JAPANESE ATROCITIES IN WW2

AUSTRALIAN PRISONERS OF WAR

• 22,376 Australian soldiers were taken by the Japanese as prisoners of war
• Most were taken from Singapore after its fall
• Others were taken from Java, Timor, Ambon and New Britain
• Australians taken from Singapore were sent to labour camps in Burma, Thailand, Japan, Borneo and Manchuria
• Of the 22,376 prisoners, 8031 died in captivity

THAI-BURMA RAILWAY

• 60,000 Allied prisoners (13,000 Australians) and 20,000 Asian labourers were forced to work on the Thai-Burma Railway
• 2800+ captured Australians died during construction
• The 420km railway was built to transport supplies to the Japanese in Burma through the jungle
• Labourers were spread out over the length of the track. Wherever the gradient of the land was too steep, P.O.W.s dug enormous cuttings into the ground such as the Hellfire Pass. They also built large embankments and 688 bridges.

HELLFIRE PASS

• The Hellfire Pass (formally known as the Konyu cutting) was the deepest and longest cutting along the Thai-Burma railway
• The pass began 150km along the railway at Nong Pladuk. It got its name in 1943 when workers were forced to work all night, using only oil lamps and bamboo fires to light the chaos going on around them.
• The Hellfire Pass was 75 metres long and 25 metres deep. Most of the cutting was done by hand with some help from compression powered jackhammers and explosives.

HELLFIRE PASS CRUELTY

• When explosives were used to clear large areas of mountain, the rubble was either moved using skips, or sick and starved P.O.W.s were forced to carry it away by hand.
• The Japanese were never happy with the pace of their workers. From April to August 1943 was the 'Speedo' period. Prisoners were asked to double or triple their workload and working hours are extended to 15 to 18 hours a day. Any prisoner not meeting Japanese work standards was punished harshly and violently.

Artist's impression of the Speedo period of the Hellfire Pass

The Thai-Burma railway survived being bombed by the Allies in 1944-45 and successfully provided supplied to Japanese soldiers in Burma. However, it was decided by the Allied authorities at the end of the war that it would be too difficult to maintain the structure. So it was demolished in 947.

The Hellfire Pass was also demolished after the war, but was rediscovered in the 1980s and is now the site of Anzac Day ceremonies and the Hellfire Pass Memorial Museum. It is remembered as a symbol of the Japanese Atrocities and a memorial for the many Australian lives lost under Japanese control.

BIBLIOGRPAHY

• Ehrlich, R.S. (2014) Hellfire pass: TripAdvisor’s top museum in Thailand recounts gruesome history. Available at: http://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/06/travel/hellfire-pass-thailand-wwii-museum... (Accessed: 21 August 2016). General information about Australian prisoners of the Japanese (no date) Available at: https://www.awm.gov.au/encyclopedia/pow/general NSW, B. (2016) The Thai-Burma railway and hellfire pass. Available at: http://hellfire-pass.commemoration.gov.au/building-hellfire-pass/hellfire-p... (Accessed: 21 August 2016).