Not to mention the treatment of Brit/Aussie POW's on the Burma Railway

They weren't alone! Charlie Mott of the AVG Flying Tigers worked on
the railroad. He built a radio transmitter which he hid in a
pipe-tobacco can, and with it got in touch with the OSS. He broke out,
helped build a jungle airstrip, and the first plane that landed there
brought him the news that the Japanese had surrendered. So he spent
more than three years in the Japanese holiday camps.

Actually, many more Malayans and other Asians were slave laborers on
the railroad than the Caucasian prisoners, and a greater percentage of
them died, because they didn't have the military discipline and
medical skills of the PWs.

Here are the numbers of the Caucasians who built the railroad:

30,000 British

18,000 Dutch

13,000 Australian

650 American

Nobody has a count of the "romusha" because nobody cared, least of all
the Japanese. Gavan Daws gives the figure of 250,000, many of whom
were children.

They died at approximately these rates:

20 percent of the PWS

50 percent of the romusha

Thus, more prisoners died building the railroad than were killed at
Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.


all the best -- Dan Ford
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