The Death Railway.

Photographer: Unknown
Tarsau, Thailand. Japanese P.O.W. camp.

With skin stretched tight over bones from prolonged malnutrition and mistreatment, four emaciated soldiers of Australian and Dutch origin present a grim picture in this photo of 1943 – taken at the Japanese prisoner of war camp located at Tarsau in present-day Thailand.

Suffering from Beriberi, a severe deficiency of Vitamin B, which left untreated causes loss of muscle strength and paralysis. The soldiers were but a small part of the 61,000 men who were captured after the fall of Singapore in 1942, and send to work on the Thailand Burma Link Railway. Pushed by the Japanese between 1942 to 1943 to ferry troops and equipment speedily across a 415 kilometer stretch that fell in between present day Ban pong in Thailand and the city of Yangon in Burma.

Recalled by survivors to be a hell hole of horror. At Tarsau, British, Australian, Dutch and other allied prisoners of war were starved, punished and forced to work in the most deplorable and inhuman conditions. Out of the 61,000 enlisted men assigned to the project, 19,000 died from starvation, cholera, beatings or torture. Out of an additional 250,000 Asian workers who worked alongside, 90,000 perished.

The construction of the railroad is considered as one of the many war crimes committed by Japan during World War II. After her surrender on the 2nd of September, 1945.  Thirty-two Japanese military personnel responsible for the atrocities were court-martialed and sentenced to death.

This brutal episode of the war later inspiring the semi-historical movie: Bridge on the river Kwai released in 1957, and in more recent time, The Railway Man, released in 2013. An estimated 330,000 men are believed to have worked on the construction of the railroad. To the enlisted men, it was known as the Death Railway.