Burma Railway The Burma Railway also known as

Burma Railway The Burma Railway, also known as the Death Railway, the Thailand. Burma Railway and similar names, is a 415 km (258 miles) railway between Bangkok, Thailand Rangoon, Burma (now Myanmar), built by the Empire of Japan during World War II, to support its forces in the Burma campaign. ���������������

Forced labor was used in its construction. About 200, 000 Asian laborers and 60, 000 allied prisoners of war (POWs) worked on the railway. A railway route between Thailand Burma had been surveyed at the beginning of the 20 th century, by the British government of Burma, but the proposed course of the line through hilly jungle terrain divided by many rivers was considered too ����� difficult to complete. ������������

In 1942, Japanese forces, supplies and equipment transported from East and North Asia to Burma by sea, through the Strait of Malacca, were vulnerable to attack by allied submarines, and an alternative means of transport was needed. The Japanese started the project in June 1942, intending to connect Ban Pong with Thanbyuzayat in Burma through the Three Pagodas Pass. Construction started at the Thai end on 22 th June 1942 and in Burma at roughly the same time. ���������������

On 17 th October 1943, the two lines met about 18 km south of the Three Pagodas Pass at Kaeng Khoi Tha, Sangkhlaburi District, Kanchanaburi Province. While most of the POWs were then transferred to Japan, those left to maintain the line still suffered from the appalling living conditions as well as allied air raids. ���������������

After the war, the State Railway of Thailand bought the railway from the Allies for 50 million baht. Visiting Kanchanaburi today, it is hard to imagine the suffering the prisoners went through in order to build the Death Railway. 61, 700 prisoners were brought in to build the railroad. They came mostly from camps in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, and they had been captured in earlier battles with the Japanese. ���������������

There was the film named “the Bridge over the River Kwae”. Perhaps this bridge was made famous by that film. The bridge, crossing the Kwae Yai River, is the part of the Death Railway, which was built by the Allied prisonersof -war at the peak of World War II. ���������������