The Australian War Memorial Collection. Test site
Chungkai (Kao Poon), Thailand. c. October 1945. Lieutenant G. H. Schroder, Netherlands East Indies Army, a ex-prisoner of war (POW) member of a War Graves Commission survey party, standing in a bund, or drainage trench, around the Chungkai POW camp. These trenches, dug in 1944 by POW labourers, also provided security at camp. Machine guns were strategically placed to cover these bunds, and there is evidence that the Japanese intended to use them as mass graves after a massacre of the POWs occupying the camp. Such massacres were, it is believed, set to take place towards the end of August 1945, in anticipation of an Allied invasion of the Thailand-Malaya area. Chungkai, approximately two kilometres north of Kanchanaburi, was the site of a large POW base hospital opened by the Japanese in November 1942, and which functioned until it was closed on 26 May 1945, when the remaining occupants were transferred to Tamuang, approximately eleven kilometres south of Kanchanaburi (Kanburi). (Donor A. MacKinnon)
Chungkai (Kao Poon), Thailand. September 1945. Approximately two kilometres north of Kanchanaburi (Kanburi) on the bank of the Kwai Noi river. Temporary wooden crosses on the graves of Allied soldiers
Tamuang, Thailand. c. October 1945. A food drop by parachute to Dutch ex-prisoners of war (POWs) at Tamuang camp. Following the Japanese surrender, it became a temporary holding camp for recovered Aus
Kanchanaburi, Thailand. c. September 1945. (Also known as Kanburi by POWs). Located fifty kilometres north of Nong Pladuk (also known as Non Pladuk), or 364 kilometres south of Thanbyuzayat. The priso
Kanchanaburi, Thailand. c. October 1945. Neatly laid out temporary crosses in the Allied War Cemetery. There were four prisoner of war (POW) cemeteries in the township of Kanchanaburi, known to POWs a
Tamuang, Thailand. c. 1943. Major A. A. Moon, an Australian Medical Officer at work in the hospital hut in the prisoner of war (POW) camp. Tamuang is thirty nine kilometres north of Nong Pladuk (also
Tamuang, Thailand. c. 1945. The Tamuang prisoner of war (POW) camp, thirty nine kilometres north of Nong Pladuk (also known as Non Pladuk), or eleven kilometres south of Kanchanaburi, 375 kilometres s
