Burmese and Thais on the Burma-Thailand Railway

The Burmese

By participating in the project [the Burma-Thailand Railway] the Burmese could really be doing something that could widen their future, and so we agreed at once to supply the labour for the Burmese part of it.

[Burmese leader Ba Maw, Breakthrough in Burma: Memoirs of a revolution, 1939-1946, New Haven, Yale University Press, p 290]

The largest group of workers to die while constructing the Burma-Thailand Railway were the Burmese (a term that includes ethnic minorities as well as Burman). How many died is not exactly known, but estimates vary from 30,000 to 42,000.

This huge tragedy was caused by the Japanese grossly mistreating their workforce. They failed to provide adequate food, accommodation and medical care for the ill-equipped rōmusha (forced labourers). But responsibility for the Burmese labourers' deaths must also be shared by their own government, which supported the Japanese plans to build the railway.

The Japanese conquest of South-East Asia was welcomed by ethnic Burman as a way of ending British colonial rule. When the Japanese attacked Burma in early 1942, they were accompanied by a Burmese Independence Army. This Army later became the Burma Defence (National) Army under the command of Aung San, who was trained in Japan.

Hopes that the Japanese would grant Burma immediate independence were not realised. Instead, in August 1942, the Japanese created a Burmese civilian administration to work with their military administration. The leader of the Burmese Executive Administration (BEA) was a French-educated lawyer and politician, Ba Maw. He had earlier opposed the participation of Britain, and by extension Burma, in World War II. In 1940, he was imprisoned for sedition (inciting people to rebel against the government).

Like many of his colleagues, Ba Maw was persuaded by the Japanese rhetoric of 'Asia for the Asians'. Ba Maw saw collaboration as a pathway to Burmese self-rule. The Japanese granted Burma nominal independence in August 1943. In return, Ba Maw declared war on Britain and the United States.

When the Japanese decided in early 1943 that they needed to supplement their workforce of Allied POWs to meet their tight deadlines for completing the railway, Ba Maw's administration readily agreed to help recruit for what was called the 'Sweat Army' (chwe-tat). As Ba Maw later wrote, ignoring traditional hostilities between Burma and Thailand:

The railway would wipe out a past deep historical wrong, for these two nations had been kept isolated from each other by the European imperialist powers in the region as a way of preserving their spheres of interest.

[Breakthrough in Burma, p 290]

In January 1943, an official banquet was held to mark the start of the Burmese involvement in the project. A labour service board was established in March. BEA ministers publicly urged Burmese workers and peasants to enlist. They argued the railway was essential to import salt and other commodities, as well fulfil their promise to cooperate closely with the Japanese.

The first recruitment campaign, which promised the labourers payment, short-term contracts and the prospect of being joined by their families, was a great success. The campaign raised tens of thousands of workers. The initial labour gangs were sent to the railway with pomp and ceremony.

It soon became clear that conditions on the railway were nothing like what had been promised. News leaked of:

• maltreatment
• primitive accommodation
• overwork
• starvation and illness. 

The Burmese civilian administration, which supposedly had set up systems to inspect and monitor the workers conditions, proved incapable of relieving the plight of the workers. Particularly those far up-country beyond the start of the railway at Thanbyuzayat.

With work on the railway becoming increasingly unpopular, further efforts to recruit workers in mid-1943 failed. Ultimately, only a minority of the Burmese who worked on the railway were there of their free will. Most were coerced to work for the Japanese.

Others, it seems, accepted money to take the place of those unwilling to go. According to Ba Maw's 1968 memoir a 'colossal racket' developed as levies were imposed on villages. Local officials with quotas to fill compiled lists that included their own enemies and extracted bribes from those seeking to escape conscription.

How many labourers were ultimately recruited is not known. Ba Maw claimed some 65,000 worked on the railway. After the war, a Dutch officer estimated around 90,000 workers. Vast numbers of Burmese deserted rather than work in the appalling conditions that faced them.

Unsurprisingly, recruiting workers for the Japanese became a source of anger, particularly against Ba Maw. But given the political instability after the war and the rapid granting of Burmese independence, British officials did not move to bring him and his government to account for their role in the railway's construction. Aung San and the Burmese National Army had also transferred their support to the Allies in April 1945, though they played little role in the final weeks of the campaign in Burma.

Ba Maw remained unrepentant until the end, claiming that the railway had brought not only death but enormous gains in the form of 'the conquest of a vast jungle frontier'. His admission of liability in 1968 was deeply ambiguous:

I have refused to deny my guilt, for I was indeed guilty according to the constitution, although in no other way. I have accepted the accusation and abuse as an act of expiation for my inability to prevent such an appalling mass crime.

[Breakthrough in Burma, 297, p 295]
 

The Thais

Thailand will give cooperation and assistance for construction of the railway … Expenses for equipment that Thailand provides will be paid by the Japanese army.

