766 results in Creative Writing
Chapter 16 - The Mae Khlaung Bridge
- Edited by Peter N. Davies
-
- Book:
- Across the Three Pagodas Pass
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 13 May 2022
- Print publication:
- 01 June 2013, pp 76-81
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
The railway route in the Kanchancburi area ran from the crossing point over the River Mae Khlaung in the neighbourhood of Thā Makham near the tributary river, the Kwae Noi. The bridge at the present day on the Namtok Line is called the Kwae Noi bridge, but during the construction period it is correct that it achieved its fame as the ‘Mae Khlaung steel bridge’ (in Japanese it was called mekurongawa eikyū kyō, that is, ‘the permanent bridge over the Mae Khlaung’, to an engineer meaning a bridge with steel spans and concrete bridge-piers and bridge-abutments). As well as the steel bridge there was another, a wooden bridge, but that was prepared against flood times. The building of the steel bridge is now to be discussed (among prisoners-of-war it was called the Thā Makham bridge).
At the crossing at Thā Makham you had a river 300 metres wide with a water-surface of about 200 metres, and part of the crossing of the water-surface was the steel bridge with its steel trusses and concrete bridge-piers as a precaution against being flashed out by floods. The total length of the bridge was about 300 metres and over part of the water-course eleven spans of 20 metres each made the crossing. The wooden bridge was about 100 metres across with spans of five metres each. The big bridge was the only steel bridge on Thai-side and it was the longest bridge. In 1945 it was bombed and collapsed, but after the war it was repaired and is today's steel bridge on the Namtok Line.
After the war the film Bridge on the River Kwai (in Japan called ‘The Bridge Built in the Battlefield’) was based on the Frenchman Pierre Boulle's novel and together with the tune of ‘the River Kwai march’ (actually the military band piece called Colonel Bogey) spread throughout the world the story of the building of the Thai-Burma Railway and of the prisoners-of-war who were the labourers on it. There are many fabrications in the story-line which forms the background of the film and it did not transmit the truth.
Chapter 3 - Opening of Hostilities
- Edited by Peter N. Davies
-
- Book:
- Across the Three Pagodas Pass
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 13 May 2022
- Print publication:
- 01 June 2013, pp 6-10
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
On 8 December 1941 I was at the HQ's lines-of-communication hotel in a corner of Rue Catenar, Saigon. At the hotel entrance an Imperial Guard Division sentry stood on guard. In the garden red canna flowers basked in the morning sun, blooming in a blaze of colour. I went into the hotel lobby and listened to a radio broadcast in Japanese. It was nine o’clock in the morning. The broadcast was serious.
The source was an IJA GHQ communiqué. What we heard was that the Imperial Japanese Empire was involved at midnight in a state of war following the joint American-English proclamation of war on Japan, and in an instant our feelings became taut and tense. The successful surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was reported. As I stood there in the lobby, I heard the news repeated, that the American-British declaration marked the start of the war for Japan. When the negotiations with America were broken off, this had meant war. This news came as a shock. Since our departure from the homeland the unit had been reorganized and up to embarcation was under strict orders to keep secret that it was an undercover transport unit and so we made a showy departure for the front and each individual was furnished with a copy of a meaningful label: but we really knew it meant war. On the Cambodia frontier the circumstances made everyone tense. One began to unravel that mysterious order of a few days ago. One renews his decision to give selfless patriotic service and even if one became a victim there's nothing he can do about it but resign himself to the thought that in the end he returns as a hero to the Yasukuni Shrine. We had tended so far to lose our bearings, got needlessly worried. The unit commander addressed us and boosted our morale.
We soon became front-line troops at Phnom Penh. At the crossing-point on the Mekong river our trucks had to await their turn on the ferry. At Phnom Penh was the royal palace and the streets of this Cambodian capital were newly completed.
