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Railroad of Death
A new edition of the 1946 best seller, the first and best account of forced labour on the Burma Railway
John Coast was a young British Army officer who was taken prisoner at the Fall of Singapore in February, 1942. He took notes and concealed them from the Japanese for nearly three years, but lost them when he was forced to bury them to avoid repeated searches. Coast had to write the book all over again while on the voyage home. His book is moving, dramatic, and chilling in the detail it gives of the cruelty inflicted by Japanese and Korean soldiers on the prisoners and Asian workers who died in even greater numbers working on the railway. Yet it is at the same time lyrical in its descriptions of the natural world surrounding the camps and the food and kindness shown by some Thais to the prisoners. Coast brings to life the camps and towns of the Burma Railway and the culture of Bali and Indonesia that allowed him to find some comfort and meaning amid the horror. This new edition has an introduction and appendices which include transcriptions of his BBC interviews with his Japanese captors and Takashi Nagase. Other appendices include never before published documents which help reveal details about secret radios and attempted escapes masterminded by the talented group of officers around Coast. It also includes an index and list of newly identified individuals mentioned in the book.
John Coast was a young British Army officer who was taken prisoner at the Fall of Singapore in February, 1942. He took notes and concealed them from the Japanese for nearly three years, but lost them when he was forced to bury them to avoid repeated searches. Coast had to write the book all over again while on the voyage home. His book is moving, dramatic, and chilling in the detail it gives of the cruelty inflicted by Japanese and Korean soldiers on the prisoners and Asian workers who died in even greater numbers working on the railway. Yet it is at the same time lyrical in its descriptions of the natural world surrounding the camps and the food and kindness shown by some Thais to the prisoners. Coast brings to life the camps and towns of the Burma Railway and the culture of Bali and Indonesia that allowed him to find some comfort and meaning amid the horror. This new edition has an introduction and appendices which include transcriptions of his BBC interviews with his Japanese captors and Takashi Nagase. Other appendices include never before published documents which help reveal details about secret radios and attempted escapes masterminded by the talented group of officers around Coast. It also includes an index and list of newly identified individuals mentioned in the book.
380 pages, Paperback
First published May 13, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 4, 2018
Account of the building of the THAI BURMA railroad in WW2
If you are considering a trip to see the Bridge over the River Kwai between Thailand and Burma at Kanchanburi (accessible from Bangkok), then this is an insightful memoir of the terrible conditions imposed by the Japanese on those prisoners of war building the railway.
In the introduction it lambasts the “easy” telling of the story in the film “Bridge on the River Kwai” as a “load of high-toned codswallop”! Yes, it was the sanitised version of what is to come in this book. The reader is spared little. The book was a real success when it was first published in 1946.
The book starts out as prisoners are taken prisoner in Singapore on 15th February 1942, when the island is captured by the Japanese invaders (remember, the Japanese cycled down the length of Malaysia so they could surprise those living in Singapore, the island city-state!). The first stop was Changi where the true horrors to come were not really anticipated. Clothes were in short supply and in the heat of the sun everyday, combined with sweat, they just disintegrated. Food became a real issue (coconut wars ensued for those desperate for anything to eat). And illness was rife, where dysentery, Dengue fever, malaria (even Singapore Foot) become the norm, claiming the lives of many.
The prisoners were gradually driven up country, up Malaysia towards Thailand, and on to work on the Railroad of Death. It was completed in less than a year using the forced labour of tens of thousands of Europeans and hundreds of Asiatic coolies, a tremendous feat at 400km cutting through jungle and mountains. And at what cost! And all for the honour of The Greater East India Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Japanese were ruthless masters who balked at nothing.
The memoir was first published in 1946 and the author returned to the camp at Kamburi in 1947, to revisit the site of such torment and to pay his respects to those who died, at the war cemetery. It is written in the style of the era, the Japanese are “the Nips” and it has an old world feel to it. It is important that the atrocities are remembered and that men gave their lives for others. I am just not so sure, though, how popular this book will be to a wider audience in the 21st Century.
If you are considering a trip to see the Bridge over the River Kwai between Thailand and Burma at Kanchanburi (accessible from Bangkok), then this is an insightful memoir of the terrible conditions imposed by the Japanese on those prisoners of war building the railway.
