Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- Introduction
- Across the Three Pagodas Pass
- Translator’s Acknowledgements
- Preface
- Chapter 1 Departure for the Front
- Chapter 2 In Indo-China
- Chapter 3 Opening of Hostilities
- Chapter 4 The River Krian
- Chapter 5 The Malayan Campaign
- Chapter 6 The Fall of Singapore
- Chapter 7 Surrender
- Chapter 8 Shōnan: Light of the South
- Chapter 9 The Thai-Burma Railway
- Chapter 10 Preparing Construction
- Chapter 11 Banpong
- Chapter 12 Prisoners-of-War
- Chapter 13 Constructing the Railway
- Chapter 14 Thailand
- Chapter 15 The River Kwae Noi
- Chapter 16 The Mae Khlaung Bridge
- Chapter 17 Kanchanaburi
- Chapter 18 The Jungle
- Chapter 19 From Bangkok to Singapore
- Chapter 20 Rush Construction
- Chapter 21 The Base at Wanyai
- Chapter 22 The Labour Force
- Chapter 23 Survey Unit
- Chapter 24 Test Run
- Chapter 25 Bridge-Building and Shifting Earth
- Chapter 26 The Rainy Season: The Monsoon
- Chapter 27 Kinsaiyok
- Chapter 28 Diseases and Epidemics
- Chapter 29 Cattle Drive
- Chapter 30 Living in the Jungle
- Chapter 31 Soon to the Three Pagodas Pass
- Chapter 32 Towards the Setting Sun
- Chapter 33 Opening to Traffic
- Chapter 34 The Bombing
- Chapter 35 End of the War
- Chapter 36 Internment
- Chapter 37 Repatriation
- Footnote
- Postscript
- End Notes
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 29 - Cattle Drive
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 May 2022
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- Introduction
- Across the Three Pagodas Pass
- Translator’s Acknowledgements
- Preface
- Chapter 1 Departure for the Front
- Chapter 2 In Indo-China
- Chapter 3 Opening of Hostilities
- Chapter 4 The River Krian
- Chapter 5 The Malayan Campaign
- Chapter 6 The Fall of Singapore
- Chapter 7 Surrender
- Chapter 8 Shōnan: Light of the South
- Chapter 9 The Thai-Burma Railway
- Chapter 10 Preparing Construction
- Chapter 11 Banpong
- Chapter 12 Prisoners-of-War
- Chapter 13 Constructing the Railway
- Chapter 14 Thailand
- Chapter 15 The River Kwae Noi
- Chapter 16 The Mae Khlaung Bridge
- Chapter 17 Kanchanaburi
- Chapter 18 The Jungle
- Chapter 19 From Bangkok to Singapore
- Chapter 20 Rush Construction
- Chapter 21 The Base at Wanyai
- Chapter 22 The Labour Force
- Chapter 23 Survey Unit
- Chapter 24 Test Run
- Chapter 25 Bridge-Building and Shifting Earth
- Chapter 26 The Rainy Season: The Monsoon
- Chapter 27 Kinsaiyok
- Chapter 28 Diseases and Epidemics
- Chapter 29 Cattle Drive
- Chapter 30 Living in the Jungle
- Chapter 31 Soon to the Three Pagodas Pass
- Chapter 32 Towards the Setting Sun
- Chapter 33 Opening to Traffic
- Chapter 34 The Bombing
- Chapter 35 End of the War
- Chapter 36 Internment
- Chapter 37 Repatriation
- Footnote
- Postscript
- End Notes
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
A British prisoner-of-war, Lieutenant Adams, was in Kinsaiyok camp for several months but in mid-June the prisoners, who were under Lieutenant Suzuki, the camp commandant at Kinsaiyok, were moved up-country to Konkuita. It happened that Kinsaiyok camp had bought a hundred head of cattle for their meat to take with them when they moved. Lieutenant Adams, as ‘cattle officer’, culled and took them out as beef cattle on the hoof into the depths of the jungle. From his interesting book comes the quotation from his chapter called ‘Cattle Drive’, an account of their journey on foot:
It was the dead of night. A guard woke me up and told me to go to Lieutenant Suzuki. I didn't like being called out like this. Had I breached a camp regulation or was he investigating an incident at Changi? I had no idea, knocked anxiously on the commandant’s, door, went in and there by Suzuki was Service Corps Captain Morris Janis who greeted me with a simulated smile. He told me that on our move to the new camp the 100 head of cattle would be accepted there, but someone was needed to supervise the move and had to be selected … I was ordered to do it. My recent anxiety fell away and I felt quite relieved, but this responsibility did not sound like a very pleasant job. It was, I understood, about 100 km to Konkuita. Janis explained that to take cattle on the hoof there would take perhaps ten days and in his opinion it would be a risky operation. He looked earnestly at my expression as he said, ‘You’re a butcher by trade, my friend, so you’ll have to get used to becoming a ‘cowboy’, won't you.’ He well knew my trade and recalled why I had become a Service Corps lieutenant. I undertook to do what he wanted but my feelings had flopped at the realization of what I was being expected to do.
I had to depart that very morning and Captain Janis told me to select 19 ORs whom I thought competent, to let him have a nominal roll, to give men their instructions, and that a Korean heiho must go with us.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Across the Three Pagodas PassThe Story of the Thai-Burma Railway, pp. 138 - 146Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2013