Kanchanaburi War Cemetery

Known locally as the Don Rak War Cemetery, this is the largest of the cemeteries for the prisoners of war who died building the Thailand-Burma Railway. It lies on Saeng Chuto Road in the middle of Kanchanaburi town and is cared for by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

There are 6,982 graves here: about 5,085 Commonwealth servicemen, mostly British and Australian, and about 1,896 Dutch. Almost all were prisoners who died in the camps along the southern part of the line, from the Bangkok end up towards the Burmese border, and were moved here after the war from scattered jungle burial grounds. American dead were taken home, so there are none here.

The cemetery is laid out on an open, closely mown lawn. Each grave is marked by a bronze plaque set on a low plinth, with the man’s name, unit, age and date of death, and often a line chosen by his family. Two graves hold the ashes of 300 men who died in a cholera outbreak at the Niki camp and were cremated there.

It is a working war cemetery and a place of mourning, not a tourist site. Walk on the paths, speak quietly, and leave the plaques untouched. Relatives still come to find names, and the cemetery register helps locate individual graves.

A tall memorial cross stands at the heart of the cemetery, with the plots of Commonwealth and Dutch graves spreading out around them. Early morning, before the heat and the tour buses, is the quietest time to walk the rows. The Thailand-Burma Railway Centre next door explains who these men were and how they died, and is worth visiting first.

Commemorative services are held here on Anzac Day (25 April) and around Remembrance Day in November.

The cemetery is on Saeng Chuto Road, a short walk from Kanchanaburi railway station and from the guesthouses along the river. The Bridge over the River Kwai is about 3 km further north.

Some 12,600 Allied prisoners died building the railway in 1942 and 1943, and many more Asian labourers, whose graves were mostly never recorded. After the Japanese surrender, the Army Graves Service moved the prisoners’ remains from camp burial grounds along the Thai section of the line into three concentration cemeteries: this one, Chungkai across the river, and Thanbyuzayat in Myanmar for those who died on the Burmese side.

The cemetery took its present form in 1956. It was designed by the architect Colin St Clair Oakes, who also designed the Chungkai and Thanbyuzayat cemeteries. A memorial here also names 11 Indian soldiers who are buried in Muslim cemeteries in Thailand.