In the introduction it lambasts the “easy” telling of the story in the film “Bridge on the River Kwai” as a “load of high-toned codswallop”! Yes, it was the sanitised version of what is to come in this book. The reader is spared little. The book was a real success when it was first published in 1946.
The book starts out as prisoners are taken prisoner in Singapore on 15th February 1942, when the island is captured by the Japanese invaders (remember, the Japanese cycled down the length of Malaysia so they could surprise those living in Singapore, the island city-state!). The first stop was Changi where the true horrors to come were not really anticipated. Clothes were in short supply and in the heat of the sun everyday, combined with sweat, they just disintegrated. Food became a real issue (coconut wars ensued for those desperate for anything to eat). And illness was rife, where dysentery, Dengue fever, malaria (even Singapore Foot) become the norm, claiming the lives of many.
The prisoners were gradually driven up country, up Malaysia towards Thailand, and on to work on the Railroad of Death. It was completed in less than a year using the forced labour of tens of thousands of Europeans and hundreds of Asiatic coolies, a tremendous feat at 400km cutting through jungle and mountains. And at what cost! And all for the honour of The Greater East India Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Japanese were ruthless masters who balked at nothing.
The memoir was first published in 1946 and the author returned to the camp at Kamburi in 1947, to revisit the site of such torment and to pay his respects to those who died, at the war cemetery. It is written in the style of the era, the Japanese are “the Nips” and it has an old world feel to it. It is important that the atrocities are remembered and that men gave their lives for others. I am just not so sure, though, how popular this book will be to a wider audience in the 21st Century.
May 24, 2015
This is a timely re-issue of this classic book when many of todays conflicts around the world result in the barbaric and horrific treatment of prisoners. It poses the question of whether different nations place a different value on human life. However I remain unconvinced by the author's conclusion that there is a different view of human life outside Europe for he chooses not to remember the numbers killed or maimed in WW1 and during the industrial revolution. I think what the book does show is how a bureaucracy (in this case the Japanese army) can de-sensitize its members and this can potentially happen in an bureaucratic organisation whether it be a military or industrial organisation or a religious sect. The book also highlights the class based nature of the British army and hints at how an alternative command structure existed with the influence of the racketeers. It is a must read book for anyone interested both in history and in moral questions.
August 30, 2021
Given the mention of the River Kwai railway on the cover, I had assumed that this book must have inspired the well-known Alec Guinness film. In a sense it did, but I was fascinated to learn that the book that led directly to the film was actually by a Frenchman Pierre Boulle. He was never in either Siam or Burma (as they were then known) and lifted the rough idea of the plot from this book, Railroad Of Death – but in a manner that was quickly disavowed by author John Coast and many others (including, in the end, Alec Guinness).
Suffice it to say, the introduction was well worth reading. Having got this cleared up, I launched myself into the book proper. Railroad of Death is an astonishing read. Published about a year after the end of the war, it gives us a first-person account of the experience of the Far East prisoners of war (FEPOWs). Coast was captured in the fall of Singapore in 1942 and ended up travelling most of the way up Thailand, building the famed railway (over the Mekong not the Kwai, which simply means ‘branch’ of a river and doesn’t refer to a specific watercourse).
The level of detail in Coast’s book is astounding. There are so many personalities, so many little details, so much information to take in I know I’d benefit from a second read. Much of the description is of awful living conditions.
Not unsurprisingly, resentment of the Japanese is a recurring feature, though given the diabolical conditions these prisoners experienced, Coast is perhaps less angry than might be expected. Certainly, the book resounds with justified invective but never to the point of drowning out other emotions, particularly the humour the author (somehow) manages to find in his surroundings. On being billeted in a bombed-out Club House in Singapore shortly after their capture, for example, we hear about the author and his fellow prisoners finding some letters from the RAF officers previously stationed in the building:
There are some moments of real tenderness too. The description of Christmas spent in Takunun Camp is a real highlight. We hear about the carol service the Dutch prisoners put on; the Races that were held, which consisted of the smallest men riding “the horses … the strongest men in the camp – largely from the cookhouses”. The author goes on to remark how “the ‘horses’ had all been previously ‘bought’ by syndicates who had privately tested their animals out on the course during the past week” and later complains of finding good odds as “people could guess the form pretty well”.
