This event does not involve the imported AFL but rather the Thais who built the first 50 KMs from NongPlaDuk to Kanchanaburi.
Thai workers (I would not quite place them fully into the category of romusha since their conditions of employment were quite different.) were hired in mid-1942 to build the railway from NongPlaDuk to Kanchanaburi. Given that those first 50+ Kilometers were over flat, unobstructed farmland they accomplished this task in a matter of weeks. By NOV, the headquarters of the TBR project was moved to Kanchanaburi. At about this same time, the first group of POWs under the command of British LtCol. Toosey were moved west to begin the construction of the bridges over the Mea Klong River.
In Dec 1942, what has become known as the BanPong Incident essentially ended the involvement of Thai workers on the TBR.
Here is the story of what transpired as recounted by Professor Boggett in his writings:
The HQ of the 9th Railway Engineers and their support troops were located at BanPong. Tensions had already begun to rise between the local Thais in BanPong and the Kempeitai who were arresting (and torturing?) Thais as suspected ‘spies’. The Incident began on the evening of 18 DEC when an IJA soldier is said to have slapped a Buddhist monk (in some versions only a novice not an ordained monk) in the face when he could not explain his presence in what the soldier was guarding as a restricted area. A group of Thais either directly witnessed this insult or learned of it via the monk. An angry mob soon formed and attacked and killed an IJA soldier. Versions differ as to who that soldier was but it is not thought that he was the initial ‘offender’. Tensions escalated as more soldiers arrived and more Thais gathered to confront them.
Local Thai and IJA officials converged on the area – to include some Kempeitai officers. But prior to their arrival, shots rang out! The local Thai police commander (Lt Sisuk) deployed about 30 armed men towards the scene near the railway station. They were met by two truckloads of IJA soldiers – about 20 in all – who opened fire with a machine gun. Later, both sides would claim that the other fired first. There were several minutes of gunfire being exchanged before the authorities on both sides could quell it. IJA accounts say 4 were KIA (including an IJA physician) and 2 other seriously wounded. Since these figures come from the IJA records, they can only be assumed to apply to IJA personnel only.
Although the crowd was dispersed, tension remained high and over the next few days there were a series of follow-on incidents. Workers destroyed a section of the tracks in BanPong; women threw stones at IJA sentries and armed Thais attacked other IJA soldiers. IJA reinforcements arrived for a show of strength and these incidents ceased, but tensions all were wary.
Soon this Incident had grown to a full diplomatic row, involving the IJA Area HQ in Saigon and the Thai Prime Minister. This came as a series of demands by the IJA Commanding General. These included execution of the Thai ‘criminals’, the transfer of any local Thai officials ‘involved’ and retribution to be paid to the families of the dead and injured. The sums of these payments were not overly excessive even in the 1940s; set at 20,000 baht for the dead and 2,000 for the injured. Also included was an official diplomatic apology and an ‘education effort’ to prevent further confrontations.
To the total dismay of the Thai Authorities, the monk was one who was supposed to be executed for starting (if not leading) the entire Incident. Of course, under Thai and Buddhist tradition this was out of the question; non-negotiable and off the table.
Elsewhere there were numerous reports of (somewhat less serious) confrontations between Thai businessmen and IJA troops transiting through Bangkok in particular. Many of these stemmed from disputes over how much the Japanese currency was worth in relation to the Thai baht/tical. All in all, the Thais remained proud and defiant in the wake of the Japanese occupation of their country. Elsewhere, hundreds (thousands?) of young men were making their way to Seri Thai (resistance movement) camps to train to fight the IJA.
In far-away Japan, the high level importance of the Thais and the absolute necessity of unrestricted access to the Port of Bangkok and the connecting rail links brought pressure on the SEA IJA HQ to resolve these disputes as quietly as possible and not to overly embarrass the Thais in the process. The BKK Garrison Commander, GEN Nakamura Aketo was placed under great pressure not to ‘lose face’ in front of his adversaries (if not actually enemies) and to keep overall relations with the Thai1 at least amicable. In a long series of meetings between him and the Japanese AMB in BKK, Yamamoto, and Thai senior officials a ‘resolution’ was arrived at. During this time, GEN Aketo and PM Phibun seemed to have become rather close friends 1]. In an unexpected turnabout, The Thai government agreed to a one-time payment of 80,000 baht as restitution. But Aketo handed the money back as compensation for the Thais injured in the Incident. One other concession was that Aketo was allowed to open a “comfort station” (aka legally sanctioned brothel) in Bangkok. Whether or not this was for the personal enrichment of the GEN is lost to history! The Thais even recruited the women to work the brothel. This establishment apparently aided in isolating the soldiers from ordinary Bangkok nightlife and thereby reduced confrontations over alcohol and women. This ‘agreement’ made it easier when later another “comfort station” was established at the HinDat hot springs in the Hellfire Pass area.
