October 17, 1943 was a memorable day for the quarter million slaving on the Thai-Burma "Death Railway".
The Japanese used the occasion of the joining of the north and south ends of the 415 km line for pageantry and propaganda.
"They held a big ceremony with their news cameras and all the Jap bigwigs there," Allan McNevin recalls 70 years later.
Formerly a Bombardier with 2/10 Field Regiment, Australian 8th Division, Allan was assigned to work with A Force construction party around Nikei, northwestern Thailand.
The PoWs were given clean uniforms. A ceremonial golden spike was driven in to the last teak sleeper. The Japanese had their footage in the can. Then the fresh uniforms were stripped off the prisoners and it was back to the grindstone.
"A feeling of relief that the pressure would drop, the panic, and it did," recalls Allan of that historic day.
"But no great feeling of we've done it. No bottles of champagne came out, put it that way," laughs Allan.
There was still plenty of back-breaking ballast to be laid. And warped rails to be straightened with a crowbar: "The line looked like a snake in the heat of the day."
It was several months before the first steam train passed that point near Konkoita at the 262.87 km mark. Unlike the storyline in The Bridge on the River Kwai, the Imperial Japanese Army transported some 220,000 tons of military supplies into Burma between December 1943 and August 1945.
To put this into context, the Japanese desperately needed a link between Bangkok and Rangoon to fuel their push into India.
60,000 Allied PoWs and 200,000 native labourers were chain-ganged. Four million cubic metres of embankments were constructed, three million cubic metres of rock shifted by hand, and 14 km of bridges erected.
I take Route 323 north from The Bridge past Hellfire Pass, approximately following the line. Surprise! The Vajiralongkorn Dam has buried Konkoita, but given life to traditional fishing villages. Richer landowners have jagged the top spots with commanding lakeside views.
A lengthy bridge fords the Ranti River, offering money-shot valley views. Then I climb, climb, climb the Tenasserim foothills to Sangkhla Buri, with its gold reclining Buddha, and Thailand's longest wooden bridge - the 400-metre Mon Bridge to Wangka.
The famed Three Pagodas are a tad underwhelming. Not impressive, but distinctive.
They mark where Buddhism entered Thailand from India in the 3rd century, also the area through which several Burmese invasions were launched. This section was ripped up post-war to ensure Karen separatists didn't make use of it, but a tiny portion of track has been re-laid in commemoration.
Bordertown markets peddle wooden handicrafts, clothes, whisky, Chinese junk and goat's head soup. Kids pop in through a gaping hole in a restaurant wall.
"Is that Burma?" I ask a local shopkeeper. He nods, grinning. There is nothing to stop people slipping between countries. But it takes me several months to secure permission to cross by motorcycle.
"We have four types of roads here," beams Stephen, a Burmese guide looking dapper in his tartan golfer's cap. "Silk road, Massage, Rock 'n Roll, and Broken Bone roads."
The red laterite road swarms with rickety buses, trucks, pick-ups and scooters. Trucks are piled high with second-hand bicycles and boxes. Our police escort is vaguely reassuring with their WWII-issue Sten guns, less so by their devouring a bottle of whisky over lunch.
The valleys and vistas of the Dawna Range are stunning. The optimistically named 'Asia Highway' links Myanmar to Thailand, China and India.
Working gangs of women (with decorative thanaka-bark cream on their cheeks) carry little baskets of stones and empty them onto the road, one by one. A handmade highway.
Tyanphuza Yat seems a relatively prosperous trading pocket with colourful double-storey mansions. In the war it was the 0 km mark of the railway, with a huge base hospital. At the station it is a soporific scene of fruit vendors, sleeping dogs.
Stephen points out houses in a grass clearing.
"Original, apart from iron roofs."
A black and green British locomotive sits in an overgrown orchard.
The immaculate War Cemetery commemorates nearly 3000 British and Australians who succumbed on the Burma side of the railway, comprising many from the brave 2/29 and 2/19 battalions who stalled the Japanese in Johor. Dead from disease and malnutrition. Average age: 25.
That 100,000 men died in this railway's making is horrific. That anyone survived, truly amazing.
"All that went through our mind was keeping alive," adds Allan.
More than 20 per cent of all PoWs perished.
Four kilometres south is Kandaw where Green Force commenced the Burma end of the line, October 1, 1942. It took just 54 weeks until the lines joined.
Amid the hype of the newly-opened Myanmar, there is talk of reinstating the railway. But it was unfeasible then, impassable now.
"I walked into the jungle where a bit of the old railway was still lying," Dick Lee says.
"It was so silent, you think `did that all really happen?' Like a bleedin' dream."
IF YOU GO
GETTING THERE: Kanchanaburi is 2.5 hours from Bangkok by road or rail. By air: Thai Airways (www.thaiairways.com.au) has approximately 40 flights per week from Sydney, Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane.
STAYING THERE: Pung Waan Resort and Spa, Kanchanaburi (www.pungwaanriverkwai.com) has rooms from $60 per night, including breakfast. Mawlamyaing Strand Hotel, Mawlamyaing, Myanmar (mawlamyaingstrandhotel.com) has rooms from $75 including breakfast.
PLAYING THERE: Hellfire Pass Tours (www.hellfirepass.com) can arrange tours of all the main points of interest on the Death Railway, and other local attractions including elephant treks and Tiger Temple.
- Stu Lloyd is the author of The Missing Years: A PoW's Story from Changi to Hellfire Pass, available from amazon.com and www.apple.com/itunes. The writer travelled at his own expense.
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