['Agreement between the Government of Japan and Thailand concerning Construction of the Burma-Siam Railway' in Paul H. Kratoska (ed.), The Burma-Thailand Railway 1942–1946: Documents and Selected Writings, vol, I, London, Routledge, p 71]

The history of the Burma-Thailand Railway is often told with little reference to the people on whose territory much of it was built: the Thais.

When the Japanese launched their attack on Malaya on 7 and 8 December 1941, they demanded the Thai government grant them free passage for their troops through Thailand. Since it was clear that Britain and the United States (US) had no capacity to help Thailand, the government of Phibun Songkram capitulated. Thailand had sought assurances of support from Britain and the US in the months before war. Thai troops resisted the landing of Japanese troops on Thai territory for only a matter of hours.

In late December 1941, Thailand signed an agreement with the Japanese. Then, on 25 January 1942, Thailand declared war on Britain and the US. This decision split the government, with the Thai foreign minister Direk Chaiyanam and the liberal leader Pridi Phanomyong advocating resistance against the Japanese. Overseas, Thai diplomats and expatriates also opposed what they saw as a Japanese occupation of Thailand. They formed the Seri Thai (Free Thai) movement.

In Thai accounts of the war, the alliance with Japan is depicted, with reason, as a practical way to address the reality of power balances in the Asia-Pacific. It was a 'devil's choice'. The only option available to the Thais, if they wished to keep their sovereignty and a semblance of independence, was to collaborate with the Japanese. When the war ended, Thailand, which installed a more liberal government with Free Thai connections in 1944, was 'cleared of any war guilt' and moved quickly into the US sphere of influence.

Yet, it remains that the railway could not have been built without Thai compliance and reluctant help. Japan compelled the Thai government to loan the Japanese some 491 million baht to fund the railway. Food and other supplies for the railway personnel were also supplied by local traders who plied the Kwae Noi with their barges and drove their herds of buffalo up the road from Kanchanaburi.

Thai nationals also worked on the railway during its early stages. But tensions arose between them and the Japanese as result of the latter's arrogance, their seizing of temples and their discourtesy to Buddhist priests. In late 1942, when Thai workers near Ban Pong were evicted from a temple in which they were lodging, they turned on the Japanese soldiers. Four soldiers were killed and 4 others were severely wounded. After this incident, the Japanese authorities reportedly ordered their troops to salute Buddhist priests.

When Thai workers on the railway decided to abscond, the Thai government pressured the local Chinese people to make up the shortfall. Between December 1943 and February 1945, the Chinese Association supplied 5,200 workers, of whom some 500 died. There is another coexisting narrative of Thai involvement in the railway's construction. This tells of a Thai population that was generally sympathetic and generous, taking pity on the POWs. They supplied POWs illicitly with:

• food
• clothing
• money
• medicines
• and radio parts so they could communicate with the outside world.

One such Thai was Boonpong Sirivejaphan, a shopkeeper in Kanchanaburi who was contracted by the Japanese to provide supplies to the railway workforce. In secret, Boonpong also worked with a resistance group based in an internment camp in Bangkok, the V organisation.

With funding provided from this source and at great risk to himself and his young daughter, Boonpong smuggled life-saving medical supplies into POW camps along the railway. He also cashed prisoners' cheques and lent money on watches and jewellery, all of which he kept to be redeemed after the war.

As Lieutenant Colonel Edward 'Weary' Dunlop wrote at Hintok Mountain camp on 2 September 1943:

There have been some pleasing signs of late as regards medical stores and emetine in particular. Certain gentlemen have supplied some 72 gains and offer a most hopeful avenue for either free supply of drugs or supplying a cheque for medical purposes.

[The War Diaries of Weary Dunlop, Melbourne, Nelson, 1986, p 280]

For many years after the war, little was known of Boonpong's role in helping the POWs. On Anzac Day in Kanchanaburi in 1985, Dunlop included a tribute in his speech to Boonpong and other Thais who helped the prisoners. After this Boonpong gained increasing recognition.

Through the efforts of ex-POWs Keith Flanagan, Bill Haskell and Ken Wood, a Weary Dunlop–Boonpong Exchange Fellowship was established in 1986. A collaborative program between the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and the Royal College of Surgeons of Thailand. The scholarship gives Thai surgeons opportunities to undertake surgical training attachments in Australian hospitals.

Boonpong was also recognised by the United Kingdom (George Cross) and the Netherlands (Orange-Nassau Cross).

In 1998, at the opening of the Hellfire Pass Memorial Museum, the Australian Government formally recognised Boonpong's courage by presenting his grandson with a certificate of appreciation for the 'unrepayable debt' owed to his grandfather. It also donated $50,000 to the Exchange Fellowship.

The house in which Boonpong lived during World War II can still be found in Kanchanaburi, in the old sector of the town at 96 Pak Prak Road. His family maintains a small museum there in his honour. His story and association with Dunlop have also been told in the 2008 Australian documentary The Quiet Lions.