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At 93 Bart Richardson Is Heading Back To The Thai-Burma Railway


Flashermac

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In 1942 Bart Richardson survived working on the Thai-Burma railway. Now he's 93 and heading back to the railway to commemorate Anzac Day.

 

 

Around 106,000 people were killed working under the Japanese on the Thai-Burma railway in world war two.

 

Among them were 2815 Australian prisoners of war.

 

Bart Richardson was a 22-year-old Lieutenant with the 2/20th Australian Infantry Battalion serving in Malaya when he was taken prisoner in Singapore by the Japanese in 1942.

 

He was soon put in a working party and taken to Thailand where he worked on the infamous railway for 9 months.

 

He's now 93 and this year travelled back to Thailand to commemorate Anzac day at a section of the railway known as Hellfire pass, which he helped construct more than 70 years ago.

 

ABC's Ben Millington met Bart at his home in Shoal Bay where they talked about the trip, his time on the railway and his thoughts now about the Japanese.

 

 

http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2013/04/26/3745804.htm

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Have made the executive decision to hold off on the next holiday until April next year purely so we can visit this part of the kingdom for Anzac Day 2014, even if it means we have to endure Songkran. Meeting someone like this whilst there would literally put me on my arse..

 

Hats off.

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In the 1980s there were a lot more survivors left, and they held reunions here fairly often. Once someone made the brilliant suggestion that the former prisoners and their old camp guards should have a joint reunion. One old Aussie summed it up. "Any Jap I see at the bridge is going into the river."

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