WW2 BRITISH ROYAL AIR FORCE RAF THAI BURMA RAILWAY POW MEDAL GROUP

SOLD

Offered is a WW2 era Royal Air Force medal group of 5 to Flight Sergeant Eric Bland, who was a Prisoner Of War of the Japanese .
The swing mounted group includes:
1939-45 Star, The Pacific Star, Defence and War medal un-named as issued
Royal Air Force Long Service & Good Conduct Medal (EIIR), impressed named to: 550577 F/SGT. E. B. BLAND. R.A.F.
Medals come with research paperwork as well as a September 1945 dated letter from Buckingham Palace from the King & Queen welcoming home British P.O.W.'s
Flight Sergeant Eric Bowden Bland was born on the 8th May 1918 in Lancashire. He was a boy entrant into the R.A.F. and is listed as having been captured in Malaya and is listed as having served at Hintok Camp, which was one of the feeder camps for work on the famous Thai - Burma Railway.

The following is an extract detailing the Camp Hintok and it's brutalities from The Bridge Over The River Kwai by Alan Brown: The Hintok section of the line was technically the most difficult being extremely rocky, involving big embankments and cuttings. The main working camp was sited so that the men had to march to work over rough hills for 3-4 miles every morning and night. They frequently left in darkness in the morning, with the marches and work keeping them out from the camp up to 16 hours a day. During the worst blitz of the railway construction drive, there were no rest days for over 3 months. Work consisted largely of hand drilling with crude drills, rock clearing after dynamiting, hauling logs in the jungle, bridge building and scratching earth from between the stones to build embankments. In the rock cuttings the heat and glare at times were almost unendurable, with the rocks hot enough to blister at the touch

Closed steel trucks were used to transport the men from Changi to Thailand. There were 36 men to a truck, with the journey taking 5 days. The men and their gear were so tightly packed that sleep was only possible in shifts. By day, the prisoners stifled in the over heated steel trucks, and by night they froze. Toilet facilities were non-existent apart from the occasional stops. Food consisted of two small rice meals a day. A Japanese guard traveled in each truck occupying a positioned near the partly opened sliding door which was the only source of ventilation.

The cutting at Konyu was known as "Hell Fire Pass". Over 500 yards long and over 80 feet high, it claimed the lives of many POW's. Work began on the cutting in April, 1943, with half of the assembled POW's working on building the camp out of virgin jungle, and the other half beginning the gargantuan task of making the cutting with hand drills, picks and shovels, baskets and dynamite. In June 1943 the work hours were extended to 18 a day for 6 weeks until the cutting was completed. Some 1000 POW's worked on the cutting day and night with 400 dying in the completion of the pass alone. By mid-August 1943 there were only 100 survivors left.

Building bridges from jungle material was the most dangerous task allotted to POW's. One bridge near Hintok was named the "Pack of Cards Bridge". It was built of green timber, fastened with wooden wedges, spikes, bamboo ties and cane rope. It was 400 yards long and 80 feet high, falling down three times during construction, killing 31 men. Some other 29 POW's were beaten to death during the construction of the bridge. In one of the camps following an outbreak of cholera the medical officers insisted that each man should sterilize his eating utensils in boiling water before receiving his rice. River water was boiled in kerosene cans before each meal. At this stage of the railway construction, mid 1943, few POW's had boots, some of the more resourceful making footwear from wood or old tyres.