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I kind of thought that I’d bought this book with the collection of books on Korea that I bought in 2014<\/a> in Clever, where I speculated that the previous owner might have served in Korea (during the war or after) and returned as a tourist later. But I actually bought this book in in 2024<\/a>, also in Clever, and notes indicate that a previous owner visited Thailand in 2004; a World War II vet would be getting up to almost eighty, so perhaps not someone who directly served. But most likely someone with an interest in the subject. Which is not to say there are not many; this book is a product for tourists put out by a company in Thailand.<\/p>\nIt tells the story of the Western POWs who the Japanese empire made to construct an ill-advised railroad from Thailand to Burma to help the Japanese with their Asian land-based operations after their Pacific naval advance was stopped at the Battle of Midway six months after Pearl Harbor<\/em>. I mean, I read The Battle Off Midway Island<\/a><\/em> in 2014, but this book (under review) gave a timeline of the Japanese explosion in 1941 and early 1942, when they captured a bunch of southeast Asia and knocked on Australia’s doorstep but their Pacific campaign was basically nullified after the Battle of Midway, so they turned their eyes towards the land mass of Asia and maybe thought about invading India after this rail line was in place. But that was not to pass, happily.<\/p>\n The book details the conditions the prisoners (mostly British and Australian) and Asian slave labor faced–back-breaking work in the heat, working on a rail line that the British and Germans had surveyed decades before but said was too difficult, the deaths, and the constant need to repair problems and handle damage from Allied bombing (and prisoner sabotage) meant that it never performed like the ill-informed Japanese imperial powers thought it would.<\/p>\n So the actual building and destruction did not line up with the film (The Bridge over the River Kwai<\/em>), but the film stirred interest, I guess.<\/p>\n The text of the book looks to be translated, as it features a number of, erm, ill-developed bits of English, and the typography and layout are a little faulty. It includes a lot of small, ill-reproduced photographs of the era, but dayum, man, they’re photos of the history. Some of the text repeats itself a bunch–the book is “Organized by J.P.”, so maybe it’s sourced from a bunch of pamphlets cut-and-pasted without altering and smoothing the text.<\/p>\n But it’s lightweight and informative for people who did not know about the Asian land front in World War II. Which does not probably align with people going to Thailand to see it. But as a man approaching middle age who is not sure whether he is on team World War II or team Civil War for old man history interests, it’s making its case for Team World War II.<\/p>\n
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