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Back Railroad of Death
Chapters (40)
  1. FOREWORD
  2. RAILROAD OF DEATH
  3. REFERENCE LIST:
  4. Railroad of Death
  5. PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION (1948)
  6. INTRODUCTION
  7. PART ONE: SINGAPORE
  8. CHAPTER 1
  9. CHAPTER 2
  10. CHAPTER 3
  11. CHAPTER 4
  12. CHAPTER 5
  13. PART TWO: RAILROAD OF DEATH
  14. CHAPTER 6
  15. CHAPTER 7
  16. CHAPTER 8
  17. CHAPTER 9
  18. CHAPTER 10
  19. CHAPTER 11
  20. CHAPTER 12
  21. CHAPTER 13
  22. PART THREE: BASE CAMPS AND LIBERATION
  23. CHAPTER 14
  24. CHAPTER 15
  25. CHAPTER 16
  26. CHAPTER 17
  27. CHAPTER 18
  28. CHAPTER 19
  29. CHAPTER 20
  30. APPENDIX ONE:
  31. APPENDIX TWO:
  32. APPENDIX THREE:
  33. APPENDIX FOUR:
  34. APPENDIX FIVE:
  35. APPENDIX SIX:
  36. APPENDIX SEVEN:
  37. APPENDIX EIGHT:
  38. APPENDIX NINE:
  39. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  40. And The Dawn Came Up Like Thunder

We march, and we pass the various now empty Wan Po Camps. After a period we come to the famous bridge, and by God we can hardly believe it! The river bends broadly round a steep, craggy rockface of limestone cliffs and there, certainly stretching a good 400 yards, clinging seemingly to the face of the cliff, is a complete wooden bridge, 20 to 30 feet above the river! Three weeks ago there was nothing there at all; now there is not only this vast bridge, but steam engines limping slowly over it. The two thousand pre-dynastic slaves of Wan Po had built the entire thing in 17 days! We would have liked to, but couldn’t, deny the stupendous achievement; and it was characteristically Japanese, not only because it was a crazy wooden bridge that nevertheless functioned, but because no other nation of the world in 1943 would have bashed and bullied and sweated and slaved prisoners to such fantastic lengths for such an object.

We walked across the Wan Po bridge. All Nip bridges are nightmarish to cross, because you just look straight down to nothingness. The surface of the bridges before the lines are laid are just two long rows of vast baulks over a foot square, supported on upright teak timbers, and held together largely by faith and a complicated network of cross-pieces. Just across the top of the baulks were the sleepers and the rails. There were no railings, and as you looked down between the sleepers where you were gingerly placing your feet, you saw the rocks and rushing river below. Once over, you took a deep breath and put off your kit, looked back and mopped your brow.

It was already obvious that we were approaching wilder country. The jungle, though not equatorial rain forest, was thicker and the trees were larger; but what was very different from below was the way the jungle came down to the river – thick, green, steaming vegetation that lived up to childhood pictures of the greasy Limpopo, or perhaps the Amazon. Though this particular patch we later found to be exceptional, we were henceforth to see no more open or flat country at all.