The Burma Railway, known as the Death Railway and the Thailand-Burma Railway is a 415 km (258 mile) railway between Bangkok, Thailand and Rangoon, Myanmar (formerly Burma), built by the Empire of Japan during World War II, to support its forces in the Burma campaign.
Forced labour was used to construct the railway. About 180,000 Asian labourers and 60,000 Allied prisoners of war (POWs) worked on the railway. Of these, around 90,000 Asian labourers and 16,000 Allied POWs died as a direct result of the project. The dead POWs included:
- 6,318 British personnel
- 2,815 Australians
- 2,490 Dutch
- about 356 Americans, and
- a smaller number of Canadians
See more on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burma_Railway
This bridge over the River Kwai (formerly Mae Klong) is part of this story:
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