Chapter 6 - The Fall of Singapore
- Edited by Peter N. Davies
-
- Book:
- Across the Three Pagodas Pass
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 13 May 2022
- Print publication:
- 01 June 2013, pp 18-23
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
In the early hours of 8 February 1942 the Japanese Army's 5 and 18 divisions, who had been awaiting their opportunity to invade the Island's North coast by The Straits at Johore, crossed The Straits in the dark in small boats and made a decisive landing in the face of the enemy, a landing achieved bit-by-bit under enemy shell-fire. The Straits echoed with their voices encouraging one another. Their campaign to take Singapore Island was beginning.
The surviving British, Indian and Australians were now all on the Island, and the GOC commanding its defence, Lt-General Percival, had been strengthening its defence-works, but part of the British 18 Division reinforcement had still not arrived. The Island had lost mastery of the air and day-after-day the streets of the City were exposed to bombing, bombing on streets which sustained damage and had no military equipment.
An officer of a British reinforcement group landed on the Island on 5 February. His company was in the supply and barracks corps (the Royal Army Service Corps). He was Lieutenant Geoffrey Pharaoh Adams, and in his book, No Time for Geishas (1973) he tries to recount how it happened. I quote from it:
In February 1942 we were approaching Singapore in our transport. Lying off Cape Town in South Africa we had heard that two British battleships had been sunk. The ship altered what had so far been her course and we proceeded in haste to Singapore. I am a butcher's son, volunteered for the Army, became a lieutenant and because of my trade was posted to the Royal Army Service Corps. When we left England in December 1941 America was a neutral power vis-à-vis the war with Germany, but on 8 December when Japan started the Pacific War the joint Allied Forces group was formed. At this point my first acquaintance with Singapore came into my thoughts and I knew nothing of the fighting in Malaya, so I could guess what might happen when we reached the Island a few days before the Japanese Army landed on it.
Chapter 25 - Bridge-Building and Shifting Earth
- Edited by Peter N. Davies
-
- Book:
- Across the Three Pagodas Pass
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 13 May 2022
- Print publication:
- 01 June 2013, pp 119-121
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Building a roadbed meant both building bridges and shifting earth. A roadbed to carry a railtrack had to be designed with gradients and line-curvatures, but when one looked at it on the ground it became essentially a matter of high ground being cut through and levelled offand of low places being plugged up to bring them to ground level. This is how the roadbed was formed. Mountain streams had to be crossed by building bridges and this meant unavoidable extra labour.
The total length of the railway was 415 km and there were over 300 bridges, apart from the culverts, but few of them were over 100 metres across. On Thai-side there were the Mae Khlaung steel bridge and the double plank viaduct at Arrow Hill at 103 km; on Burmaside there were the three steel bridges with their wooden by-passes over the Zami, Apalon and Mezali rivers. For small spans of 10 metres and larger spans of 70 to 90 metres the railway engineers used standard ‘text book’ bridge-building methods. Bridges occurred about one in every kilometre. For girders on the wooden bridges they used 30-cm squared timbers, one per rail. On top of the foundations made by piledriving the bridge-abutments and bridge-piers, the framework was made in the form of gate-styled columns one against another. It being entirely a temporary method, clamps were used to bolt up the timbers. It was enough to carry the weight of a train on the bridge but not enough for oscillations on impact. Location and extent were decided, and when the height of the bridge-piers was fixed it became a viable job because the construction was simple. This type of construction was not for permanence so the weak places needed strengthening against flood-times and heavy rains, the safety-factor of the foundations being low. After the railway was opened to traffic the enemy's bombing interrupted movement of traffic, the bridges being the constant target, and the construction being simple they collapsed, but again because of their simple construction they could be repaired.
The area included many jungle mountain streams which had to be bridged, and so a lorry thoroughfare was really necessary.
