Janice Anderson - War Crimes and Atrocities

In December 1943, political control of the islands came under the Azad Hind government of Subhas Chandra Bose. There is much controversy as to how much Bose was really aware of at the time, although the judgement of some was that he had ‘failed his people’. On the only visit he ever made to the Andaman Islands, Bose went to Port Blair to raise the tricolour flag of the Indian National Army. The Japanese army made sure that he was sufficiently shielded from the local population so that information didn’t leak out regarding their treatment of the locals. There were quite a few attempts made by the Andamans to let him know about their suffering, and also that local Indian Nationalists were being tortured at the Cellular Jail. Bose placed the islands under the governorship of Lieutenant-Colonel Loganathan, and it is thought he had little involvement in the administration of the territory.

After the war Loganathan said that he only had partial authority over the islands, as the Japanese retained control of the police force and large areas of the government. He emphasized that he was powerless to prevent the worst atrocity of the occupation, which was the massacre of 44 members of the Indian Independence League in January 1944.

By the time the British regained control in 1945, it is estimated that as many as 30,000 of the 40,000 population of Port Blair had been brutally murdered, and the islands of the Andamans were a scene of complete devastation.

One of the most famous tourist attractions in Thailand is the bridge on the River Kwai, which was made famous by the 1957 film, starring Alec Guinness, William Holden and Jack Hawkins. However, the bridge you see standing today is not the bridge that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war and it is hard to imagine the suffering these people went through in order to build what became known as the Death Railway. The railway is not only testament to the cruelty of the Japanese during World War II, but also man’s bravery and determination, with approximately one in five prisoners dying during the construction.

Workers – no. employed – total deaths

Asian labourers – 200,000 – ±80,000

British POWs – 30,000 – 6,540

Dutch POWs – 18,000 – 2,830

Australian POWs – 13,000 – 2,710

American POWs – 700 – ±356

Korean and Japanese – 15,000 – 1,000

soldiers – 15,000 – 1,000

One of the main reasons for the construction of the railway was to overcome the reliance on sea transport as the only means of supplying Burma during Japan’s occupation in 1942. The sea route through the Strait of Malacca was prone to submarine attack and the Japanese decided an alternative method of transport was needed. The British had already considered a railway connection between Thailand and Burma, but it was considered to be too large a project. The Japanese, however, felt that it was possible and planned to start the project in June 1942, to connect Ban Pong with Thanbyuzayat. Engineers carried out a survey of the 415-km (258-mile) route and expressed considerable doubt about the economics of the project. However, with so much free labour at their disposal, in the form of Allied prisoners of war, the Japanese arranged for the construction to start immediately from both ends using metre gauge single track.

The route ran along the east bank of the Mae Klong River from Bangkok until it reached the Khwae Noi River. From there it had to cross the Mae Klong and run along the east bank of the Khawe Noi until it reached the mountains. It would cross the mountains at Three Pagodas Pass and then snake down towards Thanbyuzayat. Using this route meant they could utilize the rivers to help transport materials and men to the necessary sites.

The first prisoners arrived on 23 June, 1942, and started work by moving the tracks and sleepers from the disused yards of the Federal States of Malaya Railways (FMSR). The first bridge to be constructed was a wooden trestle across the Mae Klong. It was 220 m (240 yd) in length and was completed in February 1943. A second bridge, of concrete and steel construction, used semi-eliptic spans brought from Java, and this innovative piece of engineering was finished in July 1943. The two lines met at Konkuita on 17 October, 1943 after only 18 months of extremely hard work by both teams. The Burma teams built 152 km (95 miles) of track, while those from the Thailand end, a total of 263 km (163 miles).

The Japanese were so concerned with getting the railway track completed that they gave little or no concern for the welfare of their prisoners. They pushed them to their limit on a project that had been estimated to take over five years to complete, and death became commonplace.. Many of the prisoners were little more than teenagers, and the cruelty and callousness shown to those working in the jungle camps was unimaginable. By early 1943, disease, starvation and sheer overwork had killed so many of the prisoners that the Japanese were forced to hire 200,000 Asian coolies to help finish the railway. The men worked from dawn until after dark and often had to trudge many miles through the jungle to return to base camp where conditions were appalling and often steeped in mud, particularly during the rainy season. There was little, if any, medical treatment available to the prisoners and many suffered terribly before they died. A hospital for malaria, dysentery, pellagra and beri-beri patients existed in name only. It was a basic, dilapidated bamboo-framed structure with a thatched roof, where the sick were placed to wait their eventual death. Occasionally, a man would recover from his sickness, but he was rewarded by being sent straight back to work.

The men’s diet consisted of rice and salted vegetables, which they were allowed to eat twice a day, but this diet was not enough to sustain them for the 16 hours a day they were forced to work, under atrocious conditions. Many of the prisoners were tortured, even for the smallest offence, and beatings became a regular part of their daily routine. If the Japanese guards felt a man wasn’t working to his full potential, he would be beaten savagely and was made to kneel on sharp sticks while holding a boulder for hours on end. Others were tied to trees with barbed wire and left there for several days without food or water.

One of the jobs given to the prisoners was to fell rubber trees and carry the logs back to the camp to fuel the cookhouse and the locomotives. The men worked in teams of three – an axeman and two carriers. Occasionally the men were able to buy food from passing native vendors, but if they were caught trying to smuggle it back into the camps by the Japanese they were severely punished.

After work each day the men would be told how many deaths had occurred while they were away. For each body, four prisoners would be enlisted to wrap the body in straw matting and carry it to the cemetery. This was sometimes a very difficult task because beri-beri caused a kidney malfunction, which resulted in fluid retention. Often a victim would have ballooned in size by as much as 136 kg (300 lb), which made them heavy and difficult to carry.

The only item of clothing they were allowed to wear was a Japanese-style loin cloth, and out of respect for the dead the men would try to cover their naked bodies with leaves. Others prisoners had the unenviable task of digging the endless graves and burying the bodies, most of the time not knowing the identity of the man they had buried. All of these men probably had families back home, but all were buried in unmarked graves.