The Thai-Myanmar Railway (also known as the Myanmar Railway or the Death Railway ) was a railway that Japan built to connect Bangkok, Thailand and Yangon, Myanmar during World War II to occupy Myanmar.
The Death Railway takes its name from the death rate of workers at the time of construction. A total of 12,000 Japanese troops (the 5th Railroad Wing) were recruited for the project, and 62,000 Allied prisoners (6,318 prisoners from Britain, 2,815 from Australia, 2,490 from the Netherlands, and the rest probably from the United States and other countries). 12,000 dead before the end of the war), tens of thousands of Thais, 180,000 Burmese (40,000 dead), 80,000 Malayans (42,000 dead), 45,000 Indonesians for construction .
Japan occupied Thailand and Burma at the beginning of the Pacific War. After the Strait of Malacca could not be used safely, the army and subsequent supplies to Burma had to be maintained by land.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the United Kingdom surveyed a railway between Thailand and Burma, which was too difficult to construct. and give up. Forced by the war, Japan adopted the British exploration route, and started construction in June 1942, when the Burmese theater was settled down. The project started on both sides of Thailand and Burma.
The starting point of the project in Thailand was Kanchanaburi, and the starting point in Burma was Dan. Thanbyuzayat, the railway connects the two countries via the Three Pagoda Pass. The markings from the rails show that the building materials of the Thai-Burma railway came from the British Malayan Federal Railway, which was demolished from Java, Malaysia and other places.
At the beginning, the coalition forces often raided the road, but the Japanese army told the road builders that most of the road builders were prisoners of war, so the coalition forces had to stop the bombing project.
Originally planned to be completed in 6 years, the 415-kilometer railway was completed 17 months later (October 17, 1943) at the expense of high worker mortality. Railways from both sides connect at Konkuita. The living and working conditions of the road builders were unimaginably low, with about 25 percent of prisoners of war dying from overwork, malnutrition, abuse, or various unattended infectious diseases such as cholera, malaria, and dysentery.
Asian workers had a higher death rate, but the Japanese army did not record it in detail. After the completion, most of the prisoners of war were transferred to Japan, and the remaining maintainers not only lived in poor conditions, but also suffered from Allied air raids from time to time.
Bridge on the River Kwai
The most famous site on the railway is the River Kwai Railway Bridge (Japanese: クウェー River Railway Bridge), depicted in the film of the same name. A wooden bridge was first built in February 1943, and a reinforced concrete bridge was built in June of the same year. Both bridges were blown up on April 2, 1945, but have been damaged and repaired several times. The current piers of the River Kwai Bridge are manufactured in Japan and sent to Thailand to pay the war debts.
Situation
After World War II, the railway was almost completely scrapped. The reconstruction part of Thailand, the railway tracks are widened. Repaired Kanchanaburi to Nong Pladuk in April 1949, Wampo in 1952, and Nam Tok in July 1957, a total of about 50 km can now be applied, the Burmese part has not been repaired. The valley blown up for the railway can only be walked on foot, and now illegal immigrants from Myanmar enter Thailand from here. Plans to rebuild the entire railway have been proposed in the 1990s, but have never been carried out.
Commemorate
There are many memorials in Thailand. The Bridge on the River Kwai has a monument as well as an old-fashioned train. Australia established a memorial at Hellfire Pass (now north of Nam Tok Station) to commemorate the mountain site with the most deaths. The Kanchanaburi Allied Prisoners of War Cemetery is located one kilometer north of the city of Kanchanaburi and buries 6,982 prisoners of war, mostly British, Dutch and Americans. Further on the outskirts is the Australian Prisoners of War Cemetery, where 1,750 people are buried.
Kanchanaburi also has the Thailand-Burma Railway Museum and the JEATH War Museum, which opened in March 2003. The National Memorial Arboretum has a specific section on the Death Railway.
