Kanchanaburi | Hello from the Five Star Vagabond

River Kwai Bridge Kanchanaburi

February 19, 2015 by David Herd

The Burma Railway

River Kwai Bridge

River Kwai Bridge Kanchanaburi was of special interest to me due to my late uncle Allan Herd, who spent 2 years as a POW on the Burma Railway. In fact I urge you to read his amazing story, you can find it by following this link which will take you to “One Soldiers Incredible Story”.

War Museum

The war museum shows you how the poor prisoners lived and died at the hands of the brutal Japanese army and their incredibly cruel Korean guards.

Forgive but not forget

The sign outside the museum says it all.

River Kwai Bridge war graves

The cemetery is beautiful kept, I was really surprised by the diverse number of nationalities buried here as well as their ages, many were so young.

What a waste of lives

Forced labour was used in its construction. More than 180,000—possibly many more—Asian civilian labourers (romusha) and 60,000 Allied prisoners of war (POWs) worked on the railway. Of these, estimates of romusha deaths are little more than guesses, but probably about 90,000 died. 12,621 Allied POWs died during the construction. The dead POWs included 6,904 British personnel, 2,802 Australians, 2,782 Dutch, and 133 Americans. After the end of World War II, 111 Japanese and Koreans were tried for war crimes because of their brutalization of POWs during the construction of the railway. 32 were sentenced to death

Some of the weapons

They look very ancient indeed.

River Kwai Bridge guard tower

That’s my brother Warren Herd inspecting the five star facilities.

Dheva Mantra Resort

We stayed at this very nice hotel on the river about 15 minutes walk to the bridge. Restaurants and rooms were good and a terrific pool area and grounds. Book the Dheva Mantra Resort here.