Ex-POWs Honor Comrades Who Died Building ‘Death Railway’

Former Allied prisoners of war gathered Sunday at Hellfire Pass and dedicated a section of the notorious “Death Railway” to men who died building it for the Japanese army during World War II.

Edward Dunlop, an Australian surgeon credited with saving hundreds of lives on the railway, unveiled a memorial plaque and recalled the “chronically starved and diseased gallant men who built the railway at such great human costs.”

About 100 former prisoners from Australia, Britain and New Zealand attended the ceremony in the rocky hills of western Thailand. The plaque is part of an Australian government project to build memorials and tourist markers at the site.

Scheduled for completion next April, the memorial will include a partly restored wooden bridge and a simple museum. About $22,000 has been spent and more donations are being sought.

16,000 Prisoners Died

The “Death Railway” was built by forced labor in 1942-43 for the Japanese, who wanted a supply route into Asia. About 16,000 Australians, British, Dutch, Americans and New Zealanders, as well as 100,000 Asian laborers, died working on the 268-mile line linking Thailand and Burma.

The ordeal was the subject of the 1957 movie “The Bridge on the River Kwai.”

Hellfire Pass got its name because of the lights and fires by which the prisoners toiled at night. More than 400 prisoners perished hacking out the 600-yard stretch.

“There were so many men in the last of extremities and wretchedness who took upon themselves the burden of others,” said Dunlop, 79, at the dedication ceremony.

“This region is full of ghosts of emaciated men buried with difficulty in sullen mud or cremated in gray heaps.”

The commemorative plaque was inscribed with a short history of the railway. It paid tribute to the Thais who risked their lives to smuggle food and medicine to the soldiers.

Now Swallowed by Jungle

The railway was the target of heavy Allied bombing, and much of it was later swallowed up by the jungle. All that remains at the pass now are pieces of railroad ties.

One former prisoner who returned Sunday, Clifford Johnson, a 64-year-old retired building contractor from Sydney, Australia, said the railway will always symbolize brutality.

“I don’t forget . . . the Japanese always held something in their hands to hit us with,” Clifford said.

Also returning to the pass Sunday was Bill Griffiths, 66, of Lancashire, England, who lost his sight and both hands when the Japanese forced him to pick up a land mine.

Griffiths, a retired businessman, said the Japanese guards were going to shoot him after the explosion “because they thought it might be kinder and more compassionate,” but Dunlop intervened.

“Standing at this pass gives us great comfort from each other, gives us connections with the past,” Griffiths said.

Asked what inspired the prisoners during their captivity, he said: “Intangible optimism and hope. I never met anyone who thought that we would lose the war.”