Nong Pladuc

Thailand

0	415		Nong Pladuc
Burma			Also Named:	Nong Pladuk
				Nonpuradukku
				Non Pladuk
			Japanese:	Nompuradokku
			Thai:	Nong Pla Duk

		Workforce	Unit	Date

		Japanese:-	Rly Regt. 1,2,3rd
			*Material Depot*

		PoWs	I Group	Aug 42 - May 43
			I Group	Sep 43 - Nov 43
			I Group	Dec 43

Start of construction in June 1942 by British POW’s from Singapore

Plan of Nong Pladuc

Supplied by Ron Tempel

To enlarge click on map

Group I

Working parties had increased, and later in June my turn came, I was now feeling a lot better but the food and conditions at Changi were very bleak, rice and green leaves were our diet, the water had to be boiled and the sanitary conditions were terrible, so I was glad to get away. With a party of 600 others we were herded into cattle trucks and driven up Malaya and into Thailand. We were the first working party to arrive at Non Pladuc and were treated very well, the food was a lot better then at Changi. Our first job was to clear a large area of trees and put up our atapi shelters, we were told a Japanese workshop was to be built there, then word got around that it was to be the start of a railway line to go 415kms to Burma.

By October the now infamous Death Railway was under way and the guards now arriving were Koreans and Sikhs, they were a lot more sadistic then the Japs, being held under by the Japs for a long time, it was now their turn to serve out the punishment and this they did with gusto. A large bamboo cane was carried by the guards, this was nicknamed the 'bamboo interpreter', if they wanted to get the message across, you would feel it on the most sensitive parts of your body.

Church at Nong Pladuc

Made from Bamboo with Atap Roof

Prisoners were passing through Non Pladuc to work further up the track ( map of the camps ), they were expected to clear virgin jungle with next to no food, dysentery, malaria and beriberi with hardly any tools and equipment. Prisoners were returning with various ailments but the large ulcers that ate their way into the legs were particularly nasty, the only way to stop the ulcer was to amputate the limb.

Kurra_Kurra_Club Kurra Kurra Club

The Kurra Kurra Club was formed at Non Pladuc camp, to help the sick survive. The official description of the club was :

'A club formed in order to buy medical stuffs etc, for the ever increasing sick.'

By Fred Noel Taylor

Group I

Each day we had to march from Ban Pong to Nong Pladuc to construct the huts we were to live in and then back again. Gradually it emerged that we were to build a railway line from this point, to Burma, connecting with a place called Ye. Our education in a new life was beginning.

The huts were wood framed with bamboo matting sides and holes cut out for windows. The roof was mad of attap, which made it looked as though it was thatched. The whole was raised off the ground two feet. Railway sleepers were used to make steps up to the entrance. Each hut was intended to hold two or three hundred men. There were six forming a U shape and a cookhouse, Japanese headquarters and guardroom situated near the gate. All were of similar construction and the camp was enclosed by a high bamboo fence. Each man was again allowed only two feet of space.

From Fred Hoskins

Prisoners Hut

Nong Pladuc.

It would be twice as long and the two doors repeated on the left hand half. The roof was attap, sides bamboo matting and the doorstep railway sleepers.

Hut-Non Pladuk- May-1944-2tb

Nong Pladuc 1944

by W.C. Wilder

The above sketches show the inside of the atap huts at Nong Pladuc. The sketch on the left gives a good idea to the construction of these huts where the sketch on the right shows the limited space the prisoners had.

Lt. Col. Gill, 137 Field Reg. RA, was the commander and gained the respect of the men under him, the prisoners had Chinese, British and Dutch canteens and a church, the prisoners often had concert parties. The camp held 2,000 men, mostly Dutch and British, but there was also some Australians and Americans. There was also a complex of marshalling yards with engineering workshops.

Information taken from Secret Letters from the Railway by Brian Best

Group VI

After October 17, 1943

This camp is where the Burma-Siam railway branched off from the Singapore-Bangkok line. The Nong Pladuc camp was the administrative centre of “Number One Group Thai POW Camps”, We were not happy with this new location because it had become an important military location And we could expect a fairly regular schedule of Allied bombing attacks. To make things worse next to our camp the Japanese troops had installed a battery of Anti-Aircraft guns.

From Neils Story

Around the central parade ground stood spacious well-constructed huts, each raised fully four feet off the ground on wooden supports, this prevented flooding during the monsoon period. The floors were made from strong planking and a little staircase of sleepers led up to the entrance to each hut. At the back of the camp stood a tiny church and a long, low hospital. The hospital being fairly well equipped.

There was a hairdresser business at the back of the canteen which Harry Carnell an experienced London barber ran. The Japanese employed prisoners as cooks, tailors and general fatigue-men. Okasaki was the Japanese Camp Commandant but he left the internal running to the senior British officer, Colonel Toosey of the Artillery. Toosey was fair-minded in his dealings, both with the British and Japanese, gaining the trust and respect from both nations.

At the entrance to the camp stood a Japanese guardroom and living quarters. On the veranda in front of the guardroom a three piece orchestra played every morning as the long line of workers made their way to the goods yard, run by Hachi Moto, Saki Moto and Kani Moto, this was about a mile away. Sousa’s marches were popular to be played by the orchestra but a firm favourite was ‘The Road to the Isles’. As soon as the workers had passed the orchestra dispersed, and the veranda was taken over by the guards who were mostly Koreans. The names given to these guards relate to their characters, Black Sam, Killer Charlie, The Butcher and the Undertaker.

Major Smyth was a surgeon with primitive instruments but did marvellous work for the prisoners. Instead of amputation for gangrenous ulcers, he went to work with a carbolic solution and used a spoon to scrap away the bad flesh.

One morning in October 1943 sleepers and rail sections were no longer required from the railway yard and it was found that the railway was finished. On a morning in mid October a working party was ordered to take stretches to Ban Pong station. A train pulled in and it was full of Dutch, British and Australian prisoners. They lay mutely against the truck walls, their limbs were twisted, their bodies broken, their faces sunken and old, they were from Kinsyok, many of the British were from the 18th Division, Service Corps, Military Police, Gordon Highlanders and Argylls.

Information from And All the Trumpets by Donald Smith

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