The Thai-Japanese railroad connection

[reader]

From NHK Newsline

A Japanese steam train that used to run on the Thai-Burma 'Death Railway' plies the rails in Thailand today thanks to the loving care of Thai mechanics.

Continues with video

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/videos/20240117203211249/

[Keithambrose]

I found that very interesting. Even having a play showing the way the Japanese behaved, with Japanese onlookers! It's not clear whether the older steam engine was successfully repaired. I have been to Kanchanburi, but only saw a diesel train crossing the bridge! The Allies made the Japanese rebuild the bridge, I gather, after the war. I was shown some damage from the bombs, when the bridge was finally hit by aircraft. The museum and. The cemetery are very moving. Did you visit them?

[a-447]

A while ago I visited the Yushukan military museum, which is within the confines of the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo.

Just inside the entrance there is a steam train on display - it was used on the Thai -Burma railway.

Yet there is no mention of how the railway was constructed.

Ignorance is bliss.

[Keithambrose]

Yes, the Yasukuni shrine is notorious. It is close to the offices if some lawyers I used in Tokyo, but I never went in!

[reader]

The building of the bridge inspired the 1952 novel "Bridge on the River Kwai" that was followed five years later by the film of the same name. Although largely fictional, the movie, directed by David Lean who five years later went on to direct "Lawrence of Arabia," was wildly successful. Featuring Alex Guinness in the leading role, the sound track is one of its most enduring legacies, the Colonel Bogey March.

 

(I agree that visiting the cemetery at Kanchanburi is a very moving experience.

[TMax]

Been there twice now and visited both museums, I did prefer The Thailand-Burma Railway Centre museum (just next to the cemetery), smaller than the one next to the bridge but more my liking. I am hoping to one day do the ANZAC day dawn service at Hell Fire Pass, maybe next year. 

[reader]

3 hours ago, a-447 said:

Yet there is no mention of how the railway was constructed.

Ignorance is bliss.

Although it's mostly lost from the annals of history of the second world war, Japan was among the nations laboring to develop its own nuclear weapons. According to Wikipedia, "Japan had several programs exploring the use of nuclear fission for military technology, including nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. Like the similar wartime programs in Nazi Germany, it was relatively small, suffered from an array of problems brought on by lack of resources and wartime disarray, and was ultimately unable to progress beyond the laboratory stage during the war.

"In 1934, Tohoku University professor Hikosaka Tadayoshi's "atomic physics theory" was released. Hikosaka pointed out the huge energy contained by nuclei and the possibility that both nuclear power generation and weapons could be created. .....The leading figure in the Japanese atomic program was Yoshio Nishina, a close associate of Niels Bohr and a contemporary of Albert Einstein.^[6] Nishina had co-authored the Klein–Nishina formula.^[7] Nishina had established his own Nuclear Research Laboratory to study high-energy physics in 1931 at RIKEN Institute (the Institute for Physical and Chemical Research), which had been established in 1917 in Tokyo to promote basic research.^[8] Nishina had built his first 26-inch (660 mm) cyclotron in 1936, and another 60-inch (1,500 mm), 220-ton cyclotron in 1937. In 1938 Japan also purchased a cyclotron from the University of California, Berkeley.

"In 1939, Nishina recognized the military potential of nuclear fission, and was worried that the Americans were working on a nuclear weapon which might be used against Japan. However, the Japanese fission project did not formally begin until April 1941 when Yasuda acted on Army Minister Hideki Tōjō's order to investigate the possibilities of nuclear weapons. Yasuda passed the order down the chain of command to Viscount Masatoshi Ōkōchi, director of the RIKEN Institute, who in turn passed it to Nishina, whose Nuclear Research Laboratory by 1941 had over 100 researchers.

The second RIKEN cyclotron, completed in 1943

"Meanwhile, the Imperial Japanese Navy's Technology Research Institute had been pursuing its own separate investigations, and had engaged professors from the Imperial University, Tokyo, for advice on nuclear weapons. Before the Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Captain Yoji Ito of the Naval Technical Research Institution of Japan initiated a study that would allow for the Japanese Navy to use nuclear fission. After consulting with Professor Sagane at Tokyo Imperial University, his research showed that nuclear fission would be a potential power source for the Navy.

"After the Japanese Navy lost at Midway, Captain Ito proposed a new type of nuclear weapons development designated as "B-Research" (also called "Jin Project", Japanese: 仁計画, lit. "Nuclear Project") by the end of June 1942. By December, deep in the project, it became evident that while an atomic bomb was feasible in principle, "Japanese scientists believed that it would be difficult for even the United States to realize the application of atomic energy in time to influence the outcome of the war."

"By February 1945, a small group of scientists had succeeded in producing a small amount of material in a rudimentary separator in the RIKEN complex—material which RIKEN's cyclotron indicated was not uranium-235. The separator project came to an end in March 1945, when the building housing it was destroyed by a fire caused by the USAAF's Operation Meetinghouse raid on Tokyo. No attempt was made to build a uranium pile; heavy water was unavailable, but Takeuchi Masa, who was in charge of Nishina's separator, calculated that light water would suffice if the uranium could be enriched to 5–10% uranium-235."

For additional details

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_nuclear_weapons_program#cite_note-Grunden_2005_107–130-9