Loving care . .

Loving care . ., originally uploaded by grantthai.

War graves at Chung-Kai War Cemetary being tended by locals employed by the UK's War Graves Commission.

Please view LARGE.

With good Flickr friend from Singapore DanielKHC** Asia's HDR master, we recently visited Kanchanaburi and the River Kwai.

There are two Japanese POW (prisoner of war) cemetaries here, commemorating some of the casualties of Australian, Dutch, Malayan, Indian and British war prisoners who lost their lives during the construction of the infamous Death Railway during the Second World War. Don Rak, the largest and in town opposite Kanchanaburi's Railway Station, contains the remains of 6,982 identified and unknown casualties.

Daniel and I visited the smaller and least visited cemetary, Chungkai, the cemetery being the original burial ground started by the prisoners themselves, and mostly of men who died at the hospital. There are the remains of 1,427 Commonwealth and 314 Dutch casualties in this cemetery. A third cemetary at Thanbyuzayat in Myanmar (Burma) contains 3,149 Commonwealth and 621 Dutch burials.

The notorious Japanese Burma-Siam railway was built by Commonwealth, Dutch and American prisoners of war. During its construction, approximately 15,000 prisoners of war died and were buried along the railway. An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 civilians also died in the course of the project, chiefly forced labour brought from Malaya and the Dutch East Indies or conscripted in Siam (Thailand) and Burma (Myanmar). Two labour forces, one based in Siam and the other in Burma, worked from opposite ends of the line towards the centre.

The Japanese aimed at completing the railway in 14 months and work began in October 1942. The line, 424 kilometres long, was completed by December 1943. The graves of those who died during the construction and maintenance of the Burma-Siam railway (except for the Americans, whose remains were repatriated) were transferred from camp burial grounds and isolated sites along the railway into the three cemeteries.

Téléchargé par grantthai le 28 jui 07 à 9:44