Kanchanaburi: River and Railroad

There is a bridge over the River Kwai in Kanchanaburi. But the River Kwai is actually the Khwae (rhymes with “hay”), and there are two branches; the bridge crosses the Khwae Yai. The other branch, the Khwae Noi, merges with the Khwae Yai to form the Mae Klong. The Khwae Yai (which means “Big River”) used to be considered the upper section of the Mae Klong. It got the name Khwae Yai in the 1960s.

This is the least of the inaccuracies in The Bridge on the River Kwai, from 1957. I’ve never seen the movie, but I read a synopsis. Anyway, this post isn’t about the movie. It’s about the horrific story of the Thai-Burma Railway, also known as the Death Railway, a story I learned about for the first time in the last two days. 

I never learned about this in school.

The Railway

By 1942, Japan had made serious advances in southern and southeastern Asia, capturing Singapore, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and the Dutch East Indies. (Singapore and Hong Kong were under British rule; the Philippines were in a ten-year transition period toward independence from the USA; and the Dutch East Indies were, of course, under Dutch control, later to become Indonesia.)

In the course of these conquests, Japan acquired 140,000 Allied POWs, mostly Australian, British, and Indian, and 130,000 civilian prisoners. They were taken by ship to various destinations in Asian and the Pacific; one out of five died during transport.

Japan set their sights next on Burma. Strategically, this would give them an avenue toward the conquest of both China and India. So in the spring of 1942, they decided to build a 415-kilometer railroad from Thailand to Burma. Construction began in June.

The Japanese wanted the railroad completed as quickly as possible. With a nearly unlimited workforce consisting of 200,000 Asian conscripts and over 60,000 Allied POWs including some 30,000 British, 13,000 Australians, 18,000 Dutch, and 700 Americans, the project progressed rapidly. Conditions were brutal. The route went through thick, mosquito-infested jungle during driving monsoon rains and intense heat and humidity. Injury and illness–dysentery, diarrhea, cholera, malaria, and tropical ulcers–were rampant, and the Japanese commanders administered harsh punishments and torture.

The railroad was completed in October 1943. By that time more than 16,000 Allied POWs were dead, in addition to tens of thousands of civilians.

For the remainder of the war, the railroad operated only sporadically. Allied bombings caused damage requiring frequent repair. After the war engineers determined that the construction could not sustain continued rail traffic, and the route was demolished. The Thai government has since rebuilt and reopened a 130-kilometer stretch of the railroad.

The Bridge

We visited the famous bridge (as do hundreds of thousands of tourists every year). It is not the bridge depicted in the movie. (That bridge was wooden. The actual bridge has concrete footings.)

We also visited the nearby Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, where some 7,000 Allied POWs are buried.

Hellfire Pass

We visited the Hellfire Pass Interpretive Center and took a walk along the roadbed of the Burma Railway through Hellfire Pass. It’s hard to imagine the level of cruelty and suffering experienced during the building of the railroad, especially this stretch, where the prisoners had to cut a path 75 meters long and 25 meters deep for rails to pass through. The photo at the top of the page is a view down into Hellfire Pass.

The cut acquired its name because the sight of emaciated prisoners laboring in the dark by torchlight resembled a scene from hell. They had only primitive hand tools to drill hole for dynamite. Among the many who died were sixty-nine beaten to death by Japanese guards.

The River

Our two days in Kanchanaburi were not all about the railroad. We also took a boat ride on the Khwae Noi, and we stayed at a very nice camp with a natural pool right at the edge of the river. So it was a very nice time as well as a sobering learning experience.

Lots of photos are in my album.