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If I could dedicate this to anyone, if there ever was such a thing with a blog (although the man in question deserves much, much more than a mere blog dedication...as do they all) I would like to dedicate it to the memory of Sandy Samuelson, a great and lovely man whom I never had the priviledge of meeting. He was my father's godfather and ex-Japanese POW. He worked on the Konyu cutting and the bridge and incredibly he survived the completion of the railway. He never spoke of his experiences. So this is to remember him, and all his friends, and all the men who worked alongside him. Im not entirely sure how to write about Kanchanaburi, the "Death Railway" and "Hellfire Pass." These places are so steeped in history and memory and sadness and yet on face value show no signs of being any different from any of the neighbouring villages or towns in this area.
The countryside is absolutely stunning and driving through on the government buses whets your appetite for what else might be hiding undiscovered amongst the glorious Jungle and rolling mountain ranges.
Its only when you dig deeper and look closer that
you come to realise the complete sadness and hurt that surrounds this seemingly innocent town.
Kanchanaburi and the surrounding areas history is know for many people as the place they want to forget. A place where so much cruelty and complete waste of life took place. Still maybe not enough people know about this place and it harrowing history, or maybe like me they know about it but have no idea as to the actual extent of the brutality that went on here, and stripped down to the lowest denominator it was all for the sake of a railway.
In the centre of Kanchanaburi you can find the allied Prisioners of war cemeteries. Beautifully maintained and full of flowers and trees. As you walk around the vast area it's extremely hard to fathom how all these young men ever found themselves in such a dire predicamant. Beyond the fact that the cemetery almost looks like a sea of grey rocks (despite its lush green grassland) due to the sheer number of gravestones, the most dreadful thing by far is to discover that all but a few of the graves are of young men between the ages of 18
and 25 years old. Effectively boys who had their whole lives ahead of them. These boys were someones brother, father and son. The most awful grave that read "Rest now son, Dad is proud" is a memory that has stayed with me ever since. I just can't imagine having to bury your children and it made me so desperately sad that this young boy had died in such a tragic and needless way, like so many of his friends. 6982 friends.
The museum that overlooks the cemetery is absolutely fantastic and refuses to let you forget the horros of war. Brilliantly educational in explaining the ins and outs that led up to the building of the Burma - Siam railway that became quickly dubbed the "death railway" by POW's, and for good reason.
It describes in detail the railway under construction and all the terribles things that happened; the cruelty to the prisoners, the malnutrition, the disease, the beri beri, the brutal Japanese in command, the 'squeeze' to get it finished ahead of schedule, the true horrors of war but the most fascinating point was the way it described the prisioners themselves. How they helped each other, looked
after one another and pulled together through the darkest of times. In addition it described that the allied chain of command was still in place under the cruel and strict Japanese regime. These men despite being faced with the worst possible conditions and most horrific or times still worked well in their ranks and obeyed orders when pushed to their absolute limits and beyond.
We walked the 5 Km beyond Kanchanaburi to see the bridge on the River Kwai and the smaller-than-you-imagine-it-to-be River Kwai itself, made famous by the book and then the 1957 film adaptation. Although we learnt that infact the book was written without the author ever going to the site of the bridge which actaully lies on the Mae Khlung river and not the Kwai at all! To stop confusing tourists and indeed in many instances preventing people from being disappointed the government decided to rename the river!
The Mae Khlung is now the Kwae Yai ('Big Kwai') for several miles north and the Kwae Noi ('Little Kwai'), is now the stretch of river that the bridge crosses. No more disappointed tourists, im sure it happened!
We also learned a lot about the Konyu cutting,
Flowers soften the blow
amongst the rows of gravestones.which was dubbed "Hellfire pass" by the allied POW's, because when the Japanese demanded they work long into the night in a rush to get it finished, they lit big fires that sent flames of light and reflections to dance off the walls of the cutting, illuminating the picks and tools and men at work with their boney under nourished and unnatural looking physiques. The Japanese stood high along the sides of the cutting and whipped at, beat, threw stones and generally abused the prisoners below. It was named "Hellfire pass" because the scene reminded the prisoners of being in hell. The flames, the abuse, the heat, the utter horror of the situation and the extremely high death toll. I cant even begin to imagine.
