Death Railway - Unknown Views - Kwai Wwii

[unit731]

WWII

The "unknown" parts of the Thai Burma railroad.

We have the Japanese to "thank" for this construction.

 

How many WWII POW's died making this railway? How many "natives" died making this railway?

 

http://youtu.be/mi8b-Kg-roY

 

I did take the Bridge on the River Kwai tour. Out of Bangkok. Did not see any of this on that tour.

[Flashermac]

<< Javanese, Malayan Tamils of Indian origin, Burmese, Chinese, Thai and other Southeast Asians, forcibly drafted by the Imperial Japanese Army to work on the railway, died in its construction — including 100,000 Tamils alone. 12,621 Allied POWs died during the construction. The dead POWs included 6,904 British, 2,802 Australians, 2,782 Dutch, and 133 Americans. >>

 

Wikipedia

 

p.s. Very few Thais worked on the railway. The Japanese initially hired Thai labourers, but the Thais rebelled against their treatment and attacked the Japanese soldiers. After that, the Nipponese gents decided to rely only on POWs and forced labourers from occupied Allied colonies.

[My Penis is hungry]

I've always found interesting Australia tends to make a big fuss, and so they should given percentage of population who served in WW2, however the Dutch, an equally small country suffered as much, and I don't see anywhere the fascination or folk lore in Dutch as I do with Aussies.

 

I've written about this place many times, my Thai family love going here and find it amazing they learnt nothing in school about the place.

[Coss]

Its common for countries to "whitewash" their past. I've got Japanese relatives and one, now dead, that Im pretty sure served in the rape of Nanking, but noone in the family or elsewhere in Japan will talk about it.

[Flashermac]

I've always found interesting Australia tends to make a big fuss, and so they should given percentage of population who served in WW2, however the Dutch, an equally small country suffered as much, and I don't see anywhere the fascination or folk lore in Dutch as I do with Aussies.

 

I've written about this place many times, my Thai family love going here and find it amazing they learnt nothing in school about the place.

 

 

An Aussie old enough to remember the war told me that Australia was actually in danger of being invaded. The PM asked Churchill to return the Aus troops in North Africa to defend their homeland. Churchie told him that Australia was "expendable", and they could liberate it after the European war ended.

 

The Aussie said the arrival of the American troops was greeted with relief and that from then on the Yanks weren't allowed to pay for their drinks or walk anywhere. After all, Australia's population in 1940 was little more than 7 million people!

 

http://www.myplace.e..._landing_6.html

[Flashermac]

[My Penis is hungry]

Hi Flash. Correct, actually Australia did divert troops back to Oz, was a fledgling step towards independence

[Flashermac]

One of my high school teachers had been a 17-year-old sailor on a submarine tender at Pearl Harbor. They were a relatively unimportant ship, so they only got strafed once - killing a crewman though. He told us they were next ordered to Aus,.. and arrived in Sydney harbor the morning of the day the Japanese mini-submarines attacked!

[My Penis is hungry]

My father was AWOL that night dating my mum. Normally fairly relaxed response to fucking out and seeing friends. That night he got into trouble though.

 

He had an interesting career in the army. From private he went straight to I think Captain, as he was studying medicine and on graduation promoted to officer. Then sent from Sydney to remote part of Tasmania.

 

 

[Flashermac]

The US Army back then made MDs a first lieutenant. Later in the war, they started making them captains to encourage their volunteering. Our family doctor years ago had gone into the Army straight out of medical school in 1938. He said the docs who'd been in for years were quite pissed off to see new guys coming in and already outranking them!