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Hellfire Pass is a
500 metres long and 26 metres deep
section of rock that was dug out by
Prisoners of War intended to allow the ‘Death Railway’ to continue its
route from Bangkok to Rangoon. Soldiers were forced to remove the rock
using no more than picks, hammers and their bare hands. Of the 1,000
Australian and British soldiers who took 12 weeks to clear the stretch
of mountain, 700 died. Hellfire Pass Memorial commemorates those
fallen. The memorial comprises a trail where visitors follow the old
railway track into the jungle and a museum. Like elsewhere on this
trail, the memorial and museum are extremely moving places. If you are
connected to the events through relations who were imprisoned here, or
any other fashion, the experience can be quite wrenching. This site is
of particular importance to Australians. Four hundred Australian
prisoners began work at Hellfire Pass on Anzac Day in 1943 and the site
plays and important part in annual Anzac events in Thailand.
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