In his book River Kwai Railway, Clifford KINVIG provides some statistics as gleaned from Japanese documents. They relate that the nearly 700 bridges required 60,000 cu.ft. of cut timber and 650,000 cu.ft. of timber poles. In addition, 400 elephants were employed.
The numerous cuttings consumed 300 tons of explosives involving moving in 3 million cubic meters of rock. They estimate that 4 million cubic meters of earth had to be moved. The supply train –as inadequate as it was – involved 300 trucks and over 700 boats.
Thirty-five locomotives were imported from Japan and modified to run on the narrower gauge TBR tracks. Many more were looted from Malaya or pilfered from the Thai rail system.
On the human side, th0se documents note that of the original 7000 members of F Force, 2200 had perished by mid-Oct (31%). H Force fared a bit better at 20%. The overall POW death toll was 20-22% depending on what period one is counting. One statistic that will be nearly impossible to pin down is how many of those who were returned to Singapore died there of maladies encountered in Thailand. They would be buried in Singapore with no mention of the TBR experience. Japanese records indicate that the first of H Force was back in Singapore by mid-NOV 43 – just weeks after completion of construction. By mid-DEC, nearly all but the sickest F & H Force members were recycled as well. Two separate hospitals were established in KAN to treat these men. British records indicated that some of the medical supplies that had been abandoned in BanPong months earlier were retrieved for use in those facilities. Men who had been sent to the reopened camp at Thambaya in Burma (Km 50) were placed on open flat cars and sent to KAN en route back to Singapore. Even though they were the ‘healthiest’, many did not survive that journey. By April 44, all the F & H survivors were back in Singapore.
During the consolidation period post-construction, they recorded 20-25 deaths per day among the romusha who were moved to KAN. This is to say nothing of the uncounted thousands who perished in the jungles. The massive improvement in conditions post-construction was recorded by the Allied medical staffs (K&L Forces) who took over the care of the Asian workers and noted only 1-3 deaths per day in the last year of the war.
Even as the initial consolidation to KAN was under way, the ‘fittest’ POWs were almost immediately transferred to Japan. One group, including a substantial part of the 200-man Fitzsimmons group of US POWs, found themselves stranded in Saigon when no ships were available for their onward journey to Japan. They were perhaps the lucky ones. Nearly 2200 TBR veterans perished when their Hellships were sunk en route to Japan.
This meant that the POWs left in Thailand were either hospitalized or considered ‘less than fit’. It wasn’t until May 44 that the last of the POWs arrived at KAN. In the interim time many had been tasked with stockpiling wood for fuel while awaiting that transfer.
Almost immediately after its completion, the Engineers noted the need for constant maintenance. Some POWs were kept at various camps to do just that. Not only was there subsidence of the embankments but the green timbers of the bridges were proving to be a problem. Of course there was also the rather constant bombing and strafing attacks by Allied bombers. In mid-DEC 44, dozens of Dutch POWs were killed or wounded when their maintenance train was derailed by such an attack. Numerous other derailments due to the hasty construction methods plagued the operation of the Railway. The onset of the monsoon season in 1944 exposed many of the construction deficiencies.
Despite the lack of the yet to be completed TBR, the Japanese High Command insisted on making preparations for a winter (post-rainy season) offensive in Burma. They were relying on small wooden ships to carry supplies along the Andaman coast. An entire division of troops were delivered to Bangkok and then had to make the 300+ Km trek to the Burmese border. They were following the same path as the F Force and romusha workers in the spring of 1943. POW survivors noted that they were nearly as exhausted and demoralized as the POWs as they dragged their equipment and artillery over the jungle trails. The offensive in north at Imphal did not begin until mid-Mar 44. Just how much it was delayed by logistics concerns is not certain but it is estimated that it was launched with only about 2/3rds of its planned supplies.
By mid-1944, the ever-increasing strength of the Allied bombers in India began targeting the TBR on a regular basis. Naturally, they targeted bridges and the marshalling yards at both ends. As B-29s began to arrive in southern China with the intention of attacking mainland Japan, some of their ‘training’ included attacks on Bangkok and NongPlaDuk.
