The Burma-Thailand Railway was built during World War II by the Japanese, using prisoners of war (POWs) and forced labourers. The railway linked Non Pladuk in Thailand with Thanbyuzayat in Burma (now Myanmar). Of the roughly 13,000 Australian POWs who worked on the railway, 2,700 did not return home. Despite the immense human cost of its construction, the railway was demolished after the war. Only about one-quarter of it, in Thailand, was later reopened.
Operation after the war
Foreign Office view is that the railway should be sold to the Siamese at the best possible price obtainable which should include compensation for the labour employed on the construction.
[Telegram, British Foreign Office to British Embassy Bangkok, 5 July 1946, cited in Paul H Kratoska, The Thailand–Burma Railway, 1942–1946, Documents and Selected Writings, vol. II, London, Routledge, 2006, p 126]
From 1944 to 1945, the railway performed its planned role of supplying Japanese forces in Burma (now Myanmar). This was despite Allied bombing having caused extensive damage, including to the steel bridge at Kanchanaburi, memorialised in the 1957 film The Bridge on the River Kwai.
After the war ended in September 1945, the Allied authorities administered the Burma-Thailand Railway. Lieutenant Colonel Karel Warmenhoven, a Dutch officer with previous railway experience, was appointed Senior Allied Officer on the railway.
The Allies used the railway to transport freed POWs and Japanese troops from Burma to Thailand and Malaya (now Malaysia).
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission survey party also used the Burma-Thailand Railway. Members of the survey party tried to locate POW cemeteries and gravesites along the railway route. They also recovered equipment and documents that had been secretly buried, under instructions from senior POW officers, in the graves of deceased POWs.
To determine the future of the railway, the Allied authorities considered 2 issues: maintenance costs and getting funds for reparations to injured nations.
A link between Burma and Thailand
The first issue was whether it was desirable to maintain a rail link between Burma and Thailand.
Some British officials thought the railway was strategically valuable. But they doubted whether Burma, which was just gaining its independence from Britain, would have much use for it.
The terrain meant that the railway would be extremely difficult to maintain. Its commercial benefit, given the availability of sea transport, was low.
Even in October 1945, the Allies found that the railway was in poor condition and would need considerable investment to restore. To quote a report from October 1945:
[the railway] was not constructed in permanent form … some of the 688 bridges on this railway are too weak to carry locomotives, wagons having to be moved over them singly by hand; many of these bridges are liable to be washed out during the monsoon season. Under present conditions, therefore, its capacity is negligible.
[Report by Allied Joint Planning Staff, 4 October 1945, cited in Paul H. Kratoska, The Thailand–Burma Railway, 1942–1946, Documents and Selected Writings, vol. II, London, Routledge, 2006, p126]
Funding for reparations
The second issue was that of reparations.
As well as recruiting and conscripting many thousands of Asian labourers (rōmusha), the Japanese had commandeered equipment from across the territories they had occupied in South-East Asia including:
- locomotives
- railway cars
- railway track
- other materials.
The materials for the 'Bridge on the River Kwai', for instance, were taken from an existing bridge in Java in the Netherlands East Indies.
Some restitution for these losses was required.
By 1947, the Allies had decided to tear up the railway on the Burma side. The remaining portion in Thailand would be sold to the Thai Government for GBP 1.5 million (over $3 million)
The revenue raised was allocated to those countries entitled to reparations.
Much of the material used on the railway was returned to its origins, although some of its infrastructure remained, including the 'Bridge on the River Kwai'.
The Thai Government used the materials from the railway throughout Thailand and decided to close the railway.
Reopening of a Thai section
In 1957, the Thai Government reopened a 130 km section of the railway between Nong Pladuk and Nam Tok. It also had a feeder line to a popular waterfall at Sai Yok Noi. This continues to run today, servicing the local community.
The section from the 'Bridge on the River Kwai' in Kanchanaburi to Nam Tok is very popular with tourists, who 'ride the Death Railway' through evocative wartime sites, such as the 2 Chungkai cuttings and the Wampo viaduct.
Beyond the terminus of the railway at Nam Tok, much of the railway's route is invisible, lost beneath agricultural land and the jungle. But with local knowledge, the impact of the railway on the landscape of the wartime route can still be seen.
Future of the railway
It's unlikely that the full railway will ever be restored. Any extension of the line beyond Nam Tok would face the same challenges the Japanese and their workforce faced in World War II.
Since 1985, a large portion of the railway route, between Tha Khanun and Sonkurai, has been submerged under Vachiralongkorn Dam. Continuing tensions between Burma and Thailand also make the border area sensitive.
The major regional town of Kanchanaburi contains some heritage from World War II.
Some sites—such as the house of the Thai trader Nai Boonpong Sirivejabhandu who smuggled food and medicine to the POWs, and the Japanese headquarters—can be found in the old town, which was the extent of Kanchanaburi during the war. Other sites—including the ‘Bridge on the River Kwai’ and the 1944 Japanese memorial—were some kilometres north of Kanchanaburi during the war (at Tha Markam). They have now been absorbed into the expanding town. Kanchanaburi also contains two Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries (Kanchanaburi/Don Rak and Chungkai) and several museums (the JEATH Museum on the bank of the Mae Khlong River, the JEATH and World War II Museum near the Bridge; and the Death Railway Museum (Thailand Burma Railway Centre) near the Kanchanaburi/Don Rak cemetery. [Map data source: ©2013 Google, Map data ©2013 Tele Atlas]
Glossary
- reparation