Railway of Hell by Reginald Burton Ronald Searle

Author:Reginald Burton, Ronald Searle [Reginald Burton, Ronald Searle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, General, World War II
ISBN: 9780850528725
Google: aeUWAQAAIAAJ
Publisher: Leo Cooper
Published: 2002-01-15T00:34:58+00:00

There was no doubt that, owing to lack of supplies and planning, the railway was not proceeding as the Japs would have wished. It is interesting to note that, as the workforce diminished through sickness or death, the Japanese finally decided to use elephants for tree trunk labour. Had they done so earlier on, they might have saved a lot of lives, but it became more and more obvious they were not in the business of saving lives. If the Japanese had been more humane they might have operated their slave labour camps more efficiently. As it was, the whole railway was so badly built that it could never be operated properly.

This was borne out by the fact that one night a locomotive was derailed just north of our camp at Tonchan. It was well past midnight and most of us were exhausted and trying to get some sleep if possible. We were chased out of our miserable hovels and old tent coverings and herded down to the rail tracks. After strenuous efforts with chains and large iron levers we managed to get the engine back on the rails. I thought in retrospect that this was similar to the ancient Egyptian method of deploying slave labour: sheer weight of manpower as opposed to any mechanical aid such as lifting gear.

We reached a spiritual and physical rock-bottom while we were engaged on manhandling the heavy teak trunks to the saw-mill. Some days our work was a bit lighter, for instead of logs we carried the sleepers which had been sawn from them. These had to be taken and placed out along the cutting or embankment where the coolie gangs laboured. These were Tamils from the camp near to our own.

Their work was perhaps even harder than ours, for they were mostly digging a cutting through undulating ground. Tamils normally look thin and long-limbed. Under their present conditions they were gangling skeletons. They suffered appalling privations and ill-treatment. This we learnt because one or two of our Indian Army officers were former planters and could speak Tamil.

There was no shadow of doubt that all of them would have given anything to return to the much-maligned British Raj. They hated the Japs and everything to do with the New Order in Asia.

Yet these were some of the very people from whom the Japs expected loyalty and enthusiastic co-operation. To the Western mind it was all very incomprehensible, though, in fairness to the Japs, it must be recalled that the Axis allies were committing similar blunders.

We were particularly sorry for these Tamils, for their apathy and loss of will to live were pathetically obvious. They were, in fact, the first in Tonchan to contract cholera and they went down like flies.

But to return to our own troubles. In the midst of all the gruelling work our rice ration was cut to eight ounces a day and the only extra was that a few green leaves were thrown in. We cooked them with the rice, but they didn't seem to make much difference.

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