It is extremely well documented that American and Dutch POWs were housed near the bridges at a camp most often referred to as Tamarkam (various other spellings are used). Some state that there were Australian POWs there as well. Few even mention British, who were by far the most prevalent of the POWs. Some claim that this was primarily a hospital and re-cooperation camp and that the fitter men were housed elsewhere.
Another commonly referred to camp is one called Kan’buri, but no one ever seems to place it on a map. Some writers say that that there were actually 4 camps in the Kanchanaburi area simply numbered 1 to 4. But again, no geography is cited. The other camps that appear in recon photos are tagged as Aerodrome 1 & 2. These appear to be considerably smaller than Tamarkam, but could conceivably be the Kan’buri camp.
Late in 1945, an officers camp was established near the Paper Factory. That too seems well documented but short-lived as most of the officers were relocated to Nakorn Nayok.
So where was Kan’buri? Where were most of the UK POWs housed? One writer suggest they were between Tamarkam and the current CWGC cemetery, but there are no known recon photos of any such camp.
I will also point out that we have statements about a large romusha camp quite near the CWGC cemetery and another near the Governor’s office and traffic circle on SangChuto Road. This latter is where the 1990 archeological dig took place. But neither of these appear in recon photos. These would have had to have been huge camps, much larger than any of the POWs areas.
Other named and well documented areas include Khao Din and Tha Muang. The former was not a housing area but rather a work camp for technicians and held only a few dozen (not thousands) of POWs. A bit farther down the road was Tha Muang. This is described most often as the staging area for POWs transiting to Japan. Early on it would indeed have housed many of the British, but it later transitioned to mainly a Dutch camp. Many Dutch were also relocated to the NongPlaDuk camp where a second barracks area was added just to the north of the original camp. Lastly, the only true hospital was established in MAY 44 at Nakorn Pathom. This is said to have had a peak population of over 10K with an average of about 8K. Many patients discharged from here were sent south to work the Mergui Road project in 1944.
But if we add together the various estimates of the peak populations of these various camps, we can only account for 50-60% of the TBR survivors who were brought out of jungles. We also know that the last of the POWs were not consolidated to KAN until May 44. There never seemed to be enough left on the Railway to account for the large short-fall in the count.
Will we ever locate these missing puzzle pieces?