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.”

“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 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"