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The Thai-Burma Railway began construction in 1942 and was completed in 1943. Throughout the course of its construction, the Empire of Japan “employed” Allied Prisoners of War, as well as Southeast Asian civilian slave labour. The purpose of the railway was to transport Japanese troops and supplies from occupied Thailand to Burma (now known as Myanmar) and into the British Raj. The historical significance behind its construction is the appalling treatment of Prisoners of War working on the railway, having no more to live on than “half a cup of liquidy rice," each day. In total, 13,000 allied POWs died, as well as roughly 100,000 Southeast Asian labourers. The horrors of the line accounted for over 20% of all Australian deaths throughout all 6 years of the war.

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What happened to the prisoners of the Thai-Burma railway was ethically and morally wrong. Construction of the Thai-Burma Railway began in June 1942 and ended in 1943, during the time frame the POWs (prisoners of war) were exposed to conditions that they ordinarily wouldn’t have, as the japanese didn’t follow the international regulations for the POWs. They were exposed to overwork and malnutrition and forms of torture. One mentioned in the BBC documentary “WWII Building Burma’s death railway” was that they would have the prisoners hold a heavy rock above their head, if you fell to the ground or passed out you would then be kicked around to make sure they were down for the count. Which often did a lot more damage than dropping the rock and picking it up again. None of this can be considered ethically right, the japanese, underfeeding, overworking and torturing prisoners, treating them like cattle. But the japanese morally believed they were in the right. The idea of captured prisoners went against their senjinkun or combatant’s code which stated that “a soldier was expected 'not to survive to suffer the dishonour of capture'. The opportunity to die for the emperor was considered an honour.” this means that the japanese thought of the prisoners as nothing but trouble and treated them as such, they didn’t care what happened to the prisoners. The quote “We had no time to think about human cost” from a railway regiment solidifies the fact. So in conclusion from an outsider perspective, how the japanese treated the POWs can be related to how the farming industry treats its livestock and while the japanese did believe they were in the right if any of this were to happen in present day there is a higher chance the treatment the POWs experienced wouldn't slide.

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Allied POWs:
The atrocious treatment of Prisoners of War working on the Thai-Burma railway is often overlooked and forgotten after the horrors and heroics of the Western Front.

Yet this does not take away from the appalling treatment of POWs and South East Asian slave-labourers alike.

The following quotes are from the surviving Prisoners of War, recounting their experiences on the Line:

"Breakfast would be half a cup of liquidy rice and there was a lot of mice poo and maggots in that,"

“They would stretch you out with two blokes holding you down, and scrape the ulcer out with a silver spoon.”

“I was about 14 stone before all that, but I got down to about 6 stone on the railway.”

The Empire of Japan's View:

The Japanese treatment of POWs was due to their cultural view on surrender. In their worldview, it was better to die honourably than be captured. As such, many Japanese and Korean guards believed that their captives were beneath human, and worthy of nothing but disdain.

Many guards, such a as Korean guard Cho Mu-San were told by their superiors to "treat POWs like animals; otherwise they would look down on us"

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The sources used in our research would all appear to be credible. Although some of them only tell the story from the Allied POWs' point of view, many also explore the Japanese mindset at the time, their treatment by their superiors, as well as the attitude of the prisoners and their former captors toward each other in the modern day. Many of the sources are Australian government websites dedicated to telling the story of the railway as truthfully as possible. The other sources are collections of first hand accounts of prisoners building the railway, or the experience of Japanese captors. As a result, the sources used in our research seem to be credible, due to the fact that many of them include these first hand accounts.

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Causes:
1. The Thai-Burma railway was built along the Khwae Noi (Kwai) River valley to support the Japanese armed focus during the Burma Campaign.

2.Aiming to finish the Thai-Burma railway as quickly as possible to support the Japanese armed forces during the Burma Campaign, the Japanese decided to use over 330,000 people to be forced labour during its construction.

Consequences :

1. Allied prisoners and civilian labourers who had fallen into their hands experienced deprivation, malnutrition, exposure to tropical diseases, nutritional deficiency syndromes, dysentery, malaria, tropical ulcers, and cholera were major health problems  because of overwork, the supplies food and the medical equipment were scarce.

2.The Japanese treated the POWs harshly and vey punitive, physical punishment was meted out for even minor infractions, such as failing to salute a Japanese guard —something that caused the Japanese to lose face. The most common form punishment was face-slapping, often done with a hard instrument, such as bamboo stick or shovel.

Weary Dunlop, who was an Australian surgeon and was being held prisoner by the Japanese quoted :

“ Blows with a fist, hammering over the face and head with wooden clogs, repeatedly thrown to the ground…kicking the stomach and scrotum and ribs etc… When the men fell to the ground, they were somehow got their feet by such painful stimuli as the above and the dose was repeated.”

3.The living and working conditions on the Thai-Burma railway were horrific and their work went on 24 hours a day.

4.The Thai-Burma caused a lot of death, the estimated total number of people died during construction is approximately 90,000 civilian labourers and more than 12,000 allied prisoners and with that the railway is also known as the “death-railway.”

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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-11/milton-snow-fairclough-life-and-death-on-thai-burma-railway/6927656

The Men of The Line

https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/encyclopedia/dunlop/bio

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/10382906/Burma-Railway-British-POW-breaks-silence-over-horrors.html

https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/history/conflicts/thaiburma-railway-and-hellfire-pass/events/surviving/sir-edward-weary-dunlop

https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/history/conflicts/thaiburma-railway-and-hellfire-pass/events/building-hellfire-pass

https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/history/conflicts/thaiburma-railway-and-hellfire-pass

https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/history/conflicts/thaiburma-railway-and-hellfire-pass/thaiburma-railway-and-hellfire-pass/enemy

http://www.powmemorialballarat.com.au/the-burma-railway-1942-43.php

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7e6L1rMsSQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DITeItuPVxo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fI95kdmraM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t59cv7PbRM4