Working on the margins of the 'Railway of Death'

The Hintok-Tampi Bridge (Australian War Memorial)

On August 15, the military cemeteries of Kanchanaburi and Chungkai will once again reflect on the end of the Second World War in Asia. The focus is – almost inevitably I would say – on the tragic fate of the Allied prisoners of war who were forced into forced labor by the Japanese during the construction of the infamous Thai-Burma railway. I would like to take a moment to reflect on what happened to the Allied prisoners of war and the romusha, the Asian workers who had been deployed in this ambitious project that cost tens of thousands of lives, after the Railway of Death was completed on October 17, 1943.

After the works on the railway were finalized, both the POWs and the romusha were evacuated from their jungle camps and transferred to base camps in Burma and Thailand. A substantial number of the POWs were sent to Japan over the next few months to work in the factories and mines, while others ended up back in Singapore. However, most of the Asian forced laborers and some 5.000 prisoners of war remained in the base camps along the railway, where they were mainly used for felling trees. Not only were strategic wood stocks built up at all bridges to make it possible to carry out repairs in record time, but all locomotives also ran on wood, due to a lack of precious coal. With a view to the largest possible reserves, large parts of the jungle were cleared and the pre-sawn blocks were stored in depots. In addition, there were also permanent work brigades of romusha and prisoners of war tasked with maintenance and repairs. And that was no superfluous luxury because the rush with which the work had been done took its toll almost immediately.

At the two ends of the line, around Thanbyuzayat in Burma and between Nong Pladuk and Kanchanaburi in Thailand, the work was done properly. When one went further, the standard with which they had worked decreased drastically. Sleepers sank into the embankment, some passages cut into the rock were so narrow that they barely accommodated the trainsets, while the frequent subsidence and mudslides, especially in the rainy season, caused heavy damage. The choice to work with freshly cut green wood had been defensible from a speed point of view, but proved to be detrimental to the durability of the bridge structures, as a result of which many bridges simply failed. And then, of course, there were also the smaller sabotages carried out by prisoners of war, which would eventually cause considerable damage and thus nuisance.

It is estimated that more than 30.000 romusha and at least 5.000 Allied prisoners of war were used to repair the bombed-out bridges and rails. They were spread over 60 camps and often these were the decaying old camps that had been built when the railway was built. Every damaged or destroyed bridge sometimes delayed the line for days and the Japanese forces in Burma could do without that, especially when they were forced more and more on the defensive. These workers were also used to build all kinds of structures that served to protect the transports against air raids. For example, at fifteen places next to the track, sidings led to large sheds made of reinforced concrete, in which locomotives and trains could shelter in the event of an attack. At the large shunting yards, wood stocks and barrels of petroleum were also stored in such sheds or bunkers as much as possible. Similar constructions also appeared at the harbor installations on the Kra Peninsula. As if these measures were not enough, romusha teams began to dig long tunnels into mountain walls and a number of natural caves next to the railway were also adapted for this purpose with the aid of rails. A map of a Japanese engineer working in the UK Imperial war museum preserved shows no less than fourteen sidings leading to tunnels between Hindato and Kanchanaburi.

Tens of thousands of other Asian workers and about 6.000 Allied prisoners of war were not directly involved in the construction of the railways to Burma, but were involved in the logistical operations such as supplies or equally heavy infrastructure works that were planned on the margins of the railway construction. Even before the end of May 1942, on the peninsula of the same name, in the buildings of Mergi High School in South Burma, a camp set up for 1.500 British and Australian prisoners of war, who had been brought in directly from Singapore. At the end of June, a second hut camp was built next to this location, where some 2.000 romusha were housed. Romusha and POWs were deployed together on the peninsula over the following weeks and months in the construction of an airfield. When this job was done, the Western prisoners were transferred to Tavoy at the end of August, while the Asian workers remained on site to work in supplies or maintenance.

