C22- River Kwai & Erawan Waterfall

The railway had to be built cross the Kwae Yai River. The Japanese Forces forced about 50,000 British, Australian, American, Dutch and Irish prisoners of war, with more than 275,000 workers to construct the strategic railway crossing through Burma. This construction was full of hardships. The construct was carried out until the step of the bridge over the Kwae Yai River; a temporary wooden bridge, therefore, was built. The construction process was non-stop. The prisoners of war took turns throughout 24 hours a day with the close control of the soldiers. Construction was extremely difficult, with the route crossing through thick, mosquito-infested jungle and uneven terrain while monsoon conditions prevailed.

The Death Railway earned its name from the sheer number of lives lost during its construction, including that of railway bridge number 277 in June 1943, allowing the track to cross what is today known as the Khwae Noi River, and which has become recognized worldwide as the Bridge on the River Kwai. Estimates vary but, of more than 60,000 prisoners of war enslaved on the Death Railway, almost 13,000 are believed to have died, in addition to as many as 90,000 southeast Asian civilian forced laborers.

Since the course of the railway crossed through thick jungle, high mountains and torrential rivers, the work was often very challenging and dangerous. At the same time, much of the work had to be done using bare hands, in the absence of heavy construction machinery. While the construction of the railway included extremely hard physical work, there was also a lack of food, clean water and medicine. In consequence the laborers became very weak, and diseases spread easily in the worker camps.

In addition, the way in which the Japanese and Korean guards treated the laborers was often brutal and ruthless, especially when it seemed that the time schedule could not be met. While all groups suffered enormously under the dreadful living and working conditions the highest death rate was noticed among the Asian forced laborers. Al together 85% of all deaths came from this group.

On the one hand, the Asian laborers often didn’t have the physical condition required for the hard work at the construction sites. They also didn’t have the same discipline, moral and sense of belonging as the POWs who were often captured as complete military units.

On the other hand, the Japanese made a racial distinction between the groups of laborers and treated the Asian workers even worse.

An obvious example for the unequal treatment was the distribution of food among the workers. While the amount of food was inadequate anyway, the Asian laborers received only 600 grams rice per day while the POWs got 660 grams per day.

Almost at the end of the war, the Allies bombed the Bridge. After the war ended in 1945, four kilometers of the railroad from the Burmese-Thai border was demolished by British Army. The remaining 300 kilometers was sold to the State Railway Authority of Thailand in 1947 at a price of 50 million baht or 1,250,000 GBP and now only 130 kilometers is being used.