km. 369 + 839.5

Cultural references

The construction of the railway has been the subject of a novel and an award-winning film, The Bridge on the River Kwai (itself an adaptation of the French language novel The Bridge over the River Kwai); a novel, The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan, as well as a large number of personal accounts of POW experiences. More recently, the motion picture The Railway Man (based on the book of the same name) also gives insight into the barbaric conditions and suffering that were inflicted upon the workers who built the railway. Flanagan's 2013 book The Narrow Road to the Deep North centres on a group of Australian POWs and their experiences building the railway as slave labour, and was awarded the 2014 Man Booker Prize.

See also

Notes

References

Book references

• 
  Blair, Clay, Jr.; Joan Blair (1979). Return from the River Kwai. New York: Simon & Schuster.
  


• 
  Boulle, Pierre (1954). Bridge on the River Kwai. London: Secker & Warburg.
  


• 
  Bradden, Russell (2001) [1951]. The Naked Island. Edinburgh: Birlinn.
  


• 
  Bradley, James (1982). Towards The Setting Sun: An escape from the Thailand-Burma Railway, 1943. London and Chichester: Phillimore & Co. Ltd. ISBN 0 85033 467 5.
  


• 
  Charles, H. Robert (2006). Last Man Out: Surviving the Burma-Thailand Death Railway: A Memoir. Minneapolis, MN: Zenith Press. ISBN 978-0760328200.
  


• 
  Coast, John; Noszlopy, Laura; Nash, Justin (2014). Railroad of Death: The Original, Classic Account of the 'River Kwai' Railway. Newcastle: Myrmidon. ISBN 9781905802937.
  


• 
  Commonwealth War Graves Commission (2000). The Burma-Siam Railway and its Cemeteries. England: Information sheet.
  


• 
  Davies, Peter N. (1991). The Man Behind the Bridge: Colonel Toosey and the River Kwai. London: Athlone Press.
  


• 
  Daws, Gavan (1994). Prisoners of the Japanese: POWs of World War II in the Pacific. New York: William Morrow & Co.
  


• 
  Dunlop, E. E. (1986). The War Diaries of Weary Dunlop: Java and the Burma-Thailand Railway. Ringwood, Victoria, Aus: Penguin Books.
  


• 
  Eldredge, Sears (2010). Captive Audiences/Captive Performers: Music and Theatre as Strategies for Survival on the Thailand-Burma Railway 1942–1945. Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA: Macalester College.
  


• 
  Flanagan, Martin; Arch Flanagan (2005). The Line: A Man's Experience of the Burma Railway; A Son's Quest to Understand. Melbourne: One Day Hill. ISBN 9780975770818.
  


• 
  Flanagan, Richard (2013). The Narrow Road to the Deep North. North Sydney, N.S.W.: Random House Australia. ISBN 9781741666700.
  


• 
  Gordon, Ernest (1962). Through the Valley of the Kwai: From Death-Camp Despair to Spiritual Triumph. New York: Harper & Bros.
  


• 
  Gordon, Ernest (2002). To End all Wars. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-00-711848-1.
  


• 
  Hardie, Robert (1983). The Burma-Siam Railway: The Secret Diary of Dr. Robert Hardie, 1942–1945. London: Imperial War Museum.
  


• 
  Harrison, Kenneth (1982). The Brave Japanese (Original title, The Road To Hiroshima, 1966). Guy Harrison. B003LSTW3O.
  


• 
  Henderson, W. (1991). From China Burma India to the Kwai. Waco, Texas, USA: Texian Press.
  


• 
  Hornfischer, James D. (2006). Ship of Ghosts. New York: Bantam. ISBN 978-0-553-38450-5.
  


• 
  Kandler, Richard (2010). The Prisoner List: A true story of defeat, captivity and salvation in the Far East 1941–45. London: Marsworth Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9564881-0-7.
  


• 
  Kinvig, Clifford (1992). River Kwai Railway: The Story of the Burma-Siam Railway. London: Brassey's. ISBN 0-08-037344-5.
  


• 
  La Forte, Robert S. (1993). Building the Death Railway: The Ordeal of American POWs in Burma. Wilmington, Delaware, USA: SR Books.
  


• 
  La Forte, Robert S.; et al., eds. (1994). With Only the Will to Live: Accounts of Americans in Japanese Prison Camps 1941–1945. Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources.
  


