The Thailand-Burma Railway, also called the Death Railway. The Thailand-Burma Railway and the railway Burma-Siam and similar names, was a 415 kilometer railway linking Ban Pong, Thanbyuzayat and Thailand, Burma, established by the Empire of Japan in 1943 to maintain its influence in the Burma campaign. Its function was to supply Japanese forces in Burma, as a detour through existing sea routes that became vulnerable when Japanese naval strength was reduced during the Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway in May and June 1942. Once the railway was completed, the Japanese decided to attack the British in India and in particular the route and airfields used by the Allies to supply China over the Himalayan mountains. . Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay. Aspiring to quickly complete the railway, the Japanese decided to use more than 60,000 Allied prisoners. which had fallen into their hands by early 1942. It includes British Empire troops, Dutch and Dutch East India colonial personnel, and a small number of American troops sunk on the USS Houston during the Battle of the Java Sea . Around 13,000 of the prisoners who worked on the railways were Australian. When this workforce proved incapable of meeting the tight deadlines the Japanese had set for completing the railway, another 200,000 Asian or romusha laborers (the precise number is not known) were induced or forced to work for the Japanese. ran from Thanbyuzayat in Burma (now Myanmar) to Non Pladuk in Thailand. It was built by units working along its entire length rather than just at each end. This meant that already difficult supply problems became impossible during the monsoon of mid-1943. Deprived of food and medicine and forced to work incredibly long hours in isolated and unsanitary locations, more than 12,000 prisoners of war, including more than 2,700 Australians died. The number of dead romusha is not known but it was probably 90,000. Around 90,000 local manual laborers and over 12,000 associated prisoners died. Between 180,000 and 250,000 manual laborers from Southeast Asia and approximately 61,000 associated prisoners of war were subjected to forced labor during its construction. The first war prisoners, around 3,000 Australians, were sent to Burma and left Changi Prison in Singapore on 14 May 1942 and traveled by sea to nearby Thanbyuzayat, the northern railway station. They initially worked on airfields and other infrastructure before beginning construction of the railway in October 1942. Around 3,000 British troops left Changi by train in June 1942 for Ban Pong, the southern terminus of the railway and worked in Thailand. brought from Singapore and the Dutch East Indies as construction progressed. Construction camps each housing at least 1,000 workers were established every five to ten miles (8 to 17 km) of the route. Workers were moved along the railway line as needed. - Construction camps consisted of open barracks built with bamboo poles and thatched roofs. The barracks were approximately sixty meters long with sleeping platforms raised above the ground on either side of a dirt floor. Two hundred men were housed in each barracks, giving each a space of.