Kanchanaburi War Cemetery

The Kanchanaburi War Cemetery (known locally as the Don-Rak War Cemetery<ref name="hit">Template:Cite web</ref>) is the main prisoner of war (POW) cemetery for victims of Japanese imprisonment while building the Burma Railway. It is on the main road, Saeng Chuto Road, through the town of Kanchanaburi, Thailand,<ref name="cgwg"/> adjacent to an older Chinese cemetery. The cemetery contains 6,982 graves of British, Australian and Dutch prisoners of war, of whom 6,858 have been identified.<ref name="cgwg">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="oorlog">Template:Cite web</ref>

History

The cemetery was designed by Colin St Clair Oakes and is maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.<ref name="roll"/><ref name="cgwg"/> It is located near the former prisoner of war base camp of Kanchanaburi.<ref name="roll">Template:Cite web</ref> There are 6,858 POWs buried there, mostly British, Australian, and Dutch. It contains the remains of prisoners buried beside the south section of the railway from Bangkok to Nieke (Niki Niki), excepting those identified as Americans, whose remains were repatriated.<ref name="cgwg"/>

There are 1,896 Dutch war graves,<ref name="oorlog"/> 5,085 Commonwealth graves and one non-war grave. Two graves contain the ashes of 300 men who were cremated after a cholera outbreak in Niki Niki.<ref name="cgwg"/> The Kanchanaburi Memorial gives the names of 11 from India who are buried in Muslim cemeteries.<ref name="hit"/>

Nearby, across a side road, is the Thailand–Burma Railway Centre about the railway and the prisoners who built it.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> There is also a Dutch Roman Catholic church nearby – Beata Mundi Regina.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Gallery

• 
  Sign giving both names and number of interments
• 
  A closer look at the grave of a fallen soldier in the Second World War in Kanchanaburi War Cemetery

See also

• Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery in Burma (Myanmar)
• Chungkai War Cemetery
• JEATH War Museum
• Thailand–Burma Railway Centre

External links

• Template:Cwgc cemetery
• Photographs from Kanchanaburi War Cemetery