Burma Railway
Updated: Wikipedia source
The Burma Railway, also known as the Siam–Burma Railway, Thai–Burma Railway and similar names, or as the Death Railway, is a 415 km (258 mi) railway between Ban Pong, Thailand, and Thanbyuzayat, Burma (now Myanmar). It was built from 1940 to 1943 by abducted Southeast Asian civilians and captured Allied soldiers forced to work by the Japanese, to supply troops and weapons in the Burma campaign of World War II. It completed the rail link between Bangkok, Thailand, and Rangoon, Burma. The name used by the Imperial Japanese Government was Tai–Men Rensetsu Tetsudō (泰緬連接鉄道), which means Thailand-Burma-Link-Railway. At least 250,000 Southeast Asian civilians were subjected to forced labour to ensure the construction of the Death Railway and more than 90,000 civilians died building it, as did around 12,000 Allied soldiers. The workers on the Thai side of the railway were Tamils, Malays, and fewer Chinese civilians from Malaya. Most of these civilians were moved to ‘rest camps’ after October 1943. They remained in these camps after the end of the war as they watched the Allied POWs being evacuated. Survivors were still living in the camps in 1947. They were British subjects who, without access to food or medical care, continued to die of malaria, dysentery and malnutrition. They had survived building the railway only to die in the ‘rest camps’. In general, no compensation or reparations have been provided to the Southeast Asian laborers, and some has been provided to the Allied POWs, although the situation is complex. Japan signed a treaty and offered reparations to the Indonesian and Burmese governments, and the Allies (excluding the Soviet Union) provided some compensation to POWs and relinquished further claims from Japan in the Treaty of San Francisco. The 1951 compensation to Allied POWs was seen as lacking; one former POW was given £76. The United Kingdom gave reparations to the 60,000 Allied prisoners of war (the most recent under the Blair government), but not to its colonial subjects. Most of the railway was dismantled shortly after the war. Only the first 130 kilometres (81 mi) of the line in Thailand remained, with trains still running as far north as Nam Tok.