Index
- Edited by Peter N. Davies
-
- Book:
- Across the Three Pagodas Pass
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 13 May 2022
- Print publication:
- 01 June 2013, pp 223-239
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
Chapter 20 - Rush Construction
- Edited by Peter N. Davies
-
- Book:
- Across the Three Pagodas Pass
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 13 May 2022
- Print publication:
- 01 June 2013, pp 94-99
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
On 1 January 1943, at Sakamoto Unit HQ at Wanyai we decorated our billets with the shichi-go-san (7–5-3, lucky numbers) ornaments, but in bamboo only, for New Year's Pine & Bamboo, and on a Thai-Burma site celebrated the New Year with mochi (rice balls) made with Thai rice. In the midst of the jungle with the heat making one sweat, a hot New Year, no one was able to feel quite the full New Year spirit. We prayed for our homeland's prosperity and when we had completed the formal ceremony of bowing from afar to the Imperial Palace, many of the troops took a siesta and listened to the shrilling of the cicadas. Officers and men wondered for how many months they would be living the jungle life, bathing every day in the Kwae Noi, and bit-by-bit becoming used to enduring the heat, the dangers, the coarse food and clothing … all this was what their sense of duty led them to accept in this job.
After the previous November when the order to construct this railway was formally promulgated, the Construction Unit HQ also inaugurated it, and the GOC, Shimoda, also held an inspection of the current circumstances. Already from September the previous year trains had been running between Nong Pladuk and Kamburi, but the roadbed West of the Mae Khlaung bridge, together with work on the Chungkai cutting and the plank viaduct at points 103 and 109 km, and also the building of the bridge over the Mae Khlaung not having been completed, the situation was that the temporary wooden bridge was said to be nearing completion. The van of the Thai-side's Survey Unit was nearing Thā Khanun, but the embankment for the centre-line had not as yet reached Kinsaiyok. On the other side, the survey in Burma had got as far as Nikki in November, but the roadbed had only reached Thanbyusayat. Engineering had been planned to take one or two months until the end of the year, but the volume of work on Thaiside which remained to be done, together with that on Burma-side, added up to over two-thirds of the total volume of work.
Introduction
- Edited by Peter N. Davies
-
- Book:
- Across the Three Pagodas Pass
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 13 May 2022
- Print publication:
- 01 June 2013, pp xxvii-lviii
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
A horror story of brutality, inefficiency and inhumanity may be described by a writer from a totally different culture in terms which we in a Christian society must find inadequate. It is fascinating to uncover, so far as we can, the reasons lurking behind such apparent inhumanity and to describe the actual situation in which these things took place.
Futamatsu himself was a dedicated professional railway engineer and also, like his CO, fair-minded, always ready to see both sides of an argument. During the Pacific War he was not greatly affected by the militaristic propaganda with which the Army flooded the nation in ‘the dark valley’ of the 1930s. His commander had read engineering at Tokyo Imperial University, but of course, as a regular soldier, he had to comply with superior orders which in theory emanated from an Emperor who was still divine. I suspect that Futamatsu heroworshipped his Colonel, and the Colonel certainly recognized his subordinate's professional skill. Their association ripened into warm friendship.
The Thai-Burma Railway was a necessary concomitant in the Japanese Army's assault through Burma into India, one which came to the fore as a result of the US Navy's successful action off Midway Island in the Pacific in 1942 when most of Japan's aircraft-carriers were sunk or damaged. The British Far East Naval Squadron took control of the Indian Ocean, in particular of the Andaman Sea off the coasts of Malaya and Burma, so it became vitally necessary for the Japanese Army to develop an overland trucking route across the Three Pagodas Pass and on to Moulmein in Burma, to facilitate their invasion of India.
Looking ahead to the possibility of some such eventuality, Imperial Japanese Army General Headquarters in Tokyo had taken on a civilian railway engineering expert in 1939. Using Thai maps, Kuwabara proposed the building of a railway to connect Thailand with Burma. He calculated that it would take two years to complete. Officially ‘The Railway to link Thailand with Burma’, it became known as the Thai-Burma Railway.
