Witness History
Witness History
Surviving the "Death Railway"
Up next
August 31, 2018
10 minutes
Available for over a year
During World War Two the Japanese forced prisoners of war to build a 400 kilometre railway from Thailand to Burma. Tens of thousands died during the construction and it became known as the "death railway". A former British prisoner of war, Cyril Doy, told Claire Bowes how he survived sickness, starvation and humiliation while building the famous railway bridge over the River Kwai.
(Photo: Allied Prisoners of War in a Japanese prison camp 1945 British Pathé)