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In June 1942, the Japanese army began construction of the 415 km Burma-Thailand Railway to provide an alternative supply route by sea, west of the Malay Peninsula. It started 40 km west of Bangkok, crossed Thailand and Burma and finished east of Rangoon. The new supply route was intended to support a planned invasion of India by the Japanese.
About 61,000 Australian, British, Dutch and American prisoners and 250,000 Thai and Burmese villagers (as well as Tamils from India) were forced to work on the Railway, from both ends of the line.
They suffered malaria, dysentery, cholera, tropical ulcers, beri-beri, malnutrition from an inadequate diet, and brutal beatings from Japanese and Korean guards. Weakened by sickness and exhaustion, the men still had to work hard every day, at one time for 13 weeks without a break or 'yasume'.
"Every day when we returned from work, the doctors would conduct a sick parade in the camp. This would go on until late into the night as each day more and more men required medical attention. The doctors, incidentally, had been working in the hospital all day, as well as assisting in camp maintenance, such as latrine digging...as no one else was available to keep the camp functioning...the doctors must have been exhausted before the evening sick parade. We Warrant Officers would take it in turns to conduct the parade and we found it pitiful to observe the condition of so many men... The doctors were marvellous in their defence of the sick... Sometimes they won the battle of wits, but frequently unfit men were forced out to work."
(in 'The Lost Legion' by Rod Allanson, ex-POW, Burma-Thailand Railway)
One of the worst diseases the POWs had to face was cholera, which began to spread during the May 1943 monsoon season.
"The conditions in camp were appalling as the rainy season had arrived and we slept on boards within inches of black slimy mud. Dysentery was rife and...cholera was about to hit us. This was probably the most frightening time I experienced in 18 months in Thailand. We would return from the railway covered in mud and extremely tired and must have all been in a situation where we were highly likely to contract the dreaded cholera. We would go out to work each day stepping over the bodies of dead Tamils in an adjacent work camp, and trudge four miles or so through more mud to the railway...in a number of instances, people with [the symptoms of cholera] died within 24 hours."
(in 'The Lost Legion' by Rod Allanson, ex-POW)
While camp conditions proved extremely harsh, the 2/3rd POWs had some courageous, selfless leaders who inspired extraordinary resourcefulness, cooperation and determination among their men. This may explain why the 2/3rd POWs had a higher survival rate other POW groups, with many even recovering from cholera.
"The disease was so contagious that Weary and the other doctors set up a separate cholera compound...Here the medical fraternity worked wonders, setting up stills in most ingenious fashion...cutting up their stethoscopes to provide tubes through which intravenous transfusions of liquid could be administered...No account of the cholera days would be complete without reference to the wonderful work carried out in the cholera compound by volunteer medical aides. The doctors pointed out that the cholera sufferers needed constant and unremitting attention...Knowing the dangers from contagion, the doctors called for volunteers to help them in this vital and humanitarian work. First to undertake this selfless work were Weary's own medical orderlies."
(in 'The Lost Legion' by Rod Allanson, ex-POW)
"While I was a Japanese POW in a hospital hut suffering from amoebic dysentery, Rocky [McHale] would appear from time to time carrying on his shoulder two big baskets of duck eggs suspended on a long bamboo pole yelling, 'Quick youse buggers, grab an egg as I pass youse before the Nips wake up and grab me'. After his run through the hut all evidence of the scrounged eggs had disappeared. Needless to say, stolen Japanese eggs."
(Murray Pullar, ex-POW, Burma-Thai Railway)
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