hello welcome back to next level adventures and a new province we are in Kanchanaburi one
of the most beautiful provinces in thailand and it's huge in fact Bangkok is not too far away
and yet there's only one province that separates this bridge and Chiang Mai old town that's how
big this province stretches now it's full of beautiful nature we will be exploring that in
this video today however it's also home to a very interesting and somber human history
now obviously i'm not a professional historian but i have visited the museum here i visited the hell
pass which we'll see in this video i watched some documentaries i did some reading i also spoke to
some locals who live here just to put together some information and learn the history and so i'm
going to condense that in this video but it'll it will be a refresher for most of you but if
it's brand new information then i think you'll really enjoy it because not only will you learn
something but you'll get some context to you know the beautiful nature we're gonna see but also how
a lot of this province was built on blood of some prisoners of war what happened why
we'll reveal all in this video i think it's important to tell the story so relax and enjoy
as we get to know and discover the beautiful nature yet sombra history of kanchanaburi let's go
context is very important i believe and we could start the story in 1942 when the japanese invaded
southeast asia and they made this bridge however before we get to that point i think it's important
to understand the mindset of the japanese soldiers so let's go back to the 20s when they became a new
emperor in japan emperor hirohito and he over the years became more than an emperor just similarly
actually to ramen nine here in thailand living in thailand during his reign i really started to
understand that he kind of transcended monarchy he was more than a king he kind of was considered a
god in some ways and at the time in japan in the 20s and 30s hirohito had transcended emperor and
was almost looked upon as a god-like figure and so the soldiers were trained to not only protect
the king and protect the flag but to treat the emperor their reign leader as almost like a
godlike figure it's also important to understand that the japanese soldiers were trained in a very
harsh way not only did they have to protect their country their flag their king and their god
as he was transcending into but they had to be trained to believe that certain things were just
a no-go and the biggest disrespect to the king the emperor the flag in the country was surrender
absolutely no under no circumstances could you surrender there would be no more bigger disrespect
to your country and to the emperor than surrendering obviously kamikaze is a great
example of the japanese soldiers they would rather crash their burning jet into a battleship and
explode into certain death than limp away and try and crash and land safely and be captured that is
an absolute no-go they would obviously kamikaze and so surrendering was just an absolute no-no and
that's important to remember because later on in the story when they were building this and using
prisoners of war that mindset really impacted them they looked upon the soldiers who did surrender
and who were prisoners of war in such disregard so it's important to understand the mindset of the
japanese soldiers and how they treated prisoners of war and people who had surrendered to them
and also and most importantly that in 1929 the japanese declined to sign the geneva conventions
which basically meant that they were not signing to the rules of combat the rules of war and that
basically let them get away with treating prisoners of war how they wanted without any
human humanity with no real sanitation and just to treat them however they wanted and obviously
they didn't look too kindly upon prisoners and people who had surrendered so this is a cocktail
that later on in the 40s when they do decide to invade as we'll talk about now that led to the
mindset and the environment for mass torture on these poor soldiers who had surrendered now
why did they surrender how did they surrender it's an important story let me tell you
so let's fast forward to the 1940s now and the japanese emperor hirohito he sets his target
on expansion he sees an opportunity for japan to spread her wings and to expand her empire
and in 1942 they set upon a two-stage attack a very violent uh surprise attack in pearl harbor
obviously we all know what happened there and on the very next day they made landfall in southern
thailand and malaysia with their sights set upon taking the bounty that laid before them here in
southeast asia obviously myanmar and thailand is a basin for growing rice and vegetables and
a great staple to supply their future empire and malaysia was very rich with rubber and tin
and other metals and the dutch indies which is called indonesia now was very rich and still is
in oil so they knew that they could if they if they could just grab their hands on southeast
asia they could control a lot of land and supply and precious materials southeast asia
was there for the taking the only problem was the impenetrable british fortress state of singapore
now the main problem with singapore was it had a reputation as this fortress and it was completely
impenetrable however it was extremely weakened and the japanese knew that after all the british were
busy fighting nazi germany over in europe and a large section of the southeast asian british fleet
were over in europe dealing with that also the british hadn't done a very good job at securing
the northern borders of singapore they never assumed that anybody would try and be brave enough
brash enough to do a land invasion through the malaysian jungle they just assumed no one would
ever do that and the japanese knew that so when they landed in southern thailand they came through
malaysia and southern thailand and they made their way to singapore and they had a battle it
was quite short-lived and the british surrendered and it was the most embarrassing biggest defeat
in the british empire's history our stronghold in southeast asia was gone the japanese had invaded
and the british quickly signed a surrender form and that was the beginning of the end
for those soldiers not just the british but the dutch the americans all of the allied forces that
were in that region who had surrendered under this direct order from winston churchill in the navy
were now doomed because the japanese were in control of them and they didn't seem
to really like people who surrendered and they had an idea for how to put them to work
the japanese wasted absolutely no time asserting their authority by sadly massacring the civilian
chinese population in singapore they looked at them as potential spies communists and all that
kind of thing and the british and allied forces who had surrendered were tasked by burying the
dead anybody who tried to escape was tortured or killed as well and very quickly things got sour
now the japanese didn't just want to hold the soldiers there um they did for a while and
starvation and diarrhea started an infection and they were terribly in singapore but they
were promised better a better life if you want to call it that further up into the continent