As the bombing intensified, activity on the TBR was diminished to night-time only, with the trains trying to hide under the jungle coverage during the daylight hours. The heavily armed B-17s and B-24s had no concerns about fending off Japanese Zeros. They learned to troll the tracks during their post-bombing leg back to India and to strafe any trains they encountered.
All of these factors contributed to reducing the capacity that TBR could deliver. It had been planned to move 3000 tons of supplies per day from Bangkok to Rangoon. It rarely delivered more than 1000 per day and averaged considerably less.
Locally initiated innovations improved both the bomb capacity (from 3000 to 8000 pounds) and flight range of the India-based bombers. Two other innovations greatly improved the accuracy of their attacks. It was quite difficult to hit a single line of track even when the bombs were dropped at low altitudes. Many bombs would simply ricochet off without exploding. The engineering answer was to add a ‘spike’ to the nose of the bomb such that it would stick into the ground on impact before the detonator exploded it.
The second was the AZON bomb. This added radio-controlled fins and a large flare to the bomb. Sighting on the flare, the bombardier could somewhat alter the trajectory of the bomb as it descended guiding it towards the intended target. These were quite effective against the larger bridges.
As far as the Japanese military was concerned, it could be argued that the TBR served them best in the retro-grade. As the tide of battle turned against them in the spring of 1945, the TBR was relied upon to remove them from Burma. There are reports from the Thais that as many as 80,000 combat troops were located in the BanPong area at the time of the surrender. Most of these were thought to be Burma veterans.
There were three distinct groups of Japanese involved in the TBR project. Foremost among these were the Railway Engineers. They saw their job as getting the Railway completed no matter what extraordinary efforts had to be made. Their direct contact with the POWs and romusha workers was generally minimal. They would communicate their need for personnel to the Camp Guards who were then responsible for delivering that number to the worksite. The last group had no contact at all with the laborers. They were the 5000 or so Logistics and Administrative personnel of the Railway HQ that operated out of Kanchanaburi after moving up from BanPong. Technically, the Camp Guards were responsible for the daily care and feeding of the workers. But in their defense, they could only distribute what was delivered to their camp. Procurement and delivery fell to the Logistics staffers. All shortages could ultimately be traced back to them. One would assume that care and feeding would involve not only food and housing but also medical care. In reality, this latter element rarely seemed to be part of the logistics tail. There were a few Japanese medical personnel noted to be present along the Railway but they seemed generally unconcerned about the health and welfare of the laborers. Any health care that was delivered came from the internal medical resources of the military units. This, of course, left the romusha camps absolutely devoid of medical intervention. Within the military camps, considerable effort was devoted to prevention of the spread of the various diseases that affected them. The romusha knew nothing of these connections. Actual medical treatment in the form of drugs was rarely made available. The logisticians never seemed to make this a priority. In fact, the first ‘hospital’ that was established at ChungKai was nothing more than a warehouse that unfit POWs were sent to with the expectation that they would die there. Within the military units, the medical officers were constantly complaining and writing reports (a favorite military pastime) with no effect. Even the delivery of the Red Cross packets was rare. When they did arrive they were heavily looted by the guards before being distributed as one per 6-10 men as opposed to one per man as they were intended. Immediately post war, entire warehouses in Bangkok were found crammed with these delivered but undistributed items.
Despite what the HQ may have argued, there were never any severe shortages of any vital supplies or medications in Thailand. They could have been found, purchased or simply confiscated had there been any real interest in doing so. Granted beyond WangPo the actual delivery of supplies of any kind to the camps became more difficult. Here the Engineers can be cited as culprits in that they insisted that the railway itself could not be used except to deliver railway construction materials. The Red Cross packets alone are reported to have contained many of the most vital items that the POWs lacked. Even one rail car load of basic supplies might have been the difference between life and death for some.
We must also factor into this equation, the attitude of the Bushido-code driven IJA towards the prisoners as having dishonored themselves by their surrender.
It is the topic for a different discussion, but the entire system seemed to overlook the concept that a small healthy workforce would likely have been more efficient – if reluctant – workers. Could a few thousand fit men, fed and cared for properly not have completed the project better than tens of thousands of ill and debilitated men? Even the failed effort to feed a half million workers must have been a daunting task.