Translator’s Acknowledgements
- Edited by Peter N. Davies
-
- Book:
- Across the Three Pagodas Pass
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 13 May 2022
- Print publication:
- 01 June 2013, pp lxi-lxii
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
Chapter 22 - The Labour Force
- Edited by Peter N. Davies
-
- Book:
- Across the Three Pagodas Pass
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 13 May 2022
- Print publication:
- 01 June 2013, pp 106-110
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
In an investigation pre-war at IJA GHQ it had been estimated that two railway regiments could build a railway linking Thailand to Burma in one year, but careful thought was not given to what mechanical gear might be needed. Accordingly, in practice, labour for roadbed construction was assumed to depend on human effort. In March 1942, under Southern Army's 2 Railway Control, from the start it was assumed that a human labour force would do it. From topographical maps the earth-work of roadbed construction on which the railtrack could be laid was estimated to total at least 15 million cubic metres of earthwork, and bridge-building a distance of upwards of 30 km. The period of construction was estimated as two years and the number of labourers needed was assessed as over 25,000 each day. On the fall of Singapore, in the Malayan battle-area and the successful occupation of Java and Sumatra, the prisoners-of-war of British, Dutch and Australian nationality were numbered in March 1942 as around 100,000, and they were mostly in prison-camps at Changi on Singapore Island. For the Japanese Southern Army it was in the natural order of events that, as these men were still alive, that they were seen as the labour force for constructing the railway. However, one does not know whether it was an infringement of the Geneva Convention International Pact on Treatment of Prisoners-of-War because Japan did not ratify it. The British and American Governments started the war so whether their action was against the Japanese Government's diplomatic stance and whether Southern Army really understood the situation and were well-informed or not one does not know. However that may be, in Southern Army's plan it was stated that prisoners-of-war and locally conscripted coolies would be used as the labour force.
As a result of the survey mentioned in Chapter 9 it was forecast that the volume of work required was greater than had been forecast in 1939, but by January 1943 it became strategically essential to demand that the time-scale should be shortened, to be effected by rush-construction, and that work force had to be augmented.
End Notes
- Edited by Peter N. Davies
-
- Book:
- Across the Three Pagodas Pass
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 13 May 2022
- Print publication:
- 01 June 2013, pp 205-210
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
Chapter 19 - From Bangkok to Singapore
- Edited by Peter N. Davies
-
- Book:
- Across the Three Pagodas Pass
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 13 May 2022
- Print publication:
- 01 June 2013, pp 89-93
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
On 1 October 1942 work started on the Mae Khlaung steel bridge. The foundations of the bridge-piers were laid as concreted well-cribs, and for excavating the hard, tough river-bottom apparatus was needed, apparatus called a Gatmel dredger. Under water on the river-bottom the sharp edges of its blades bored into and pulled up the foundation, the edges of the bades closed up, bored into the earth and sand, gripped the load and carried it up: such was its mechanism. But at the time a Gatmel could not be found in Thailand. On 1 November I was specially assigned by 9 Railway Regiment HQ to search for one. The official order ran, ‘Railway Official Futamatsu to go on a business trip to Malaya and Singapore to collect under-water dredging apparatus. Sjt Nagata and Superior Private Yasawa to be attached to him.’ That term ‘to be attached’ meant that regular soldiers must cooperate with a gunzoku without supervision. ‘Attached’ to me were Sjt Nagata in charge of machine parts and Superior Private Yasawa as orderly. Out party left for Malaya, leaving Sakamoto Unit at Wanyai.
When we got to Banpong we found the Southern Thai National Line was impassable to the East of Nakhon Chaisiri on account of flooding of the River Menam. We stood by waiting for two or three days until a steamer became available for Bangkok from Nakhon Chaisiri, so we got to Bangkok despite being unable to go by train directly to it. All you could see was what looked like a lake and of course the railway line was under water. In the South Thailand plain here and there you could see coconut palms and the roofs of houses apparently floating on the water. The wide surface of the muddy water at the peak of these hot days glittered in the sunlight, and ripples gathered over the railway line embankment. At a wharf near the station a small roofed steamer was waiting for people arriving by train. Women farm-workers carrying vegetables, business-like Chinese, yellow-robed bonzes and so on, a miscellany of common people crowded onto the upper deck of the ship which quivered and shook as it moved away from the wharf.