"Hellfire Pass" lies beyond Nam Tok and the railway line onwards goes to the Three Pagodas Pass into Burma. Its 80km beyond Kanchanburi town and approximately 10km beyond Nam Tok. A 7km stretch of the track bed beyond Konyu Cutting has been cleared of jungle by the Australian government as a memorial. This part actually crosses the Mae Khlung river.
We realised that we had to go and visit it for ourselves, knowing
it would be more terrible than we could possibly imagine but everything we had learned made us want to remember and pay our respects to the men and their ordeals all those years ago.
We caught a government bus which took two hours to get to the nearest stop and walked down to the museum that marks the entrance down to the Konyu cutting. Like the museum in Kanchanaburi, this museum which is run and maintained by the Australian government was fantastic and explained everything you would need to know about the history that surrounds this dreadful place.
We began the short 40 minute round trip walk down into the cutting. On the way you really get a sense for how beautiful the countyside is and how stark a contrast it must have been to the brutality of the Japanese. Although maybe, probably it wasn't even noticed by the POW's. They just saw it as a hellish, hot and horrid place that resulted in death.
We passed very tall bamboo trees that were leaning and creaking slowly in the breeze and much overgrown vegitation. It was baking hot and muggy and you needed water every twenty or so
steps.
All the time I thought about having to work under these conditions or worse as the seasons changed, and being in a situation that didnt allow you to drink water or eat a sufficiant meal or even rest for a second without getting beaten senseless by your captors. And all the while carrying out hard labour.
And here we were slowly, casually walking a few paces and we needed water. We weren't lifting picks and pounding them into rock for hours on end, we were just walking. And we have definately seen sufficient meals for our entire lives. It was very hard to get your head around. I don't know how the few that survived actually survived.
When we reached the cutting we looked down on it with awe. It's so huge and goes on and on for what seems like forever as it curls around the hill face, but all the time you're thinking to yourself- they did this with their hands and occassionally dynamite, but technically they excavated this cutting with their hands. And they were sick, tired and weak men. How? How was this possible?
It is a great achievement, like the bridge too. These
James on the bridge
on the section of the bridge that was rebuilt after bombings destroyed it partly, notice the angular shape compared to the following picture with semi circular origional shape. men worked hard and the results were staggering but at what price? It cost so much in human life. And those that did survive will forever be scarred by the tormenting memories of their time as a POW. Why didnt the Japanese put a price on that? Why was human life so worthless to them that they allowed these travesties to happen? Surely life is priceless, these men, these boys, these friends. Was it really worth all the hundreds of lives? The death rate of the Asian workers are only estimates as the Japanese didn't count them. So the actual number of deaths as a result of the Burma - Siam railway will never be known. But its estimated to be about 116, 000 lives, and 70 percent of those lives lost were at this very cutting, at "Hellfire Pass."
The area felt still, unnaturally quiet, uneasy. It felt like you were somewhere you should not be, a trespasser, an unwilling vouyeur on an invisible horror scene.
I tried to imagine what it must have been like. I tried to see the men. I tried to feel their pain. I tried to hear the sounds of the rock being
Katharine
origional section and shape of bridge chipped away and the groans of the prisioners and the harsh foreign barks from the Japanese. I tried to imagine the Japanese troops standing menacingly up on the sides of the cutting, bearing down with stern faces and wielding sticks and stones, tormenting everything and everyone below... I couldn't even begin.
The place spoke volumes on its own and you could already feel the history and anguish in the area surrounding the cutting. The sense of pain was everywhere and all consuming, you felt it as you walked through the actual cutting, as you stopped and paid your respects at the memorial decorated with a smattering of paper poppies, as you heard the slow eerie creaking of the bamboo trees, as you looked up the sheer high faces of the cutting walls, as you looked at the smooth grooves in the rock made by the pickaxes, as you stepped over the few remaining wooden sleepers slowly decomposing into the forest floor.
Yes, the place spoke volumes, and what it said was nothing short of crying with sadness. I prayed for the first time in a long while because the place, the feeling of being there, the knowledge of
Katharine and Babaar
this poor baby elephant is a horrid reminder of the ever present toursits traps, chained to a tree on the other side of the bridge. Buy him a bunch of bananas and feed him yourself, it may be the only meal he gets sadly. what had happened, of all the men, it demanded a prayer, it needed it. And in a way I needed to say it too. How do you say sorry for something that you had no control over and yet you feel like you need to say sorry to all those dear men who through no fault of their own did indeed find themselves in hell.
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