Survival on the Death Railway

3rd January 1943: POWs struggling to survive as forced labourers for the Japanese on the Burma - Thailand railway must fight against despair

Ronald Searle, another prisoner on the railway, illustrated Russell Braddon’s ‘The Naked Island. Prisoners going to work in the Monsoon.

Survival for the prisoners of war being forced to work on the Burma Siam railway was often a matter of luck. Many strong men were struck down by tropical diseases, their debilitating effects exacerbated by the exhausti…