Editing Burma Railway (section)

== Labourers ==

===Japanese===
Japanese soldiers, 12,000 of them, including 800 Koreans, were employed on the railway as engineers, guards, and supervisors of the POW and civilian labourers. Although working conditions were far better for the Japanese than the POWs and civilian workers, about 1,000 (eight percent) of them died during construction. Many remember Japanese soldiers as being cruel and indifferent to the fate of Allied military prisoners and the Southeast Asian civilians. Many men in the railway workforce bore the brunt of pitiless or uncaring guards. Cruelty could take different forms, from extreme violence and torture to minor acts of physical punishment, humiliation, and neglect.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://hellfire-pass.commemoration.gov.au/the-enemy/treatment-of-prisoners.php| title=The Enemy: Treatment of prisoners| access-date=9 January 2015| website=The Thai-Burma Railway & Hellfire Pass| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150115192131/http://hellfire-pass.commemoration.gov.au/the-enemy/treatment-of-prisoners.php| archive-date=15 January 2015}}</ref>

=== Trafficked civilians ===
[[File:Civilian_Workers_in_the_Death_Railway_Camps.png|thumb|Malayan Tamils in the work camps]]
Over 180,000 [[Southeast Asia]]n civilians were forcibly conscripted to work on the Death railway.  Limited record keeping on the civilian populations under British occupation has led to incomplete and insufficient recording of the names and families of individuals who were [[Human trafficking|trafficked]]. Javanese, [[Tamil Malaysians|Malayan Tamils]], Burmese, [[Malaysian Chinese|Malayan Chinese]], Thai, and other Southeast Asians were trafficked by the Imperial Japanese Army to work on the railway, dying in its construction.<ref name="mansell.com">{{cite web |last=MacPherson |first=Neil |title=Death Railway Movements |url=http://www.mansell.com/pow_resources/camplists/death_rr/movements_1.html |access-date=6 January 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2016/07/09/stories-of-death-railway-heroes-to-be-kept-alive/|title=Stories of Death Railway heroes to be kept alive|last=Kaur|first=Minderjeet|date=9 July 2016|website=FMT News|access-date=9 August 2016|archive-date=12 February 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200212180749/https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2016/07/09/stories-of-death-railway-heroes-to-be-kept-alive/}}</ref><ref name="Boggett">{{cite web|url=http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/opinion/letters/2015/11/22/cast-into-oblivion-malayan-tamils-of-the-death-railway/|title=Cast into oblivion: Malayan Tamils of the Death Railway|last=Boggett|first=David|date=22 November 2015|website=FMT News: Letters|access-date=9 August 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160310210333/http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/opinion/letters/2015/11/22/cast-into-oblivion-malayan-tamils-of-the-death-railway/|archive-date=10 March 2016}}</ref> During the initial stages of the construction of the railway, Burmese and Thais were employed in their respective countries, but the number of workers recruited was insufficient. In Malaya, plantation families were forced by Japanese officers to send their children to the railway and young healthy men were often abducted and trafficked to the railway.

In early 1943, the Japanese advertised for workers in Malaya, Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies, promising good wages, short contracts, and housing for families. When that failed to attract sufficient workers, they resorted to more violent methods, rounding up civilians, including children and imprisoning them, especially in Malaya.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://kajomag.com/the-forgotten-malayan-labourers-of-burma-railway-during-wwii/ |title=The forgotten Malayan labourers of Burma Railway during WWII |website=Kajomag|author=Patricia Hului|access-date=1 February 2022}}</ref> Approximately 90,000 Burmese and 75,000 Malayans worked on the railroad.<ref name="mansell.com"/> More than 100,000 Malayan Tamils were brought into the project and around 60,000 perished.<ref>{{cite book| last=Gamba| first=C.| title=The National Union of Plantation workers| page=13}}{{full citation needed|date=March 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite book| editor-last=விசயகுமார்| editor-first=க.| title=சாயம் மரண ரயில்| page=4| language=ta}}{{full citation needed|date=March 2017}}</ref> Southeast Asian workers were used to build the Kra Isthmus Railway from [[Chumphon]] to [[Kra Buri District|Kra Buri]], and the [[Sumatra Railway|Sumatra or Palembang Railway]] from [[Pekanbaru]] to [[Muaro]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Pakan Baroe Sumatra-spoorweg |url=https://www.japansekrijgsgevangenkampen.nl/Sumatra-spoorweg.htm |access-date=1 February 2022 |website=Japanese Krijgsgevangenkampen}}</ref> Those left to maintain the lines after the completion of the Death Railway suffered from appalling living conditions as well as increasing Allied bombing.<ref>{{cite web |author=Harry Walton |title=The Thai Railway |url=https://www.far-eastern-heroes.org.uk/harrys_war/html/thailand_to_burma_railway.htm |access-date=1 February 2022 |website=Far Eastern Heroes}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |author=Paul H. Kratoska |title=The Thailand-Burma Railway, 1942–1946: documents and selected writings |url=https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/5742488 |access-date=1 February 2022 |website=Library of Stanford University |page=Contents}}</ref>

===Prisoners of war===
The movement of captured British soldiers northward from [[Changi Prison]] in [[Singapore]] and other prison camps in Southeast Asia began in May 1942.{{sfn|MacArthur|2005|pp=43–48}} On 23 June 1942, 600 British soldiers arrived at [[Camp Nong Pladuk]], Thailand to build a camp to serve as a transit camp for the work camps along the railway.<ref name="list1942">{{cite web |title=Transporten in 1942 |url=https://www.japansekrijgsgevangenkampen.nl/Ban%20Pong%201942.htm |access-date=27 January 2022 |website=Japanse Krijgsgevangenkampen |language=nl}}</ref><ref name="layout">{{cite web |author=Frederick Noel Taylor |title=Railway of Death |url=https://www.far-eastern-heroes.org.uk/private_5776807/html/railway_of_death.htm |access-date=27 January 2022 |website=Far Eastern Heroes}}</ref> The first prisoners of war, 3,000 Australians, left Changi Prison in Singapore on 14 May 1942 and journeyed by sea to near [[Thanbyuzayat]] (သံဖြူဇရပ် in the [[Burmese language]]; in English 'Tin Shelter'), the northern terminus of the railway. They worked on airfields and other infrastructure initially before beginning construction of the railway in October 1942. In Thailand, 3,000 British soldiers left Changi by train in June 1942 to [[Ban Pong, Ratchaburi|Ban Pong]], the southern terminus of the railway.<ref>{{cite web| website=Death Railway| title=Departure| author=FEPOW community| url=http://www.britain-at-war.org.uk/WW2/Death_Railway/html/departure.htm| access-date=10 January 2014}}</ref> Some captured British soldiers were taken from Singapore and the Dutch East Indies as construction advanced.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.japansekrijgsgevangenkampen.nl/Thailand-statistiek.htm |title=Thailand Treintransporten |website=Japanse Krijgsgevangenkampen|language=nl|access-date=1 February 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.japansekrijgsgevangenkampen.nl/Birma-statistiek.htm |title=Birma Scheepstransporten|website=Japanse Krijgsgevangenkampen|language=nl|access-date=1 February 2022}}</ref>