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Episode details

World Service,31 Aug 2018,9 mins

Surviving the "Death Railway"

Witness History

Available for over a year

During World War Two the Japanese forced prisoners of war to build a 400 kilometre railway from Thailand to Burma. Tens of thousands died during the construction and it became known as the "death railway". A former British prisoner of war, Cyril Doy, told Claire Bowes how he survived sickness, starvation and humiliation while building the famous railway bridge over the River Kwai. (Photo: Allied Prisoners of War in a Japanese prison camp 1945 British Pathé)

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