Chapter 37 - Repatriation
- Edited by Peter N. Davies
-
- Book:
- Across the Three Pagodas Pass
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 13 May 2022
- Print publication:
- 01 June 2013, pp 197-200
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
On 16 June 1946 we boarded a Liberty-type transport moored at the quay in Bangkok. We stayed overnight at the Bangkok leisure centre but until we actually went on board there was still the fear of being left behind and we were under some strain. Guards playing cards at the companionway checked each man's licence to embark as we went on board. The previous day at the checkpoint at Nong Pladuk small white permit cards had been issued, our passports to repatriation. When at last I stood on deck an immense feeling of security swept over me, for this ship was to carry me home to my motherland. I would have liked to cast off right away but familiarity with Thailand over so many years came back into my consciousness and I had mixed feelings about leaving it. But soon came a sound which dispelled all uncertainty, the deep, continuous sound of the ship's siren reverberating over and over, and she calmly cast off from the wharf. We left the harbour.
The River Menam flowed quietly and gently. The sky over the city was clearing up well. In the distance against the dark blue sky the pagoda of the Temple of Dawn glittered in the afternoon sun, sparkling, dazzling. Soon the rows of houses and banana plantations at the water's edge on the far shore began to look small as they receded. Farewell, Bangkok! Farewell, Thailand! As I stood on deck there welled up in my mind intimate memories of my war travels, memories coming and going one after another in an ever-changing panoramic picture. I wondered whether I should ever revisit this country, revisit its capital city …
My thoughts made a complete switch and flew to my own country. If this ship arrived safely at a port in Japan and I really met my family, all that lay in the inmost recesses of my heart would be fulfilled. Thus ran my meditations, savouring anew the joy of repatriation.
The ship bore south of the capital into the Gulf of Siam and passed in the offing of Cape Sanjak in French Indo-China. Up to this point precise information had been lacking and it was only hearsay that we were heading for Japan, but we had a strong feeling that we were going home.
Chapter 33 - Opening to Traffic
- Edited by Peter N. Davies
-
- Book:
- Across the Three Pagodas Pass
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 13 May 2022
- Print publication:
- 01 June 2013, pp 174-178
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
On 17 October the Thai-Burma Rail Link track made its connectingup point from Burma-side and from Thai-side at a point just West of Konkuita station about 40 km south-east of the Thai-Burma frontier, a joining-up point in mid-jungle, 262.53 km from the starting point at Nong Pladuk.
Respectively from east to west the track-laying squads of 5 and 9 railway regiments calculated their distances of track and aimed at meeting in the early morning at Konkuita on the day. Major-General Ishida Hideguma came to Konkuita expressly to take command of the act of making the connection. In the east on Thai-side it was 9 Railway Regiment's 2 Battalion, on the west on Burma-side it was 5 Railway Regiment's 1 Battalion, who each must recall how they had had the responsible honour of joining up the railtrack. They expected to complete it at noon on the day, and at 11 a.m. the contest started under the GOC's direction. The two squads had a gap of 200 metres between them.
Railway Official Katamura of 4 Special Bridging Unit was at the site and he described the scene as follows:
I was at the time near the point at which the sets of rails joined up. The sky above the jungle at Konkuita was quite clear. There were massive growths of green leaves on the trees and although the tropical sunlight gave no shade they kept cascading down to the ground under the trees. The hour of noon drew near. Shrilling of cicadas assailed our ears. Work had stopped on the roadbed a day or so previously. The railtrack stretched out making a straight line through the jungle. The embankment was low at this point. At 11 a.m. GOC Ishida gave the command to start the contest. Soon from both sides East and West in the jungle could be heard the shouts of command in unison of the two track-laying squads who braced themselves to the task in their race to get there first. Rails loaded on flatcars were propelled by rail-tractors, moved ahead and the worksquads lined up the sleepers. Then several soldiers with loud shouts in unison dropped each rail down on the sleepers. Gaps between rails were aligned and dog-spikes driven in with mells to fix the rails to the sleepers.
