RAILWAYS IN BURMA

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume 65, Issue 98, 14 December 1943, Page 4

RAILWAYS IN BURMA

JAPS. DESPERATELY BUSY

PRISONERS USED ON CON-

STRUCTION WORKS

Trustworthy information has been received from southern territory occupied by Japan by the Christian Science Monitor from Chungking. The informant said the Japanese are utilising- Allied war prisoners in desperately trying to complete a series of strategic highways and railroads in Indo-China, Thailand, Burma and Malaya, but work is progressing slowly due to the difficult terrain and shortage ,of some materials. The most important railroad being built runs from Pechabuare, a railroad town in Southern Thailand on the Bangkok, Singapore railroad. From Pechabuare the projected railroad branches northwestward, running along the Burma west coast. The projected railroad will join the railroad running south from Rangoon in Southern Burma, but thus far only about 70 miles have been completed. Thousands of British war prisoners are employed in building this railroad. The informant, who- several times saw prisoners, said, "They wear only ragged khaki shorts and old British army caps but look quite healthy. They are all very tanned."

The informant disclosed that the Japanese never succeeded in connecting the Hanoi-Hainan railroad with the railroad running ,to the Thai-Indo-China border from Bangkok. Instead the Japanese are now cutting highways from Hanoi to Mongsit in the Shan states" The informant said the Japanese a few months ago anxiously attempted to form a Thai-Japanese company for cutting a canaj through the Kra Isthmus, but he didn't know whether or not construction had, actually started,. Te said several Japanese ships had been sunk by Allied submarines off the mouth of the Menan River, south of Bangkok. He disclosed that German surface vessels regularly arrive at Singapore and Bangkok with cargoes from Germany, running the Allied ' blockade by some secret route.

He said, the Japanese, suffering from a shipping shortage, seized all Thai commercial ships except four, which are supplying Thailand with on from the Dutch East Indies. According to a letter received in Melbourne from a prisoner of war who escaped from Singapore, the Japanese are putting Australian prisoners to work building victory monuments on the island, 288 feet high.