Much of the above comes via Professor Boggett’s essay #26. He further relates that he had a personal interview with the Abbot of the Wat Don Toom in BanPong in which the Abbot related that he had been a novice at the temple (a transit camp at the BanPong end of the rail journey from Singapore; see Section 19f) at the time of the Incident, but denied any direct knowledge of the event.
In summary then, a late evening confrontation between a Buddhist monk and an IJA sentry grew into an international incident and shaped Thai-Japanese relations for years to come. And as a result, almost as an afterthought, Thai workers were not employed on the TBR to any great extent post-incident. Thousands upon thousands of romusha were imported to replace them!
[1] Interestingly enough, when Phibun was ousted as PM post-war, he lived in exile in Japan for the remainder of his life and is said to have continued a friendship with the General.
24a Thai or Chinese
Over the ensuing decades, a number of controversies or perhaps just side-stories concerning the workers who built the first 50 kms of the TBR have arisen. It is worth exploring them even though we will likely never know the full truth.
One account says that that these were not local Thais but that they were Thias of Chinese ethnicity from other places. This all stems from a larger story in that the Chinese merchants in Bangkok were eager to curry favor with the Japanese. Their reasoning was two-fold: Under the recently (1932) formed constitutional monarchy and the Phibun government, the Chinese minority was coming under increasing pressure to assimilate into ‘Thainess’. Phibun’s policies were highly nationalistic – bordering on fascist. The Chinese had maintained their language and culture all the while growing rich as merchants. One could say that they were akin to the Jews of Europe and were resented for the same reasons. Aligning with the Japanese ’liberators’ was one possible way to avoid further persecution.
Secondly, for purely commercial reasons, they wished to be seen as merchants and traders who could ‘deliver the goods’. They had their eye on securing the multiple contracts for goods and services that the IJA would undoubtedly require.
It was under these circumstances that it is said that these merchants offered to act as middle men to ‘hire’ workers for the initial phase of this project. One account has these workers as newly arrived Chinese refugees and not actual Thais. The economic and political atmosphere would certainly lend credence to such a series of events. But without contemporary documents of any kind, the true story will likely never be known.
This then begs the question of just how much the Thai’s in the BanPong area were involved in the construction. The BanPong incident described above is not predicated on the local men being the ones who laid those tracks.
In an article written in 2020, Prof. Worawut Suwannarit, former lecturer in the Department of History Kanchanaburi Teachers College (Kanchanaburi Rajabhat University) wrote: “There were announcements to recruit Thai workers from nearby provinces such as Ratchaburi, Nakhon Pathom , Phetchaburi. The Chinese Commerce Association in Thailand has recruited about 36,000 Chinese laborers in provinces such as Ayutthaya, Chonburi, Chachoengsao, Prachinburi, Samut Songkhram to work with Japan.”
[Kanchanaburi Provincial Press Association, AW_Pak Phaek-OK.indd 129 2/17/20]
24b Laotians ?
In more recent years a story that parallels this one has emerged. It stems from a Thai Immigration Officer who was transferred from the northeast part of Thailand on the border with Laos to the Three Pagodas Pass area. While in a nearby market, he heard a familiar sound; that of people speaking Laos! Confused by the de ja vu, he approached to confirm his suspicions. What he learned is that there was indeed an enclave of Laotians in that area and that they had been brought there during WW2 and the time of the TBR construction.
Here we have a new, albeit likely very small, group of possible AFL of a completely different ethnicity with no other indication of their existence.
24c More Tamils
In 2018 during a visit to the TBR sites by a group of Malaysians of Tamil origin [see Section 22], they claim to have received permission to cross at 3PP into Burma. They were in search of an enclave of Tamil-speaking villagers. With the assistance of a guide, they found exactly that. Their story too was that they were abandoned there in 1943-45 only to settle down and remain rather than attempt the long trek back to Malaya.