Anukisima

The link between River Kwai and Hellfire Pass

The link between River Kwai and Hellfire Pass

The Death Railway completed the rail link between Bangkok (Thailand) and Yangoon (Burma). Constructed by the Japanese Empire during the WWII, this railway recei...
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The Death Railway completed the rail link between Bangkok (Thailand) and Yangoon (Burma). Constructed by the Japanese Empire during the WWII, this railway receives its name for the bloodshed caused during its construction: forced labour was the only way to finish a 414km-long railway in less than two years, with more than 180,000 Southeast Asian civilian labourers and 60,000 Allied prisoners of war working day and night on the railway, suffering maltreatment, sickness, and starvation. This caused the death of almost the half of the labourers and almost 13,000 POW.

All these facts are not new to most people, as the 7 Academy Awards-winning film "The Bridge on the River Kwai" takes place in this historical setting. Hellfire Pass, though, remains unknown to most people. This was a particulary difficult section to build due to it being the largest rock cutting on the railway, as well as lacking proper construction tools during building and being in a remote area. In its construction, sixty-nine men were beaten to death by Japanese guards in the twelve weeks it took to build the cutting, and many more died from cholera, dysentery, starvation, and exhaustion.

This photo is the proper link between the Hellfire Pass, from which barely anything is left, and the well-known bridge on Kwai River. Taken just after crossing the bridge, it reminds to us that actual blood covered this area, now turned into a tourist attraction; that there is much more history and much more to know about this conflict; and that these tracks will always be footprints left, making us look back and learn about another more of the humanity's worst mistakes.

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