Thailand — Kanchanaburi Allied War Cemetery (สุสานทหารสัมพันธมิตรกาญจนบุรี), Sangchuto Rd, Mueang Kanchanaburi, Changwat Kanchanaburi 71000, Thailand

Commonwealth War Graves Commission

September 2015

Three war cemeteries are associated with the “Death Railway” — Kanchanaburi, Chungkai and Thanbyuzayat — and I visited Kanchanaburi.

During the Second World War, the Japanese built the “Death Railway” to provide a shorter and more secure line of supply between Burma (now Myanmar) and Siam (now Thailand). The railway ran from Thanbyuzayat in the west to Ban Pong in the east.

The Japanese used prisoners of war (Commonwealth, Dutch and American) and civilian labour (from Malaya and the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) or conscripted in Thailand (then Siam) and Burma (now Myanmar)) to build the railway.

Work started at either end of the railway, and the working groups met in Konkuita in October 1943. The project cost the lives of approximately 13,000–15,000 prisoners of war and 100,000 civilians. Deaths were due to accidents, sickness, malnutrition, exhaustion, and mistreatment. An estimated one in three who worked on the railway died.

At the end of the Second World War, an Allied War Graves Party spent over 12 months locating and recovering the bodies from the 144 railway prison camp cemeteries. The Allied War Graves Party moved all the recovered bodies to the three…