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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

Hastily we put a couple of packets of cigarettes in a tin with a message including all the Kongsi’s names, tied it up securely and added a length of white bandage to make it easier to see. Then forward to where the pilot sits at the controls, and in remarkably few minutes Kamburi comes into sight and there is the tall, white Paper Factory chimney. ‘I’ll circle round once, then come down low a second time, and then you can chuck it out,’ says the New Zealand pilot.

The plane is now almost over the town, and we go straight for it, picking out all the so well-known landmarks. Then we bank steeply, round and down, round and down, and straighten out to run right across at about 500 feet. God! there’s the camp, the row of old atap huts looking up at us! And there are some of our chaps still there, for as we zoom down we clearly see them standing on the small mud square near the bathing place, shading their eyes and looking up at us. A very odd feeling! Then, as we flash low across the padang, out goes the tin and message, hurled well clear. A second later the chimney of the great factory is below us and the adventure is finished! Once more we circle round, slowly gaining height, and we look down out of the little windows for the last time, almost sadly.

‘Goodbye Kamburi! Goodbye Sowana, Achit, Aroong, Tawi! Goodbye dear old Pong! Sawat dee! Sawat dee! Lakhon!’

APPENDIX ONE:

TODAY I WENT BACK TO KAMBURI . . .

by John Coast (1947)

TODAY I went back to Kamburi. Whereas one might have expected a P.O.W. taken prisoner in Europe to get some primitive satisfaction out of revisiting the scenes of his captivity, the absence of Japanese in Siam made the trip back to Kamburi quite unvindictive. It gave a different satisfaction, though, and the ghosts are laid. No longer will I feel any urge or curiosity about Chungkai Camp, the Paper Factory or the financial state of Boon Pong: I’ve been back in a bus owned by Pong himself, and walked all over the old Kamburi and Chungkai camps, and I’ve taken photographs of all recognisable landmarks. In future, if a strange nostalgia should visit me, in comfort I shall turn to a small book of photographs. [Editor’s note: the whereabouts of the photographs is not known, unlike this accompanying article.]