Chapter 34 - The Bombing
- Edited by Peter N. Davies
-
- Book:
- Across the Three Pagodas Pass
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 13 May 2022
- Print publication:
- 01 June 2013, pp 179-185
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
In the Spring of the year in which the Thai-Burma Railway opened to traffic, from about the time when the order for rush-construction was received, the strain of the war situation was becoming intense. The year before, the America Navy, who began their counter-offensive after the start of the war, in June 1942 in the action off Midway Island sank most of the Japanese Navy's aircraft-carriers, inflicting a heavy loss on us. This naval battle complicated things for us and the Japanese Army, with the now enlarged Pacific battle-line, ran risks in their lines of communication. Our Army assaulted the Australian perimeter but their attacks collapsed after hard fighting at various points. In the SE Asia war theatre our Army's dispositioning of fighter aircraft proved to be inadequate.
For the Burma Expeditionary Force in their assault on India, after capturing Burma, the supply-line was to be the construction of the Thai-Burma Railway, of which the opening-to-traffic coincided with enemy air raids which damaged their carrying-power of this supply route.
In the circumstances with a number of Allied Forces’ prisonersof-war employed on it, from the time when construction started it looked as if detailed intelligence information was being reported from the prisoners. From early 1943 recce aircraft frequently flew over. In June 1944 there was damage to tools and materials accumulated at the base at Thanbyusayat, and concurrently the prisoners’ quarters were bombed. The base on Thai-side at Nong Pladuk was also raided and prisoners-of-war injured. To avoid injury to their own men as prisoners, the enemy appear to have made surveys of the locations of camps.* From the Japanese angle, enemy attacks were to be expected but, having no fighter-planes, our AA arrangements were inefficient, yet despite it all we had opened the railway to traffic. In May 1943 the Mae Khlaung steel bridge was completed. AA-gun posts were set up and they gave partial protection to the bridge itself.
The enemy's attacks had effectively started with the opening to traffic of the railway. Obviously, to hinder rail transport, to collapse railway bridges was the most effective stratagem. They began with the steel railway bridge over the Mae Khlaung and went on to the very large number remaining of small wooden bridges.
Chapter 17 - Kanchanaburi
- Edited by Peter N. Davies
-
- Book:
- Across the Three Pagodas Pass
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 13 May 2022
- Print publication:
- 01 June 2013, pp 82-85
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
The route of the Thai-Burma Railway started from Nong Pladuk, a very small village, ran though the northern suburbs of Banpong, then along the highway to Kanchanaburi, reaching it by way of the villages of Lookgae, Thāruanoi, Thāmoan and others. Kanchanaburi is a town sited alongside the North bank of the river about 50 km upstream from Banpong. Its population was about 3,000. The prefectural office was in a row of houses along the North bank. West of the town the prefectural boundary followed the course of the Mae Khlaung and became mountainous forest. Today it is the key point for tourists at the confluence of the Kwae Yai and the Kwae Noi. In the 1940s it was especially important to the railway construction unit, 9 Railway Regiment, and together with Banpong became the pivotal point in the construction. On Thai-side Sakamoto Unit as advance party came into the town and in early August set up their HQ.
The town was a centre for collecting and distributing commodities and for timber and ores from the mountainous outback: it was also a collecting point for commodities from over the Burma border … including smuggled goods. Because it relied on the Mae Khlaung for the transport of commodities the wharves on the river-front had become the centre of this small town. From antiquity Thailand had been prepared for invasion by the Burmese, and as a form of base defence work there was preserved a stone castle-gate in front of the prefectural office. The town was always called Kamburi for short by both Japanese soldiers and prisoners-of-war, and they called the castle-gate the ‘Gateway to Kamburi’, and it became the point they looked for as a guide-post to the street. There was a paper-factory with bamboo as the raw material: it had a tall chimney. On the highway to Kamburi it made a good sighting-point from a distance.
