Tha Muang POW Camp

Tamuang (Tamuan), Thailand. c. 1945. Typical attap huts used by the Japanese to house prisoners of war (POWs) at the Tamuang camp thirty nine kilometers north of Nong Pladuk (also known as Non Pladuk), eleven kilometers south of Kanchanaburi, or 375 kilometers south of Thanbyuzayat. Tamuang served as a transit camp and hospital for POWs during the 1943 to 1945 period. Following the Japanese surrender, it became a temporary holding camp for Australian, British, Dutch and American recovered POW, who had been engaged in railway maintenance or the construction of Japanese defense positions in various locations in Burma or Thailand. Another recovered group had been part of the Wampo-Tavoy road construction work force. This group of 400 had been dispatched from Tamuang in December 1944. Their work load was extremely demanding under very poor conditions. They suffered a thirteen per cent death rate. (Donor B. Theobald)

Ayutthaya Historical Research