• 
  Latimer, Jon (2004). Burma: The Forgotten War. London: John Murray.
  


• 
  Lomax, Eric (1995). The Railway Man: A POW's Searing Account of War, Brutality and Forgiveness. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-03910-2.
  


• 
  MacArthur, Brian (2005). Surviving the Sword: Prisoners of the Japanese in the Far East, 1942–1945. New York: Random House.
  


• 
  McLaggan, Douglas (1995). The Will to Survive, A Private's View as a POW. NSW, Australia: Kangaroo Press.
  


• 
  Peek, Ian Denys (2003). One Fourteenth of an Elephant. Macmillan. ISBN 0-7329-1168-0.
  


• 
  Rees, Laurence (2001). Horror in the East: Japan and the Atrocities of World War II. Boston: Da Capo Press.
  


• 
  Reminick, Gerald (2002). Death's Railway: A Merchant Mariner on the River Kwai. Palo Alto, CA, USA: Glencannon Press.
  


• 
  Reynolds, E. Bruce (2005). Thailand's Secret War: The Free Thai, OSS, and SOE During World War II. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  


• 
  Richards, Rowley; Marcia McEwan (1989). The Survival Factor. Sydney: Kangaroo Press. ISBN 0-86417-246-X.
  


• 
  Rivett, Rohan D. (1946). Behind Bamboo. Sydney: Angus & Robertson (later Penguin, 1992). ISBN 0-14-014925-2.
  


• 
  Searle, Ronald (1986). To the Kwai and Back: War Drawings. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press.
  


• 
  Teel, Horace G. (1978). Our Days Were Years: History of the "Lost Battalion," 2nd Battalion, 36th Division. Quanah, TX, USA: Nortex Press.
  


• 
  Thompson, Kyle (1994). A Thousand Cups of Rice: Surviving the Death Railway. Austin, TX, USA: Eakin Press.
  


• 
  Urquhart, Alistair (2010). The Forgotten Highlander – My incredible story of survival during the war in the Far East. London, UK: Little, Brown. ISBN 9781408702116.
  


• 
  Van der Molen, Evert (2012). Berichten van 612 aan het thuisfront – Zuidoost-Azië, 1940–1945 [Memoires of a Dutch POW who survived 15 camps on Java, in Thailand and in Japan] (in Dutch). Leiden, Netherlands: LUCAS. ISBN 978-90-819129-1-4.
  


• 
  Velmans, Loet (2003). Long Way Back to the River Kwai: Memories of World War II. New York: Arcade Publishing.
  


• 
  Waterford, Van (1994). Prisoners of the Japanese in World War II. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. Inc, Publishers.
  


• 
  Webster, Donovan (2003). The Burma Road: The Epic Story of the China-Burma-India Theater in World War II. New York: Straus & Giroux.
  


• 
  Wigmore, Lionel (1957). The Japanese Thrust – Australia in the War of 1939–1945. Canberra: Australian War Memorial.
  

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Burma Railway.

• 
  The Prisoner List. Short online film about prisoners of the Japanese during World War II. Depicts life on the Burma Railway.


• Burma railway trip report 2012


• Captive Audiences/Captive Performers: Music and Theatre as Strategies for Survival on the Thailand-Burma Railway 1942–1945


• Works of Ashley George Old held by the State Library of Victoria


• Australian Government death statistics


• 
  Allied POWS under Japanese for reference only


• 
  2/3rd Machine Gun Battalion AIF for reference only


• TourismThailand


• EAN


• 
  Prisoner of War FX Larkin NX43393 AIF – Detailed web site with documentation and photographs relating to the POW experiences of Frank Larkin in Malaya, Singapore, Thailand and Japan.


• Articles on the Australian medical personnel working on the railway. Also sketches by POWs.


• 
  The Will to Live, by Len (Snowie) Baynes, a first-hand account of working on the Railway.


• 
  Kanchanaburi War Cemetery CWGC for reference only


• 
  Kanchanaburi Memorial CWGC for reference only


• 
  Chungkai War Cemetery CWGC for reference only


• 
  Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery CWGC for reference only


• 
  Death Railway list for redress for reference only


• Construction of the Burma Railway

Coordinates: 14°02′27″N 99°30′11″E / 14.04083°N 99.50306°E / 14.04083; 99.50306