The Burma-Thailand Railway: Memory and history

Between November 1942 and October 1943 a force of about 60,000 prisoners of the Imperial Japanese Army, together with an even greater number of locally conscripted labourers, was mobilized to construct a railway from Kanchanaburi in Thailand to Thanbuyzayat in Burma. Many died in the construction process, including 12,000 POWs (2,800 of them Australian). They died from overwork, beatings, exhaustion and disease - the result of their taskmasters' cruelty. Survivors have carried the physical and psychological scars ever since. The crimes committed in order to build the railway need to be understood. In this book some of the Australian survivors, and distinguished Japanese and Australian historians, attempt to come to a real understanding of what happened on the railway and why. Contributors include Tom Uren, Hugh V. Clarke and Sir Edward (Weary) Dunlop.