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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
  1. Planned Escape
    There was no difficulty in getting out of camp. There was no fence or ditch. Not until late ’44 did the Japs attempt to ring the camps with other than delimiting fences which were easily passed. The Japs appeared to believe that the rigours of an attempt to escape were a sufficient deterrent in themselves.
  2. Route
    We decided that the most practicable route would be to avoid the valleys, keeping to the crests and ridges, where no Japs and few Thais ever went, and where we might find pools of water (the hills in Siam are of limestone, often weathered into small hollows) subsidiary streams, fewer snakes and other fauna, sparse bamboo and probably easier going. After studying such maps as were available (few and bad. No proper survey of this part of Siam has yet been made, according to Lt RICHARDSON, Intelligence Corps) and with the assistance of Lt RICHARDSON, a Malayan Govt geologist, we decided that hills with streams answering our purpose lay between our camp, via the SHAN STATES, up to the SALWEEN valley, when we hoped to meet Chinese troops who would assist us in to YUNNAN PROVINCE, a distance of 970 miles from CHUNGKAI, where we understood to be a Chinese HQ in touch with INDIA. There was only one major interruption to this series of heights, the northern Siamese plain stretching S.W. of CHIENGMAI. On this plain we understood the Japs to have an aerodrome, and to be in control of the four roads which met roughly in the centre of this district. Lt RICHARDSON considered that this area should be negotiable by night. (He had travelled in Siam before the war.)

    The plan was not very elastic, depending entirely upon a 30-day hustle in order to keep clear of Thais and Japs until we were sufficiently far north-west and away from the railway trace to make it unlikely that any Jap party sent out to get us would stand a reasonable chance.

    Note: By far the great majority of Thai were . . . , but the nomadic peasantry were little interested in the war, very poor, and there was a price on the heads of escaped P.O.W.s

  3. Supplies and Equipment
    • (a) We had little medical kit.
    • (b)We carried approximately 40lb food and 20lb bedding. The food was tinned fish, dry rice and salt. The bedding included blankets and small squares of mosquito netting to cover our faces at night. We decided that we could not support the cold on the heights at night without blankets.
    • (c) We carried a compass, parang (jungle knife) and clasp-knife apiece.
    • (d) We had one small cooking-pot for the rice and one mess tin a piece. We carried as many matches as we could.
    • (e) We wore sleeved shirts, slacks, puttees and boots, and rubber soled boots for crossing inhabited areas.
    • (f) We had only sufficient paper and ink to make one enlarged map of the route (kept in a stoppered length of bamboo against wet) though each man carried a card marked with distances, landmarks and compass-bearings.
    • (g) We had one Army water-bottle and one [latex?] bottle for water.
  4. Languages
    Lt Jackson spoke sufficient Thai for our needs. I myself learnt a few phrases of a Chinese dialect. We mustered between us a few words of Urdu. We could find nobody who knew Burmese.
  5. Training
    At the time we started the Japs had suddenly decided to give the officers’ working party a 5 day holiday prior to sending them up-country. Although our plans were not fully matured, and we had been unable to have practise pack (all food had to be smuggled out of camp and cached in order that the initial get-away could be swift) we decided that we could not miss this opportunity at the end of the first day the Japs took a roll-call of the up-country party. On the morning of the second day, while it was still dark (07.30hrs, Jap time, 2hrs in advance of British or Thai time) we left, having made this arrangement with Major M.P.E. Evans, our senior battalion officer. We made our way to our food cache, near the first bridge towards WAN LUNG (roughly south from the camp and 1 Km away) loaded up and started off straight through the jungle going northwest. After about two and a half hours of alternate crawling under male bamboo (male bamboo has thorns) clearing through secondary jungle, and hill climbing, we found ourselves very near exhaustion. We held a conference and decided:-