Evidence that there were thousands of romusha in the Kanchanaburi area in the post-TBR time frame was revealed in the immediate post-war years. First as the SangChuto Road that is the main roadway in the Kanchanaburi area was being improved and widened, then as other buildings were erected near the CWGC cemetery, mass graves were uncovered. Since the Allied POW’s remains had almost all been accounted for and since these graves were in the area known to contain both a part of the romusha camp area and one of the IJA hospitals, it must be assumed that these were the skeletal remains of romusha[1]. Thai eye-witnesses describe one common grave being dug each morning near the hospital and closed at night containing however many bodies that had died that day.
In the above, a WW2-era aerial photograph has been overlaid on the current GOOGLE EARTH map. Using this technique, we can more precisely map and understand what the terrain looked like. In the center of this overlay we can pin-point that POW graves were located within the confines of the current CWGC war graves cemetery. In the upper right, is the location where the unmarked graves of romusha were found in the post-war years.
Immediately south and east of the CWGC cemetery is a temple known as Wat Yuan (the formal name is Wat ThaWorn Wararam). The area where many of the romusha graves were found once belonged to that temple. So the Abbot assumed responsibility for them. Over the course of the next few years (the late 1940s and into the 1950s), reportedly more than 10,000 skeletal remains were unearthed in this area. They were moved to the existing cemetery that was part of Wat Yuan and buried without fanfare or religious services.
In 1957, an obelisk structure was built over that grave vault but no reference is made on that monument as to who is buried beneath it. Largely due to the research conducted by Professor David Boggett, it is now know that these are romusha remains – likely largely Tamils.
[1] There are few known ‘unrecovered’ POW remains and Thais would have been cremated not buried.