It's situated along the river with a nice terrace, a huge swimming-pool and good food and service. Yet documentation and primary sources offering an account of the railway from a Japanese, Allied, POW and post. Depending on your budget I can recommend the Royal River Kwai Resort about 8 km. The construction of the railway between Thailand and Burma in the Second World War using forced labour and prisoners of war has been the subject of numerous memoirs, novels and the famous Hollywood film The Bridge over the River Kwa i. Do not take an organised tour from Bangkok as they ask a lot of money for it. There are onbly 2 trains a day back to Bangkok. The Thailand-Burma Railway, 1942-1946: Documents, post-war accounts, maps, and photographs Volume 6 of The Thailand-Burma Railway, 1942-1946: Documents and Selected Writings, Paul H. Take at least one overnight there and go on with the train to Nam Tok and back. You can get off the train at Kanchanaburi main station or at the bridge. Do not lean out of the window and do not rest your arm on the open window because on the first part the train travels at only 20 cm. Travelling by car or bus is by far less interesting. The train goes through villages, rice padies and gives a real view of the Thai countryside. After a year, on the 22nd June 1943, 700 men under Colonel Hugonin, were transferred from the docks and sent to work on the Thai/Burma railway. The cost is Bht 100.- regardless the distance you are traveling on that track.

Not only were the long days of the POWs filled with harsh labour and punctuated by physical abuse, but also the prisoners were provided with grossly inadequate food. ‘F’ and ‘H’ Force Hospital camps.Ĭommencing 26 October 1942 under Colonel Phillip Toosey British and Dutch POWs built two bridges a wooden one and a steel one across the River Kwai (Kwae Yai).By far the best experience against the lowest cost is to take the train ( 3rd class no air-con, from Thonburi Station ( other side of the Chao Phraya river). Burma Railway - Burma Railway - Life on the Death Railway: Allied POWs experienced inhumane treatment and endured torture by Japanese forces. Headquarters of 9th Railway Regiment, in charge of Thailand end of the construction. Dutch lived here until 1947.Īerodrome camps No’s 1 and 2, Officers camp 1944. Force, all were from the Thorpe's Java party who were left in Singapore through sickness. 13 American prisoners initially worked on the Thailand end of the railway, on 5th May 1943, 19 American POW were sent up with H. Transit camp for prisoners marching north.īase camp for many railway workers at the end of construction. The 26 Americans in H Force included 7 Merchant Navy Officers who were part of the Officers Work party in H.Force. Start of construction in June 1942 by British POW’s from Singapore.įirst Transit camp for men from Singapore. The ‘BurmaThailand Railway’, crossing 414.9 kilometres of jungle and mountain terrain between Ban Pong in Thailand (about 88 kilometres from Bangkok) and Thanbyuzayat in Burma, was designed to open a secure overland route for the transport of troops and supplies to Burma for the war against British India. Please click on a camp for more information.

The camps using the standard set by Neil and Rod are shown in Red and the distances are shown in kilometres from the base camp at Nong Pladuc in Thailand and from the base camp at Thanbyuzayat in Burma. The 270-mile railway was completed by 1944 and had taken a terrible toll The story of F Force is one of the most terrible of the Burma-Thailand railway.One of the last labour forces to leave Changi, Singapore, in mid-April 1943, F Force consisted of 3662 Australians and 3400 British.Many of these men, particularly the British, were unwell even.

Example 35 Kilo Camp, MacPherson's first camp in Thailand, the tendency was to use the name of the nearest village, so the list gives both name (Tanyin) and kilo (35) camp designation. 19, 2020 shows the bridge over the River Kwai, the most notable part of the 'Death Railway,' in Kanchanaburi, Thailand. Neil MacPherson and Rod Beattie have worked to make this as accurate as possible.įor those who worked on the Burma end, the men used the distance from Base Thanbyuzayat as camp names. The naming of the camps users the naming convention, accepted by the Center For Research, this sets out the known details of the camps on the Burma Thailand Railway and makes allowances for the spelling differential.

H force thai burma railway