In Tavoy itself, at least 1942 romusha were involved in the construction of the airfield between the end of May and October 5.000. Later, and this certainly until the beginning of 1944, there were still about 2.000 romusha, mostly Tamils, in a camp near the evacuated Methodist school, an abandoned mission station and a few miles away in a jungle camp who were mostly employed in loading and unloading goods in the city. Especially in the first months of their stay in Tavoy, many Romusha died of dysentery. An estimated 1942 romusha were also involved in the construction of an airfield at Victoria Point between May and September 2.000, while in the jungle between Ye and Thanbuyzayat in the summer of 1942, two labor brigades, accounting for at least 4.500 romusha, were deployed in the construction of a road . It is unclear what happened to this group after that…. Rangoon was home to a romusha labor battalion of about 1942 men from October 1.500, which was used to clear debris after Allied bombing raids, or to load and unload goods at the large marshalling yard and in the harbour. They were assisted in this arduous work by a group of an estimated 500 British Commonwealth POWs who were later evacuated to a base camp at Kanchanaburi in the fall of 1944.

One of the last major projects in Burma was the construction, or rather the widening of a jungle path into a highway from Wang Po to Tavoy. On the other side of the river near the railway camp Wang Po 114, camp Wang Po 12 was established and served as a base camp for a romus brigade of about 2.100 workers and 400 British and Dutch prisoners of war. The works on this one Tavoy road started in December 1944 and were finalized at the end of April 1945.

February 1945 air raid on the railway near Kanchanaburi

The most extensive project on the fringes of the railways was without doubt the so-called Mergi Road. When it became clear in the spring of 1945 that the Japanese troops in Burma were in trouble and the railway connections to Thailand were regularly bombarded, Lieutenant General Nakamura, the commander of all Japanese garrison troops in Thailand, decided to^e Infantry Brigade to build a road between the Thai Prachuab Kerikham and the Burmese peninsula of Mergui. This road could be used as an escape route by the Japanese troops if the front in Burma collapsed. From April 1945, when the works really started, the workers were commanded by the 29^e Mixed Infantry Brigade commanded by Lieutenant General Saki Watari. The work crews were supervised by Colonel Yuji Terui. In addition to the 1.000 Allied prisoners of war – including more than 200 Dutchmen – wholight work' were selected in Nakon Pathom hospital camp, at least 15.000 romusha were involved in this rush job. According to Australian sergeant FF Foster, the recovering sick of Nakon Pathom had been advanced because too many romusha had fled:

'This road was about 40 miles long and the native workers, despite being well paid, ran off in droves. Diseases greatly reduced their numbers and it proved impossible to carry supplies so deep into the dense jungle. The Japs then only took 1.000 sick and wounded from our base hospital.' 

But a number of Thai contract workers were also present at this yard, as witnessed by bombardier John L. Sugden, 125th Anti Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery, who saw to his astonishment how the Japanese, driven by the pressing necessity of this work, also rolled up their sleeves:

“The work was incredibly hard and we had to deal with quite a lot of rocks, so we had to be dynamited. Our camp was furthest from the coast. The stretch of road for which we were responsible led straight to the Burmese-Thai border. Every day a guard left our camp for the border and on the other side there were Thai people working. We could often hear them calling and some of the Diggers (nickname for Australian infantrymen) who worked near them could exchange a word with them when no Japs were around. The guards, by the way, had to go to work, just like us. And even the officer in command of our section had to believe it.'

The conditions in which they had to work defied all imagination. However, at the time of the Japanese surrender, the Mergui Road was not yet fully completed. Nevertheless, thousands of Japanese tried to escape via this route, with an estimated 3 to 5.000 not surviving….

It was also in the spring of 1945, probably mid-May, that at least 500 romusha were taken to the Thai railway hub of Ratchaburi to clear the railway yard after the frequent Allied air raids, repair rails and destroy the bombed-out terrain, together with a hundred or so prisoners of war. to level again. At least 2.000 romushas were also deployed to Ubon 1 and Ubon 2 camps in northeastern Thailand near Ubon Ratchathani during the same period. This city, close to the border with Laos, was home to one of the largest Japanese military bases in Thailand. Apart from the romusha, these camps also housed at least 1.500 Allied prisoners of war, including some three hundred Dutchmen, who were mainly used for loading and unloading supplies and ammunition.