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Australian Defence Contacts with Burma, 1945–1987

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Andrew Selth
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Extract

To most Australians, Burma is still associated with the Second World War, and in particular the infamous ‘death railway’ from Thailand. In May 1942 some 3,000 Australian prisoners of war (POWs) were sent from Singapore, to provide labour for the construction of an airfield at Tavoy. They were subsequently joined by another 1,800 or so Australians from Java, making a total in southern Burma of 4,851 men. Together with other Allied prisoners and Burmese levies they were later put to work building a railway line over Three Pagodas Pass, to link Burma with the Siam-Malaya railway system. Before the project was completed in November 1943, 771 Australian POWs (nearly 16 per cent of those on the Burma side of the border) had died from disease, malnutrition and the brutality of their Japanese captors. Casualties among the POWs working on the railway in Thailand were even higher.

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Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , July 1992 , pp. 451 - 468
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

1 This article was first published as a Working Paper by the Australian National University's Strategic and Defence Studies Centre. It draws from research being conducted in collaboration with Garry Woodard on Australia's bilateral relations with Burma since 1945. The article reflects the author's own views, and draws entirely on public sources. It has no official status or endorsement.

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