二战老兵讲诉强迫劳动经历

Tens of thousands of prisoners of war, and many more civilians, were forced to work on the Thailand-Burma Railway during the Second World War. The railway was known as the Death Railway due to the number that died. It was built by Japan from 1943 to 1947 to support its forces in the Burma campaign. 93-year-old Neil MacPherson, a former Australian soldier, was captured in Java by the Japanese and sent to work on the railway for 15 months.  He's one of only a handful of survivors, and the only former prisoner of war able to travel to this year's commemorative ceremonies at Kanchanaburi, Thailand.

Q1, What's your strongest memory of your time working on the railway, the conditions and how you and your fellow comrades were treated?

"When we first went up there we were working on building embankments and cuttings, and it was pretty easy, we have to move one layer of soil a day. But as the railway construction went on, it was increased over and over and over again. Because I have malaria very badly, I missed that on the last construction. Our group were sailors of the Pioneers, 800, but when they finally got the railway almost finished, there were only 300 available for work," Neil said.

Q2, What was the worst thing that they had done?

"Like I said, long hours of work. Because of that, people had little resistance, and especially have shortage of food and a variety of food. They suffered from things like beriberi, which was very debilitating. Because of low resistance, everyone caught malaria. Dysentery was part and parcel, because we have very little opportunity to wash our hands,"Neil said.

Q3, How hard was the discipline? What sort of beatings took place and for what kind of reasons?

"Well, the main reasons for beating was that they thought we were working too slowly, especially when the construction got behind schedule. Some time the beating took place in long hours, sometimes we got back to the camp midnight," Neil said.

Q4, What sort of beating and how were they administrated?

"Some of the worst beatings were with the pick handles. Another method of torture was to hold buckets of water above your head for a period...They had many variable ways of punishing prisoners," Neil said.

Q5, When you think back to your time in captivity and working primarily on the railway, what is your overriding emotion? Is it anger of what happened to you or is it pride of what's achieved by those survived?

"You probably think it's an over word, but mateship was the only thing that got me through. People were help me when I was sick, gave me their ration to keep my physical being well. So these are my memories, rather than what the Japanese did to each individual. I know when I walk through the cemetery, I get very emotional. Because when I ready names of people I remember they were 19, 20, 21 and here I am 93," Neil said.