in thailand because japan had a problem you see they were trying to expand they were trying to
secure a base and one of their biggest areas of prominence was in the city of yangon which at the
time i think was called ragoon in myanmar however the supply chain and supply lines that they needed
to resupply food and ammunition to their soldiers from bangkok was a really long journey around the
peninsula and by boats obviously and they couldn't do it by air they were getting shot down by the
british and the allied jets and planes and the submarines and frigates were sinking the japanese
resupply routes because i think that was the only thing that the allied forces could do at the time
the thais had already just put their hands up and said we don't want to get involved please you're
not we know we're not interested in fighting the japanese they'd seen what happened in pearl harbor
and they were outnumbered and outgunned so the thai people were just kind of occupied at the time
not really getting involved in the british and the allied forces well they were fighting germany
and it must have been such a confusing difficult time to be fighting a superpower in europe and
having another superpower emerging and causing havoc on the other side of the world so i think
sending frigates and a few planes to disrupt the japanese resupply route was their only best
bet and so the japanese were so frustrated that they decided that the only thing they could do
was to build a train line from bangkok all the way through kanchanaburi into the border across
into myanmar now i've traveled around this part of thailand on my little honda motorbike into tak
and kanchanaburi and it is just thick rainforest with mountains rivers and i mean back in the day
before modern uh engineering and having jcbs and cranes and everything to just clear the forest
it would have been a mammoth task in fact the british had thought about building a train line
in a similar position but they decided that it was way too difficult and they just abandoned
it but the japanese thought that was their only option a difficult painstaking painful build of a
train track that thankfully was made a lot easier to them because they had
thousands and thousands of prisoners of war that they could put to work and in 1942 they started
the train line and they started this bridge and that's where all of the bloodshed started
okay so we're here now at the hellfire pass deep in the jungle of kanchanaburi and we're going to
make our way down to take a closer look at a very interesting part of the train track in a moment
but as you arrive at the hellfire pass you will experience a fantastic museum it's funded by the
australian government so inside it's absolutely fantastic the staff speak incredibly good english
and the information is displayed in a very tasteful modern and very clear to understand way
and once you go through that area of the museum you start to make your way along
down to where we're gonna see where one of the most brutal parts of the train line was built in
and we'll be able to learn a little bit more about what these not just prisoners of war
but also by this point when they've gotten up here the japanese had uh enrolled thais burmese
uh malaysians um everybody in the region here and obviously they were getting paid a pittance and
getting worked really hard as well but obviously the prisoners of war were getting it much worse
obviously no pay and barely any food in fact just before we go down to see the hellfire pass one of
the most poignant things inside the museum was they had a depiction of the amount of rock that
was expected to be moved by one prisoner of war in one day compared to a tiny bowl of a minuscule
portion of rice that they were given as a ration for that day so that much food for that much work
and they basically had to feed themselves with whatever they could find out here in the jungle
reptiles bugs eggs whatever they could find in scavenge when they weren't working
22 hours a day sometimes 33 hours in a row 150 days in a row the museum's fantastic
and it's prepared me with knowledge and a little bit of dread to go down
and see the conditions and what they were expected to do here at the hellfire pass
so in mid 1943 the japanese shifted gear under pressure from their superiors they went into a
mode called speedo they really wanted to get this train line finished and so they stepped up the
gear they worked through the night through the day and this is where it turned into a hellish
place cracking these walls trying to blast through with pickforks and whatever else they were given
and worked worked through the night and through the day and on minimal
rations this was the part of the track that reminisced of the most of hell and that's why
it's called hellfire pass and it's it's somber and you can just imagine with the bamboo fires
and the cracking of the whips how how hellish this must have been and again the australian
government have done a fantastic job here with the flags and the memorials the audiobook that
you can listen to as well yeah just fantastic uh place of memory but also it's gut wrenching
if you think about if you're trying to envision what it must have been like here
it's heavy stuff but this is an important part of thai history an important part of this province
and uh yeah i hope you're enjoying this slice of history it's very strange to see a british flag
and allied forces flags in the middle of the thai jungle i mean you can hear all the bugs
you can just imagine what it must have been like to being here every single day
in the blaring heat with no food and water or barely any food and water and all this going on
must have been miserable and that's putting it lightly obviously
okay so i'm gonna end the video here originally i wanted it to be a longer video with two sections
the first section learning about the railway and sharing with you what i had learned and then
coming over to erwin falls the beautiful nature and staying here on the river and um i just think
as i was editing there i got to this point it's already
15 minutes or so and i just think that piece of content that video you've just seen this video and
should just live on my channel by itself i think it doesn't we don't need to attach a really fun
happy section of the video we can save that for the next one i just hope you found
this video useful like i said i'm not an historian um but i just tried to in my own words
and through the source material that i found and read about not only in the museums but on youtube
the visions the footage i should say that you saw during this video i will link that documentary
below you should watch that you should come visit the museums go to the hellfire pass
and learn some more um there's so much more to this story i could never condense it all obviously
into a 15 minute video but i just wanted to give you a little glimpse to the story and what i
felt as i was there so i just having visited many of the provinces thought that it deserved its own
video and its own story and we didn't need to bookmark it with some jumping in waterfalls
and having a great time that'll save that for the next one anyway see you in the next one
you