The Burma-Thailand Railway was a 415 km railway built by the Japanese, using prisoners of war (POWs) and forced labourers. The railway linked Non Pladuk, west of Bangkok in Thailand with Thanbyuzayat in Burma (now Myanmar). Its purpose was to provide Japanese forces in Burma with weapons, supplies and reinforcements. This was to prepare for an attack against the British in India.
More than 60,000 Allied prisoners worked in unbearable conditions. Around 200,000 Asian indentured labourers, or rōmusha, worked alongside them.
Getting to the worksite, where they would begin laying the railway line, was an endurance test. Many prisoners died on the long journeys to railroad worksites in Burma and Thailand.
While working on the railway, one in 5 Allied POWs and almost half the rōmusha died. Of the roughly 13,000 Australian prisoners who worked on the railway, 2,700 did not return home.
Massive infrastructure project
Herculean tasks were enforced upon semi-starved and enfeebled captives.
[Lieutenant Colonel Sir Edward 'Weary' Dunlop, in 'Medical Experiences in Japanese Captivity', British Medical Journal, 5 October 1946]
Prisoners worked up to 16-hour days in dangerous, difficult conditions. They were weakened from starvation, disease and inadequate clothing and shoes.
Despite their poor health, senior Japanese officers in charge of the construction expected the POWs to meet ever-increasing work quotas. They expected POWs to:
- clear more jungle
- cart more logs
- cut more rock using primitive tools
- build more roads, bridges and railway line.
Work continued in extreme heat and monsoonal rains, even when POWs were ill or injured.
Prisoners who were suffering cramps and stomach upsets from diseases like dysentery, or disabled by gangrenous tropical ulcers, received some of the cruellest treatment. Sick prisoners were made to work on halved rations. Sometimes they were singled out by guards for extra abuse.
A pre-war survey by Japanese engineers estimated it might take 5 years to build a railway through the dense jungle. Instead, using POWs and rōmusha, it was done in about 15 months.
Ex-POW Private Donald Gordon Boyce, 2/40th Australian Infantry Battalion, shortly after his release from Nakom Paton on the Burma-Thailand Railway. Boyce had dysentery, beri-beri and malaria while in captivity. AWM P01433.019
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