In a characteristic act of lunacy, I flew to Bangkok for twenty-four hours to visit what remains of the irresistibly named “Death Railway”. This line traversed 415 kilometres of difficult terrain from Thailand to Burma. It was constructed by Allied POWs and other de facto slave labourers at the behest of their Japanese masters during the Second World War. As burgeoning American naval supremacy made shipping supplies increasingly precarious, it became a vital conduit for Japan’s war effort. The railway was completed with remarkable celerity but at a tremendous cost; an estimated 16,000 of the 61,000 Allied soldiers impressed to build it died.
My morning got off to a suitably dramatic start, when I was jolted awake at 5am by blustering winds as planes periodically roared over me. Rather than signalling an imminent Chinese or North Korean invasion, which I had so feared over the past two weeks, this aerial bombardment represented only a salutary lesson to avoid cheap airport hotels with poor insulation. I drove west for three hours, buoyed by regular caffeine (and toilet) stops to Kanchanaburi, where the best preserved part of the railway is located. It will come as no surprise to anyone by now that the highlight was the cemetery for Allied victims. The British epitaphs exemplified the brevity I have come to proudly expect. My final stop was the notorious Hellfire Pass. This particularly perilous section of the railway conjures images of emaciated prisoners labouring by torchlight as they tunnelled through 500 metres of mountain with picks and shovels. The verdant beauty of its surroundings would have brought little comfort as they toiled for eighteen hours a day in the sweltering heat, suffering unconscionable privations. In the last picture, you can see the amount prisoners were required to move each day next to their paltry ration.
