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Death Railway

South-East Asia was of great importance to the world because of the natural resources that Malaya possessed. In 1939 Malaya produced 40 per cent of the worlds rubber and nearly 60 per cent of its tin, most of this went to America.

In June 1941 America, Britain and the Netherlands East Indies froze Japanese assets, and this cut off her oil supplies. Japan was also deprived of her iron, bauxite and shipping interests in the peninsula. Vichy France provided bases in southern Indo-China for the Japanese which gave them a naval base 750 miles from Singapore and airfields only 300 miles from northern Malaya.

Japan needed these resources for their war effort and take them she did by invading Malaya in December 1941.

Japan put itself under pressure as it widened its hold on the Far East, as its forces had to be supplied. Burma had a natural supply line for its troops, the Irrawaddy River which runs the full length of Burma and boats could therefore supply the Japanese forces pushing towards India, but this was slow. The Burmese railway also ran the full length of Burma, the only problem being there was no line between Malaya and Burma, this had to be bridged quickly. If this was joined to Malaya the Japanese forces could be supplied quickly and could carry on with the invasion of India.

The route ran on the east bank of the Mae Khlong River from Bangkok until it reached the Khwae Noi River, the track was then to cross the Mae Khlong and hug the east bank of the Khwae Noi until it reached the mountains in the north and cross the mountains at Three Pagodas Pass. It would then snake out of the mountains towards Thanbyuzayat. With this plan the river was a great advantage as it could help supply materials and the labour force needed to build the railway.

In peace time, plans to build a railway from Bangkok to Burma had been shelved because of the cost involved. Now, with over 100,000 prisoners taken in its advance, Japan had a workforce, to do with as it pleased.

A railway could now be built to help supply its forces on the Burma front and its advance into India for little cost to themselves, this was to prove a huge deficit in prisoners lives.

Nationalities	Workforce	Deaths
British	30,000	6,540	21.8%
Dutch	18,000	2,830	15.7%
Australian	13,000	2,710	20.8%
American	700	131	18.7%
Others Forces	1,000	413	41.3%
Asians	200,000	80,000	40.0%
Total	275,000	94,000

At the fall of Singapore , the 80,000 allied troops were ordered to get to the Army Camp area at Changi by the 17th February. Changi is in the North-East of Singapore, the first to arrive were the Royal Norfolks who were defending that part of the island, so they did get the choice of the quarters.

At 2pm on the 17th February Japan held its victory march through Singapore complete with its fifth column in their Malay and Chinese dress. This is how the Japanese knew in advance which roads to take to get behind the allied lines, causing the allied forces to retreat down Malaya and then into Singapore, till there was nowhere else to go. Then with the Japanese air and tank supremacy, surrender was the only choice.

Changi was very overcrowded and within a few days the food supplies had ran out. The Japanese then sent in sacks of rice. At first two to three ounces were issued per man, but it had to be increased to ten ounces as it did not provide nourishment. This new diet provided its problems, it took five months for the stomach to adjust and get the goodness from the rice. This caused swollen joints and dysentery thus creating a bigger need for hospital space.

A Black Market began to flourish, this was run by officers who could speak Malay, small tins of milk in Singapore were about 50 cents, these were fetching 5 or 6 dollars in Changi. The prisoners were running out of money and valuables fast, the earth was then worked to produce vegetables in about an acre of the Battalion ground.

The Japanese were now using the Free Indian Army as sentries, and many a clout was given to the prisoners for any reason, life was getting intolerable and could not get any worse, or so the prisoners thought.

Men volunteered to work on the Singapore Docks as food could be obtained, the prices were about 200% less then in Changi, with nowhere to escape to the prisoners had learnt to adjust.

The 1,200 prisoners taken during the Japanese advance down Malaya had eventually been taken to Puda Jail in Kuala Lumpur, they found themselves in an even worse situation then the prisoners in Changi. The Japanese had complete control over the prison, where in Changi they rarely saw any Japanese and the prison was run by the captured officers. Although food was sparse in Changi, the surrendered troops did have time to collect belongings and food, whilst the prisoners in Puda Jail were taken in battle and had no time to collect anything.

Puda jail was severely overcrowded and the Japanese did not help in their organisation of the prison quarters. Most of the prisoners had been wounded in the battle for Malaya and they needed medical treatment badly, the hospital was too small to cope with all the cases. During the six months in Puda Jail 100 men died of their wounds or disease. After a few months the Japanese did open another part of the prison and the conditions did start to improve.

The 8,000 British and Australian troops which made up the commonwealth garrison on Java, had an equally bad time of it when Java surrended. To these prisoners the many Dutch military and civilian prisoners were added and also the survivors of the USS Houston and HMAS Perth. These two allied cruisers were sunk by the Japanese Navy off Batavia whilst trying to escape from Java on its surrender. Many hundreds of the crew members lost their lives in this action and the survivors were taken to a cinema at Serang. The cinema was built to seat a maximum 500 people but 1,500 prisoners were squeezed into it. There was no medical assistance for the many wounded, the food was very poor rice and they had no washing facilities. Later some of these men were transferred to Serang Jail but this soon became as overcrowded with each cell holding thirty-four men  when in normal time the cells held a maximum of eight prisoners. There was little trading for food, as the natives were very anti-European, the situation for the prisoners could not get any worse. The Japanese now sent these prisoners to the "Bicycle Camp" where the conditions improved considerably, out of 3,000 prisoners housed here there were only six deaths.

Many of the small ships which had tried to escape from Singapore in its last days, were captured or sunk in the narrow Banka Strait off the coast of Sumatra, among those captured were 500 British personnel. These were imprisoned at Padang on the west coast of Sumatra and would later make up the British Sumatra Battalion who worked from the Burma end of the line with the Australian 'A' Force.

The Japanese were now promising the prisoners at Changi, Puda, Batavia and Padang, "Rest Camps" in Thailand and Burma. In June the first parties left Singapore by train and boat to their destinations, they were never to believe a Japanese promise again.

The Death Railway covered over 200 miles. The workforce sent to Burma and Thailand was sent in Parties under the prisoners own administration, once the prisoners were at their destination the Imperial Japanese Army (I.J.A.) put them into Work Groups.

Play Movie Trailer

Bridge On The River Kwai British WW2 prisoners of war are given the task, by their Japanese captors, of building a railway bridge in a harsh Asian jungle. Led by Col Nicholson, a stereotypical British officer, the prisoners score a moral victory over the Japanese by not only building the bridge, but running the whole show. Unknown to Nicholson, an allied demolition team are planning a spectacular opening for the bridge.

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