Photographic Memories #10
As every traveller knows, when you look back through old travel photos, many of them trigger wonderful memories. With no current prospect of travel even domestically let alone worldwide, we will have no new adventures to blog, but we do have many such memories…..
Photo #10: Family History
Like the poor soul remembered on this war grave, our surname is Sharman; this is the grave of my father’s cousin, Roland. The plaque is one of many hundreds of memorials in the war cemetery at Kanchanaburi in Thailand, built to commemorate those poor souls who perished during construction of the infamous Death Railway as they laboured as Prisoners Of War in conditions so dreadful that they are impossible to imagine. A simple search of the internet will reveal all of the atrocious statistics of those captured by the Japanese and their allies and forced to construct the so called Burma Railway. I have in my possession copies of letters sent home by Roland, a letter from the camp chaplain who “buried two dozen friends each day”, and the unbelievably impersonal generic letter sent by the War Office to inform Roland’s parents that their son was dead. They are heart wrenching. We visited the grave, and the adjacent museum with all its terrible stories, whilst in Thailand in February 2020, a visit which was much more moving than I ever expected.
5 Comments
Andrew Petcher
Let us hope that the World doesn’t do its best to destroy itself again.
Annie Berger
How profoundly tragic Roland died in a faraway land under such terrible circumstances and that his passing was only perfunctorily acknowledged by the War Office.
I hope that your visit to his graveside and the museum has helped to bring closure to your entire family.
Phil & Michaela
This piece of history is an appalling story even by wartime standards; it’s incredible that human beings can treat each other that way – but yes, thank you, seeing the grave was good to do. Even though Roland’s generation in our family are now all gone, of course.
Joe
It is a real tragedy that your cousin once-removed had to endure those atrocities and make the ultimate sacrifice at such a young age. It is nice to see that his elegant monument has been so well maintained.
Phil & Michaela
Thanks Joe. The whole cemetery is immaculate and very orderly. Ithink in a way that added to the emotion of the experience somehow.