Hellfire Pass and the Bridge over the River Kwai

Being interested in history and being ‘inspired’ by ‘The Railway Man’ (based on the true story of Eric Lomax, British Officer), we went to see the infamous Bridge over the River Kwai and the site where PoW had to cut through the mountains to build the Burma-Thai railway line which enabled the Japanese to transport supplies into Burma to support the war against the British

Hellfire Pass – is just a few hundred metres long but is emblematic of the brutality and starvation suffered by all who worked on the 415 kilometre Burma-Thailand Railway.

Cuttings were cut through solid rock by filling manually drilled holes up to a metre deep with explosives. After the blast prisoners cleared the debris by hand. The cutting at Hellfire Pass is about 8m deep.

We felt the heat while walking the Hellfire Pass and a further section of the rail track. For safety reasons, you even get a walkie-talkie and the centre checks up on you after an hour.

It’s nothing compared to some accounts of the PoWs … ‘arriving in April 1943 we were greeted by enormous heat and a dust bowl of earth’

Riding the train back from Nam Tok to Kanchanaburi, we travelled along the Burma-Thai railway line and over a wooden viaduct built during the war at Wang Pho which is still in service.

Arriving at Kanchanaburi, we went over the famous bridge – or better the rebuilt one.

The Bridge over the River Kwai. In fact there were two – a metal one and a wooden one which the Japanese used during the construction phase of the railway to transport supplies. Both bridges were destroyed by Allied bombing in 1945. The metal bridge standing today is a reconstruction.

Visiting the War Cemetery and ‘Death Railway Museum’ in Kanchanaburi is a very sombre experience driving home the atrocities inflicted by the Japanese army and the stories of so many men and women who lost their lives.

At the end of the day, the time in Kanchanaburi and beyond leaves a lasting impression and a long journey back on the train … not faster, quieter nor cleaner.

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