Death Railway (Thai-Burma Railway) Hellfire Pass

The Death Railway (known also as Thai-Burma Railway or Burma Railway) was a railway built from Thailand to Burma (now Myanmar) by the Japanese during World War II to complete the route from Bangkok to Rangoon and support the Japanese occupation of Burma. It was so called because of the human cost of its construction. About 200,000 conscripted Asian labourers and 60,000 Allied POWs were forced to work on the railway. Of these, around 100,000 Asian labourers and 16,000 Allied prisoners of war (POW) died on the project. The Allied POW dead were made up of 6,318 British, 2,815 Australians, 2,490 Dutch and 4,377 from the USA (Wigmore, p588).

Japan was given right of passage to Thailand and occupied Burma during the Pacific War. However, when the sea route through the Strait of Malacca became vulnerable, an alternative way of transporting support to the troops in Burma was needed.

A railway connection between Thailand and Burma had already been surveyed at the beginning of the 20th century by the British, but was considered too difficult to complete. The Japanese, nevertheless, started the project in June 1942, intending to connect Ban Pong with Thanbyuzayat by the Three Pagoda Pass. Construction started at both ends of the line at roughly the same time, the Thai end on June 22, 1942. Most railway materials (tracks, sleepers etc.) were carted from dismantled branches of the Federated States of Malaya Railways (FMSR - now known as Keretapi Tanah Melayu) rail network.

After 18 months, the 415 kilometers of railway were finished, when on October 17, 1943, the two lines met about 18 km south of the Three Pagoda Pass at Konkuita (Kaeng Khoi Tha in Songklaburi district of Kanchanaburi). While most of the POWs were then transferred to Japan, those left to maintain the line still suffered from the appalling living conditions as well as Allied air raids.

Hellfire Pass

Hellfire Pass is the name of a railway cutting on the Death Railway in Thailand, known by the Japanese as Konyu cutting. There is a museum co-sponsored by the Thai and Australian governments at the site to commemorate the suffering of those involved in the construction of the railway.

Konyu cutting was a particularly difficult section of the line to build due to it being the largest rock cutting on the railway, coupled with its general remoteness and the lack of proper construction tools during building. A tunnel would have been possible to build instead of a cutting, but this could only be constructed at the two ends at any one time, whereas the cutting could be constructed at all points simultaneously despite the excess effort required by the POWs. The Australian, British, Dutch and other allied Prisoners of War were required by the Japanese to work 18 hours a day to complete the cutting. It was estimated that 68 men were beaten to death by the Japanese guards in the six weeks it took to build the cutting, although many more died from cholera, dysentery, starvation, and exhaustion.

However, the majority of deaths occurred amongst labourers whom the Japanese enticed to come to help build the line with promises of good jobs. These labourers, mostly Malayans (Chinese, Malays and Tamils from Malaya), suffered mostly the same as the POWs at the hands of the Japanese. The Japanese kept no records of these deaths.