Kanchanaburi War Cemetery

Kanchanaburi War Cemetery

War graves cemetery
Details
Established	In its current form, February 1956
Location	Kanchanaburi
Country	Thailand
Coordinates
Type	Military Cemetery
Owned by	Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Number of graves	6,982
Website	Cemetery Details. Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
Find a Grave	Kanchanaburi War Cemetery at Find a Grave

File:Don Rak sign.jpg

Sign giving both names and number of interments

The Kanchanaburi War Cemetery (known locally as the Don-Rak War Cemetery) 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, adjacent to an older Chinese cemetery. It was designed by Colin St Clair Oakes and is maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. There are 6,982 POWs buried there, mostly Australian, British, and Dutch. It contains the remains of prisoners buried beside the south section of the railway from Bangkok to Nieke, excepting those identified as Americans, whose remains were repatriated.

There are 1,896 Dutch war graves, the rest being from Britain and the Commonwealth. Two graves contain the ashes of 300 men who were cremated. The Kanchanaburi Memorial gives the names of 11 from India who are buried in Muslim cemeteries.

Nearby, across a side road, is the Thailand–Burma Railway Museum about the railway and the prisoners who built it.

References

• Cemetery Details. Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
• Photographs from Kanchanaburi War Cemetery
• [1] Getting to and from Kanchaburi

Media related to at Wikimedia Commons