The day was finished off with a pantomime which truly has to be read to be believed. That prisoners in a tropical jungle in World War II could have put on a fairly convincing-sounding show beggars belief. “The night was full of laughter and the reds of cigarette and cheroot ends, and on the flat immediately before the stage were the stretcher cases from the hospital who had been carried there by their friends.” A description of celebrations right after Japan surrenders is similarly moving.
Aside from being one of the key documents covering the FEPOW experience (if the introduction is to be trusted at least), Railroad of Death is a wonderful text. The author paints a comprehensive picture of life in the camps, covering not only the sensational aspects – the violence of the guards or the terrors of disease – but the mundane as well. Above all else we are treated to tales of the remarkable resourcefulness of the prisoners as they somehow craft a life for themselves in the direst of circumstances.
Suffice it to say, the introduction was well worth reading. Having got this cleared up, I launched myself into the book proper. Railroad of Death is an astonishing read. Published about a year after the end of the war, it gives us a first-person account of the experience of the Far East prisoners of war (FEPOWs). Coast was captured in the fall of Singapore in 1942 and ended up travelling most of the way up Thailand, building the famed railway (over the Mekong not the Kwai, which simply means ‘branch’ of a river and doesn’t refer to a specific watercourse).
The level of detail in Coast’s book is astounding. There are so many personalities, so many little details, so much information to take in I know I’d benefit from a second read. Much of the description is of awful living conditions.
The prevalence of disease is another key theme: from vitamin deficiencies to skin disorders, the FEPOWs seem to have suffered just about every illness possible. A particularly harrowing section covers the repeated outbreaks of cholera in some of the most remote camps, killing significant numbers and terrifying the survivors.
As this history unfolds you must always see and hear and feel rain, rain, rain. You worked in the rain, you ate in the rain, and it rained through your leaky tent at night; never were you dry … most of the men lived in their shacks for at least a month; these shacks didn’t keep out more than half the rain, and it always showered through the roof in a fine spray, sot that they slept on sodden sacks, in soaking wet near-nudity, night after night.
Not unsurprisingly, resentment of the Japanese is a recurring feature, though given the diabolical conditions these prisoners experienced, Coast is perhaps less angry than might be expected. Certainly, the book resounds with justified invective but never to the point of drowning out other emotions, particularly the humour the author (somehow) manages to find in his surroundings. On being billeted in a bombed-out Club House in Singapore shortly after their capture, for example, we hear about the author and his fellow prisoners finding some letters from the RAF officers previously stationed in the building:
Among the correspondence we were distressed to find that the members had had to complain three times that the 11 o’clock Sunday morning curry-puffs were not served hot enough!
There are some moments of real tenderness too. The description of Christmas spent in Takunun Camp is a real highlight. We hear about the carol service the Dutch prisoners put on; the Races that were held, which consisted of the smallest men riding “the horses … the strongest men in the camp – largely from the cookhouses”. The author goes on to remark how “the ‘horses’ had all been previously ‘bought’ by syndicates who had privately tested their animals out on the course during the past week” and later complains of finding good odds as “people could guess the form pretty well”.
The day was finished off with a pantomime which truly has to be read to be believed. That prisoners in a tropical jungle in World War II could have put on a fairly convincing-sounding show beggars belief. “The night was full of laughter and the reds of cigarette and cheroot ends, and on the flat immediately before the stage were the stretcher cases from the hospital who had been carried there by their friends.” A description of celebrations right after Japan surrenders is similarly moving.
Aside from being one of the key documents covering the FEPOW experience (if the introduction is to be trusted at least), Railroad of Death is a wonderful text. The author paints a comprehensive picture of life in the camps, covering not only the sensational aspects – the violence of the guards or the terrors of disease – but the mundane as well. Above all else we are treated to tales of the remarkable resourcefulness of the prisoners as they somehow craft a life for themselves in the direst of circumstances.
September 8, 2020
Of the many POW accounts I have read, this is one of the most readable! COAST does a remarkably good job of providing a detailed account of his ordeal, especially his descriptions of the camps.
He manages to find humor and humanity among the brutality the POWs experienced.
Highly recommended!
He manages to find humor and humanity among the brutality the POWs experienced.
Highly recommended!
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May 20, 2015Another vivid account of survival story under Japanese Imperial Army .
Very touching and impressive!
Very touching and impressive!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews