On Anzac Day (25th April) and Remembrance Day (11th November) each year, we reflect on those brave men and women who gave there lives in the defense of our country. We also remember those who have gone to war, returned, but suffered the physical and mental anguish of their duty.

In 2009, while undertaking family history research, I found a forgotten member of the family who died in World War 2 while working as a POW on the Burma-Thailand Railway.

The Kranji Memorial (War Cemetery) is the final resting place for about 4,000 allied service men and women and also listed on the walls of the Singapore Memorial, are some 23,000 names of those who have no known grave. Each a hero, giving their life while in the service of their country. But some if not many, have a special and rather unique story. In this case, a story that shows the best and the worst in humanity having a dramatic outcome when four allied POW’s stood before a firing squad at Selarang Beach on the 2nd September 1942.

The are many sites along the Burma-Thailand Railway where you can only be amazed by the construction ability of the men who built them. Sites like the Bridge over the River Kwai, the Wang Pho Viaduct and the railway cutting known as Hellfire Pass. Without exception, these sites were constructed with little more than hand tools and the sweat of the POW’s who laboured under the harsh treatment of the Japanese for long hours each day.

By the end of World War 2, over twelve thousand Allied and Dutch POW’s had died while working on the Burma-Thailand Railway with the vast majority of deaths occurring during the construction phase in 1942 and 1943.

All cemeteries around the world, both civilian and military, contain a wealth of stories about the people who have been buried or honored there. The Kranji Memorial, the war cemetery at Singapore, is no different. The allied soldiers buried there and names of those who have no known grave and are recorded on the walls of the Singapore Memorial, all have their story. Some may have died in battle, some may have died because of the harsh treatment of the Japanese while in captivity and others may have died in more sensational circumstances.

Whenever I visit the Burma-Thailand Railway, I am always on the lookout for something that adds a little extra to the story of the Railway now nearly 75 years old. On a recent visit, at Namtok Railway Station, almost at the end of the current operating section of the Railway, I found an old framed black and white photo taken back in 1955, showing the reconstruction of the Bridge over the River Kwai which was badly damaged by allied bombing during the war.

The Bridge over the River Kwai at Tha Markham in Thailand, consisted of two bridges, one a temporary wooden trestle bridge first completed in February 1943 and the other, a high-level steel bridge completed in May of the same year.

At the Kranji Memorial (war cemetery), a small monument is discretely located at the eastern end of the Singapore Memorial. The Singapore Civil Hospital Grave Memorial lists the names of 107 allied soldiers buried in a grave at the Singapore General Hospital.

Most would have heard of or even seen the movie, The Bridge on the River Kwai. It was based on the novel of the same name written by Pierre Boulle. The movie tells the story of the relationship between a British Colonel (Colonel Nicholson) in charge of a group of POWs and a Japanese Officer (Colonel Saito) in charge of the camp and with the responsibility of building a railway bridge across the River Kwai.

Kranji Memorial (War Cemetery) in Singapore, has the graves of nearly 4,500 servicemen. Also at the cemetery is a winged structure known as the Singapore Memorial. On its walls are the names of over 24,000 servicemen who have no known grave.