Death Railway
In 1942 Kanchanaburi was under Japanese control. It was here that Asian forced labourers and Allied POWs, building the infamous Burma Railway, constructed a bridge; an event immortalised in the film Bridge on the River Kwai. Almost half of the prisoners working on the project died from disease, maltreatment and accidents.
At Kanchanaburi, there is a memorial and two museums to commemorate the dead. In March 2003, the Thailand-Burma Railway Museum opened and the JEATH War Museum dedicated to the bridge and the Death Railway. The city is also home to the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery.
Near Kanchanaburi, about 3 km from Wat Tham Phu Wa is the Chong Kai allies cemetery.
Read more about this topic: Kanchanaburi
Famous quotes containing the words death and/or railway:
“‘Tis no extravagant arithmetic to say, that for every ten jokes,—thou hast got an hundred enemies; and till thou hast gone on, and raised a swarm of wasps about thine ears, and art half stung to death by them, thou wilt never be convinced it is so.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)