Australian Defence Contacts with Burma, 1945-1987
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3635893 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Andrew Selth (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1992 |
| Volume | 26 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 451-468 |
| Publication date | 1992-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Modern Asian Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0026-749X • E-ISSN: 1469-8099 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0026749x00009860 |
| OpenAlex | W2086483618 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 7 |
To most Australians, Burma is still associated with the Second World War, and in particular the infamous 'death railway' from Thailand. In May 1942 some 3,000 Australian prisoners of war (POWs) were sent from Singapore, to provide labour for the construction of an airfield at Tavoy. They were subsequently joined by another 1,800 or so Australians from Java, making a total in southern Burma of 4,851 men. Together with other Allied prisoners and Burmese levies they were later put to work building a railway line over Three Pagodas Pass, to link Burma with the Siam-Malaya railway system. Before the project was completed in November 1943, 771 Australian POWs (nearly 16 per cent of those on the Burma side of the border) had died from disease, malnutrition and the brutality of their Japanese captors. Casualties among the POWs working on the railway in Thailand were even higher
Ancient history · Burmese · Economic history · Geography · Political science · Prisoners of war · Socioeconomics · Sociology · Work (physics · World War II · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Cambodian History and Society · Demography · Engineering · History · Law · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,11 |
| Citation span | 1999 - 2023 (25) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |