Building the Death Railway: The Ordeal of American POWs in Burma, 1942-1945

The 22 survivors of Japanese prisoner-of-war camps represented here are either former crewmen aboard the U.S.S. Houston or members of the 133rd Field Artillery Battalion. All were incarcerated in the same camps throughout most of WW II. Tough, Depression-bred men, they recount their wartime experiences with fierce emotion but no self-pity despite extreme suffering. With virtually no medical care available, most contracted malaria, dysentery and tropical ulcers. All suffered prolonged starvation (one in five of the 688 Americans in the group portrayed died in captivity). Each survivor recounts the details of his capture, the claustrophobic voyage from the collection point in Java to the infamous Chagi Prison in Singapore, the slave-labor toil on the Burma-Thailand Railroad (an ordeal dramatized in the 1957 film Bridge on the River Kwai ), and their eventual liberation in 1945. The editors, who both teach history at the University of North Texas, offer enlightening speculation as to the reasons for Japanese cruelty toward POWs, and also on the relationship between the survival of these particular men and their Texas upbringing. (Dec.)