Following the completion of the TBR in Oct 1943, the majority of the Allied POWs were consolidated to camps in the Kanchanaburi area. From there, some were trans-shipped to Japan and Vietnam while others were returned to Singapore.
Not so for many of the romusha. POWs tell us that many if not most of the surviving romusha were kept in the jungle along the TBR route. Their new jobs were to cut wood to serve as fuel for the locomotives and to perform routine maintenance and repairs.
Over time, however, thousands of them were brought to the Kanchanaburi area. This included those who had worked on the projects in the south. There are eyewitness reports that tell us that a large romusha camp area ran from just opposite the current CWGC cemetery eastward to where the Post Office Road is currently; what was then the aerodrome. It is also suggested that small groups of romusha were encamped along the 50Km section leading to Kanchanaburi, where they performed maintenance on the railway.
Although it is not well documented, it is thought that there were two large camps that housed the romusha as they were consolidated from the jungle. The larger was located near the area where the newly dedicated AFL memorial is located. These are thought to have been the TBR survivors.
A second camp was farther east near the large hospital and traffic circle on SangChuto Road is today. It is suggested by some that the inhabitants of this camp were the survivors of the Mergui Road project. This is where, in 1990, hundreds more skeletal remains were unearthed in a sugar cane field. The story of those archeological excavations and study of the remains can be found at: