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THE DEATH
RAILWAY
The Burma
Railway, also known also as the Death Railway, the Thailand-Burma Railway
and similar names, is a 415 km (258 mile) railway between Bangkok,
Thailand and Rangoon, Burma (now Myanmar), built by the Empire of Japan
during World War II, to support its forces in the Burma campaign.
Forced
labour was used in its construction. About 200,000 Asian labourers and
60,000 Allied prisoners of war (POWs) worked on the railway. Of these,
around 100,000 Asian labourers and 16,000 Allied POWs died as a direct
result of the project. The dead POWs included 6,318 British personnel,
2,815 Australians, 2,490 Dutch, about 356 Americans and some Canadians.
A railway
route between Thailand and Burma had been surveyed at the beginning of the
20th century, by the British government of Burma, but the proposed course
of the line — through hilly jungle terrain divided by many rivers — was
considered too difficult to complete.
In 1942,
Japanese forces invaded Burma from Thailand and conquered it from Britain.
To maintain their forces in Burma, the Japanese had to bring supplies and
troops to Burma by sea, through the Strait of Malacca and the Andaman Sea.
This route was vulnerable to attack by Allied submarines, and a different
means of transport was needed. The obvious alternative was a railroad. The
Japanese started the project in June 1942.
They
intended to connect Ban Pong with Thanbyuzayat, through the Three Pagodas
Pass. Construction started at the Thai end on 22 June 1942 and in Burma at
roughly the same time. Most of the construction materials for the line,
including tracks and sleepers, were brought from dismantled branches of
the Federated States of Malaya Railways network and from the Netherlands
East Indies.
On 17
October 1943, the two sections of the line met about 18 km south of the
Three Pagodas Pass at Konkuita (Kaeng Khoi Tha), Sangkhla Buri district,
Kanchanaburi Province). Most of the POWs were then transferred to Japan.
Those left to maintain the line still suffered from the appalling living
conditions as well as Allied air raids.
The most
famous portion of the railway is probably Bridge 277 over the Khwae Yai
River (Thai แควใหญ่, English "big tributary"). (The river was originally
known as the Mae Klong and was renamed Khwae Yai in 1960.) It was
immortalized by Pierre Boulle in his book and the film based on it: The
Bridge on the River Kwai. However, there are many who say that the
movie is utterly unrealistic and does not show what the conditions and
treatment of prisoners was really like.
The first wooden bridge over the Khwae Noi (Thai แควน้อย, English
"small tributary") was finished in February 1943, followed by a concrete
and steel bridge in June 1943. The Allies made several attempts to destroy
the bridges, but succeeded only in damaging them in their first attempts.
On 2 April 1945, AZON bomber crews from the U.S. 458th Heavy Bombardment
Group destroyed Bridge 277. After the war, two squarish central sections
were made in Japan to repair the bridge, and were donated to Thailand.
After the
war the railway was in too poor a state to be used for the civil Thai
railway system, and needed heavy reconstruction. On 24 June 1949, the
first part from Kanchanaburi to Nong Pladuk (Thai หนองปลาดุก) was
finished; on 1 April 1952, the next section up to Wang Pho (Wangpo); and
finally on 1 July 1958, up to Nam Tok (Thai น้ำตก, English "waterfalls".)
The portion of the railway still in use measures about 130 km. Beyond Nam
Tok, the line has been abandoned. Steel rails have been removed 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 Pladuk-Suphanburi and Ban Thung Pho-Khirirat
Nikhom branch lines. Parts of it have been converted into a walking trail.
Since the 1990s there have
been plans to rebuild the complete railway, but these plans have not yet
come to fruition. |
