Photo: Lorna
As early as the 1880s, the idea of building a rail link between Burma and China, passing through Thailand, was under consideration by the British authorities - but without funds the idea was killed. With the start of World War II, the idea was given new life as it was wanted as a tactical military supply line for the movement of troops and equipment to the Burma Front, and eventually for the attack on India.
Photo: ©Pascal Engelmajer
Originally, the Japanese army's intention was to use Asians to construct the railway, and most of the railway laborers did indeed come from Burma, Java, and Malaya, numbering 240,000 men. Then in 1942, as World War II was underway and the fall of Malaya, Singapore and Indonesia came, the occupying forces found themselves with a large number of prisoners of war; an occurrence they had not considered.
Photo: makilica
What to do with these prisoners was a problematic subject for the Japanese military; then it was decided that these men - experienced, regimented military personnel - were to be used to advance the Japanese war effort.
Photo: Lauren
The Allied prisoners of war were forced to cut the pass for the new railway, and live in the terrible conditions that went with that; they even enticed their own fellow Japanese men to come and work on the rail pass with the promise of a good job - a dollar and a pound of rice. Between 1942 and 1943, more than 60,000 prisoners of war were transported to the railway project as well as thousands of unaccounted for Japanese men.
Photo: elisfanclub
The men labored under extreme force from the Japanese engineers and Korean guards at the pinnacle of the wettest monsoon season seen in many years. The working conditions were hellish.
Photo: Ananda
The men needed to excavate the soil and rock to a depth of 20 meters with just the bare minimum of equipment. They were issued 8-pound hammers, steel tap drills, explosives, picks, and shovels. Some minor assistance was given by the use of jackhammers, and the vast majority of waste material had to be removed by hand using cane baskets and rice sacks hung between two poles.
Photo: Lorna
Starvation provisions, overloading of work, dismal or absent accommodation and sanitation, and the individual viciousness of Japanese and Korean engineers and guards, took their expected toll. Disease (predominantly dysentery, malaria, beriberi and cholera), brutality (69 men were beaten to death by their guards) and 12 to 18 hour daily work shifts made for a high death rate. In fact, the work went on 24 hours a day with the aid of oil pot lamps and bamboo/wood fires that were kept burning all night long. When looking down on the wok area at night it looked like working in the “jaws of hell” - thus the workers gave it the name “Hellfire Pass”.
Photo: Diliff
Over 13,000 prisoners of war died during the time between late 1942 and late 1945. The number of deaths of the volunteer laborers is harder to calculate, but around 100,000 seems to be the most dependable number. During the infamous 'speedo' period, July to October 1943, the extreme anxiety of the Japanese engineers to finish construction on time, under relentless demands from their superiors in Tokyo, meant that numerous men were forced to continuously perform grinding manual labor - 62 hours work out of 72 hours appears to be the documented record.
Photo: BrokenSphere
An astonishing estimate of 400 men lost there lives in just three short months due to the cruel labor conditions and what appeared to be the first outbreak of cholera.
Photo: Eli Duke
Originally, the Japanese estimated that it would take five to six years to finish the line; it did not. Building over the bodies of the dead while being forced to work at an inhumane speed, the line took only a mere 16 months to complete.
The railway was finished on October 17, 1943 and operated an average of only six trains a day - well below its expected contribution. The railway was never built to a level of enduring stability. It was regularly bombed by the Royal Air Force during the Burma Campaign, but continued to run until the final victory of Allied forces in August 1945. After the war, in 1957, the Thai government re-opened the section of line from Nong Pladuk to Nam Tok and this part of the railway still operates today. Sadly, the jungle has now reclaimed much of the abandoned sections, but embankments, cuttings, and bridge sites can still be seen.
Photo: The Josh
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