On the North side of the broad highway in the town is a wide grassy meadow. The railway halt was planned at its northern edge. The quarters of the railway engineers had been built on it.
Preface
- Edited by Peter N. Davies
-
- Book:
- Across the Three Pagodas Pass
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 13 May 2022
- Print publication:
- 01 June 2013, pp lxiii-lxiv
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
It is a long time, forty years, since the end of the Second World War, and with the lapse of time what happened in it is like a distant historical fragment of a past which people have now forgotten. With the end of the war we Japanese set up a new constitution which outlawed war, sought peace and declared that Japan would never again go to war.
But how can the present generation who have no war experience understand what war is? By the same token, how can they bear malice, how criticize, how amend the real truth? To them it is the responsibility of those who did experience it to tell them the reality … they can describe it and it is plainly their responsibility to do so. One must admit, however that they are getting few in number.
When our army made their strategic attack on India, they planned a railway for military purposes to transport supplies overland. After the war, the construction of this railway was the background to the film Bridge built in the Battlefield (Japanese title of Bridge on the River Kwai), and the prisoners in it were supposed to be those who sang the theme song the ‘River Kwai March’. Moreover, because so many were sacrificed, the slur, ‘Death Railway’ was slammed on it. Full details of the actual conditions of its construction do not now exist. The film is full of errors, and to have dubbed it ‘Death Railway’ is clearly far from the reality.
Its construction involved an unusually difficult operational sequence in military action in a war area. To use prisoners-of-war and their help to complete the task constituted a unique phenomenon in a world railway construction.
In mountainous terrain in a jungle belt pivoting on the Three Pagodas Pass on the Thai-Burma frontier, construction meant enduring a climate of sweltering heat and heavy rainfall, meant battling with epidemics of serious diseases such as malaria and cholera, and mastering nature in the form of jungle for a distance of 415 kilometres and in the space of one and a half years completing the task: the solid fact, in my opinion, is that the Japanese left behind them a record of considerable enterprise.
Acknowledgements
- Edited by Peter N. Davies
-
- Book:
- Across the Three Pagodas Pass
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 13 May 2022
- Print publication:
- 01 June 2013, pp ix-xii
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
Chapter 12 - Prisoners-of-War
- Edited by Peter N. Davies
-
- Book:
- Across the Three Pagodas Pass
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 13 May 2022
- Print publication:
- 01 June 2013, pp 51-60
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
In war, when enemy forces are in action, their troops who surrender and become captives in general gain by it. Among all countries in the world who approved it the later International Convention concerning Prisoners-of War was ratified in Geneva. Japan's position in regard to the Convention was that our military declined responsibility for prisoners-of-war, and when war broke out in 1941 Japan had not ratified or signed the Convention. However, in Japan's case in the past in the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War our troops had taken prisoners, and so it was expected by other countries that in this war, too, Allied Forces’ troops would become captives in the same way.
Japan excepted, foreign countries’ military in their organizational systems did not have many people who became volunteer soldiers and in battle could become prisoners-of-war properly so-called and they came under the provision of the International Prisoners-of War Convention as regards their treatment: captives themselves well knew about this Convention and under it would expect certain standards of treatment. They saw nothing dishonourable in this, and it was evident that they did their tasks faithfully. In England's case, it is the custom for the King to send repatriated prisoners-of-war a letter of appreciation individually, as former prisoners-of-war when I met them openly avowed.
By contrast, in our country's military systems set-up, soldiers were brought up in the spirit of public duty to die, and on the battlefield this rule of conduct was observed to the letter, embracing our country's demand to dedicate one's life to her, a command strictly enforced … ‘If captured one must not incur the shame of going on living.’ If soldiers by any chance unexpectedly became prisoners, they were disgraced for the rest of their lives. Because Japanese soldiers felt like this, they could properly call into contempt enemy soldiers for not being ashamed of cowardice. When foreign soldiers became prisoners-of war in battle and come under their enemy's protection, they know they can take a rest from battle, but if the opportunity arises can escape.
