JEATH War Museum, Allied War Cemetery and Bridge Over the River Kwai

Do you know about the Death Railway between Thailand and Burma (Myanmar) that was made by POW's in World War ll? Today we visited the JEATH Museum, the Allied War Cemetary , and the Bridge over the River Kwai, which is a part of the Death Railway.  The acronym JEATH comes from the first letter of some of the principal countries involved in this regional conflict during World War ll. Japan-England-America-Thailand-Holland.

The Japanese forced about 250,000 Asian laborers and over 100,000 POWs to build this 250 mile railway through the jungle in intense heat, starting in 1942.  This railway was to link supply lines between Burma and Thailand and Japanese positions in Asia.  The railway follows the valley of the Kwai River, crossing it, as well.  It is estimated that 100,000 laborers and 61,000 POWs lost their lives between 1942-1945 from beatings, starvation and disease.  686 American soldiers were forced to work as laborers on this project. Of these Americans, 131 died.  It is well documented that brutality was very common from the Japanese soldiers and a lot of disease was present from horrible, bug ridden food and malnutrition.

The Allied War Cemetary holds the graves or memorials of 6982 allied soldiers, which is less than half of the POWs who lost their lives building the railway.

The infamous bridge over the River Kwai, 305 meters across, is just one of the 9 miles of bridges made by these people in harsh conditions, sickness, and disease.  We walked over the Bridge over the River Kwai. The rounded sides are original. The squared off mid section was replaced twice, as it was bombed twice in the war by allied forces.

Later we took a 90 minute train ride on the death railway. It was very sad to think of the forced laborers and POWs who built this 70 years ago.

I sat on the train with Melanie Gates, who is the STEM Director in Middleboro.

The original train tracks were much narrower than today's tracks, as can be seen below.

Some of the bridges are amazing to see, and even more amazing to think of the forced laborers and POWs creating them. I was shocked at this one's rickety appearance, since our train had just gone over it when I took this picture!

We also hiked into the jungle's hilly landscape to view Hellfire Pass, the longest of several mountain cuttings hacked out by forced laborers and POWs. It is a mountainous, rocky jungle. Those poor men! Chisels, hammers, and dynamite is what they used. Many died here. The Japanese forced them to work between 18-24 hour days, as the job was taking longer than planned.