News-Info-Alerts

Re: The Death Railway

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: April 25, 2002

"Death railway POWs recall pain of Thailand's Hellfire Pass

By Katie Hunt

HELLFIRE PASS, Thailand (Reuters) - Four hundred Australian and New Zealand war veterans and their families held a dawn service in the jungle mist in western Thailand on Thursday to remember comrades who died building the "death railway".

Holding candles, World War Two veterans clambered over decaying railway sleepers to attend a memorial service at Hellfire Pass, their medals jangling in the humid air.

Gouged through solid rock by prisoners of war, the 25-metre (80-ft) high cutting is part of the 415-km (260-mile) Thai-Burma railway. An estimated 13,000 allied prisoners and as many as 80,000 Asian labourers died building the railway for their Japanese captors -- one person for every 4.5 metres of track.

"The treatment from the guards was the worst, the fear -- you never knew when you were going to get bashed," said 91-year-old Dal Cressey, a former Australian prisoner of war (POW) who spent two years on the railway.

A bugle sounded the last post after a wreath-laying ceremony, held on ANZAC Day -- remembrance day for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) forces killed in action.


WAR BONDS

Australian "Snow" Fairclough said he had brought his war buddy to see Hellfire Pass, but his companion had a minor heart attack while walking through the cutting on the eve of the service and had been taken to a Bangkok hospital.

"The bond between us blokes who were up here working on the railway was absolutely steel strong," the 81-year-old said, choking back tears.

"Coming back here is something I have wanted to do for ages."

The scene as torches lit the cutting while men slaved at night under intense pressure from their Japanese guards gave Hellfire Pass its name. Many perished from cholera, dysentery and malaria.

Veterans said that food was scarce and guards wouldn't allow prisoners to pick mangoes growing in the jungle.

"I used to watch what monkeys ate and try that," said Ray Wheeler, 78.

Thousands of allied dead, mostly British, Australians, New Zealanders and Dutch, are buried in cemeteries in the nearby town of Kanchanaburi.

Kanchanaburi is also the site of a bridge across the Kwae river built by allied prisoners. The bridge was later bombed by allied forces trying to disrupt Japanese supply lines and was immortalised in the 1957 film "Bridge on the River Kwai".

Primary school students and many of the POWs' own grandchildren attended the dawn service.

"It's really important that younger generation are here," Australian Peter Newman said. "There's not so many of us veterans left." "