Chapter 2 - In Indo-China
- Edited by Peter N. Davies
-
- Book:
- Across the Three Pagodas Pass
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 13 May 2022
- Print publication:
- 01 June 2013, pp 3-5
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
On the anniversary of the Emperor Meiji's birthday, 3 November, we reached the waters off the southern coast islands and the following day entered the port of Haiphong, at that time a French possession in Indo-China (now North Vietnam). It was known as ‘Indo’ for short. Near the ship were cargo-handling lighters (sampans) and a crowd of peddlers’ little boats. Their Annamese dress was new to me and when I heard them talking I realized I had indeed come to a foreign country and for the first time I set foot on foreign soil.
Even at night the heat did not abate. On the lovely lakeside of Granlac the chalkstone buildings were reflected in the quiet waters of the lake. One walked down tree-lined streets and in the French manner cafés lined the sidewalks. There were petits fours cakes which were sweet-tasting, and we enjoyed a helping.
In mid-November we were transferred from Haiphong to towns along the line of the transverse railway called The Phut & Embai Line. The train crossed a high steel bridge over the River Songkoi called Bon de mer. The bridge served two purposes, first as a bridge route: second, when there were no trains it isolated the railtrack which provided unusual facilities. At Embai there was military training every day.
My unit was the first to go to Saigon. On 25 November we entrained at Haiphong station. From the carriage window you could see the South China Sea. Somehow the atmosphere was tense, but one still sensed no indication that one was at war. The train arrived at Saigon on 28 November. Saigon was called the Paris of the Orient, a beautiful town which Frenchmen took to their hearts. On the main street under the rows of trees in Maronie there were cafés and at teatime a band performed a musical programme. The leaves in the line of trees shone through and through in the hot southern sun, trembling and whispering in the breeze. I remember my first taste of snails as the French cooked them.
Chapter 8 - Shōnan: Light of the South
- Edited by Peter N. Davies
-
- Book:
- Across the Three Pagodas Pass
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 13 May 2022
- Print publication:
- 01 June 2013, pp 29-33
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
In March 1942 the military government gave Japanese-occupied Singapore its new name Shōnan, Light of the South. The Mayor inaugurated this great recognition of the gallantry of Japan's warriors, and 25 Army Military Government took over the administration of Malaya and Singapore. After the occupation there was an anti-Japanese movement fomented by a large number of disreputable overseas Chinese merchants who were executed, for the most part without trial: this gradually stopped the unrest and public peace and order were restored.
In Changi a new commandant, Major-General Fukunaga Kyōhei arrived to administer the Shōnan prisoner-of-war camp. To prevent escapes the new commandant demanded that all officer-prisoners should sign a written pledge not to escape, so that re-captured escapees could be executed. The officer-prisoners used the International Prisoners-of-War Convention as their pretext for refusing to sign. They had no case for utilizing it because Japan did not ratify it. General Hattori felt that the local company of guards could not deal with his instructions to the letter so his chief-of-staffconcentrated the prisoners in a single barrack square at Selerang, and kept them so crowded together that normal living conditions were impossible to sustain. There was now the risk of lives being lost and the Changi prisoners all gave in to the chief-of-staff's demand and signed. It was at this juncture that the Thai-Burma Railway was about to be built as an overland trucking route to Burma and as a source of manual labour in the Thailand-Burma area prisoners-of-war were to be used, sent up from Changi [as a matter of fact a large number had been sent before Selerang: editor].
Since the occupation of Singapore Lieutenant Adams and his group had been living in the Shōnan prisoner-of-war camp, starting their new way of life in it. In the southern region the native peoples had been liberated and the Japanese ideal of a Great East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere was preached and realized. Our Army had Japanized Singapore as Shōnan City. Concurrently, a monument in mourning to the souls of the departed heroes of the campaign, the Shōnan Shrine, was constructed. It was put up on the heights of Bukit Timah on the outskirts of the golf-course near the McRitchie reservoir.