The members of the MIB must acknowledge that most of what we know about the saga of the romusha – particularly the Malay-Tamils – is as a result of the seminal works of Professor David Boggett.
David John Boggett is a Professor Emeritus of Kyoto-Seika University, where he taught Japanese and Asian history for more than 30 years. He received his B.A. and M.A. in History from Cambridge University. He was a member of the Faculty of Humanities at K-SU after it was opened in 1989. Today, K-SU is known for its concentration in the areas of art/design/manga, but has always had a wider “liberal arts” focus as well.
He apparently became interested in the Thai-Burma Railway story as part of teaching WW2 history to Japanese and some foreign students. Over decades he traveled extensively in SEA, photographing and conducting interviews of TBR-era individuals. He wrote and lectured extensively as well. A series of articles were published by him in The Journal of Kyoto Seika University from 2000 (Part 2) through 2005 (Part 11)[1] that detailed the TBR story particularly as it involved the romusha = the Asian workers of many nationalities and ethnic lineage that were lured to ’employment’ by lavish promises. Without this series of article, a huge part of the TBR / romusha story would be lost.
Over that period of time, Prof Boggett was also associated with the group of Tamils (aka The Death Railway Interest Group) in current day Malaysia many of whom were descendants of TBR romusha.
[1] There is also an unpublished twelfth article that deals mainly with the plight of the Korean camp guards whose story in many ways parallels that of the romusha
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An example of Dr. Boggett’s contributions on this topic.
https://www.twn.my/title2/resurgence/2013/278/anniversary1.htm
In the early 2000s, Dr. Boggett published this series of articles in the university journal. These are undoubtedly the most complete compilation of research about the Asian Forced Laborers. With his express permission, we archive those articles here in MSWORD format available to be downloaded and read.