River Kwai memorial for USS Houston survivors
January 2nd, 2009 From
>Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 12:46:40 -0700
>From: Mike Potter
>Reply-To: mike.potter@artecon.com
>Organization: Artecon, Inc.
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>To: mahan@microworks.net
>Subject: River Kwai memorial for USS Houston survivors
>Precendence: bulk
>Sender: mahan-owner@microworks.net
>
>Memorial to U.S. POWs unveiled at infamous River Kwai
>_____________________________________________________
>Copyright © 1997 Nando.net
>Copyright © 1997 The Associated Press
>
>KANCHANABURI, Thailand (September 15, 1997 11:39 a.m. EDT) — Their
>suffering at the hands of the Japanese army was immortalized years ago
>in a classic film. Now the American POWs who died while building the
>so-called “Death Railway” during World War II have an official memorial.
>
>U.S. Ambassador William Itoh unveiled a plaque Sunday next to the
>infamous bridge the soldiers built over the River Kwai and dedicated the
>memorial to America’s forgotten prisoners.
>
>No American World War II veterans attended the ceremony, but about two
>dozen Vietnam War vets, many of whom reside in Thailand, honored their
>fallen comrades from an earlier era.
>
>Most of the Americans who died while building the 250-mile railway came
>from a U.S. warship, the USS Houston, which was sunk by the Japanese
>navy off the coast of Indonesia.
>
>The survivors were taken prisoner and sent to Thailand as slave laborers
>to build the railway to Burma. They worked under cruel and inhumane
>conditions, and many died.
>
>Their suffering was portrayed in the 1957 Oscar-winning film, “The
>Bridge on the River Kwai.”
>
>Along with the American POWs, the railway was built by veterans from
>Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the Netherlands. But the
>U.S. troops suffered the highest proportion of fatalities: of the 688
>American servicemen who labored on the railway, 356 died.
>
>A total of 60,000 allied prisoners were forced to work on the railway.
>About 12,000 fell prey to disease, executions, starvation or brutal
>torture inflicted by Japanese guards under orders to get the line built
>quickly to speed supply lines to Burma.
>
>An estimated 100,000 Asian laborers who died building the rail link were
>buried where they fell.
>
>Naked except for loin cloths and emaciated from a starvation diet of a
>single ration of rice a day, the POWs were forced to hack through dense
>malarial jungle for 18 hours a day and dig through solid rock with
>primitive hand tools.
>
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