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Noknoi
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I am bringing my LOS-virgin friend to LOS in June. Like me, he is military history preservationist. We are making a serious military history trip to K-buri and than on to Corregidor (with the Corregidor Foundation) than my Cold War history tour to Angeles City. We are serious military historians and invite any bros to join us.
Dr. Rice
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 7:00 pm on Jan. 23, 2005
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UK Punter
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Noknoi,
>>I am bringing my LOS-virgin friend to LOS in June. Like me, he is military history preservationist. We are making a serious military history trip to K-buri <<
I did a bit of research through the War Graves Commision and had a website address for a museum in town, but it seams to have been wiped off my computer.
One of my fathers friends worked on the railway, he was never able to eat more than a childs portion at dinner as he had been starved for so long. But like my father he never spoke of the war, too many horrors for both of them.
My father was recued of the Dunkirk beaches, returned on D Day and went on to liberate a Nazi consentration camp.
UKP.
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Bangkok Women : Meet Sensual Bangkok Women
Posted on: 11:49 am on Jan. 24, 2005
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Noknoi
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UK,
I know that website. I have been trying to contact them but no response. That is quite a story about your grandfather. Which camp did he liberate? Bergen Belsen? Very cosmic. Situations like that really make you believe in God. I can only wonder what unique emotions, unlike most of the other liberators, could have experienced when he became the liberator of a an evil that also victimized him.
Cheers Mate
Rice
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 1:28 am on Jan. 25, 2005
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Minder
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There are two museums and two cemeteries: The Thailand Burma Railway Centre (TBRC) Museum is located on the western side of the main Kanchanaburi War Cemetery. The cemetery is located on the left of the main street (Sanggchuto Road), 1km from the city centre. The cemetery is known in the Thai language as "Pa-cha Angrit".
Website is http://www.tbrconline.com/default.asp?PageID=2
The other museum is Hellfire Pass Memorial Museum. The Hellfire Pass Memorial Museum is located some 80 km north-west to Kanchanaburi on Highway 323 and is located 17 kilometres from Sai Yok Noi Waterfall. The museum is built upon Royal Thai Army land that encompasses a small village and a local primary school.
http://www.dva.gov.au/media/publicat/2004/oawg_journal2004/4_memorials/07_mem_hellfire.html
Another sombre memorial lies at Kilometre 61 on Highway 323, a narrow lane descends to the Home Phu Toey Resort. Located at a particularly picturesque spot in the Khwae Noi Valley, the resort also has a memorial park honouring Weary Dunlop, the Australian doctor who helped many other Pows survive the ordeal.
Next to the park is a gallery which houses a comprehensive collection of Chalker’s drawings. Many depict how Dunlop and his team improvised facilities to fight the horrific tropical ulcers and other maladies that plagued prisoners.
A long, careful look at these images will deeply impress viewers. Few photographs recorded the conditions on the railway at that time, so the artwork by the POWs bears witness to the horror of its construction.
More than 90,000 Asian conscripts and more than 18,000 Allied Pows died building the line.
My Uncles and other assorted relatives lie in the main cemetery next to the TBRC.
Lest We Forget.....
UK Punter: Just out of Kanchanaburi township is the cemetery at Chung Kai ( about a 50 baht motor cycle taxi trip). This is the less visited of the two war cemeteries and contains only the graves of British soldiers.
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Sexy Bangkok Girls
Posted on: 2:22 am on Jan. 25, 2005
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UK Punter
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Minder,
>>UK Punter: Just out of Kanchanaburi township is the cemetery at Chung Kai ( about a 50 baht motor cycle taxi trip). This is the less visited of the two war cemeteries and contains only the graves of British soldiers.<<
Thanks for that I'll be calling in when I motor down from Chaing Mai early next month.
Noknoi
You have mail.
UKP.
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Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 9:32 am on Jan. 25, 2005
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derman53
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Visited the Bridge and the other site in November. The ride on the railroad is interesting. It is the same railroad built by the Slave prisoners during WWII. You pass by one of the areas were one of the death camps is located. The museum we visted (near a Wat) was in a resonstructed hut from one of the camps. It showed drawings, pictures, reunions of soldiers and some of the equipment they used in the dweath camps. Visted the Kanchanaburi War Cemetary. Very well manicured with almost 4000 graves, mostly British. Some had small 3 inch red crosses in front of them. This meant that a member of the family had come to visit the grave. I also found out that over 300 Americans were killed building the bridges and railroads. They were all reinterred in Arlington Cemetary.
Derman
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Bangkok Women : Meet Beautiful Thai Girls
Posted on: 9:58 am on Jan. 25, 2005
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DSBones
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Visted the Kanchanaburi War Cemetary. Very well manicured with almost 4000 graves, mostly British.
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I visited this place a few years back with a couple of work colleagues. These guys are fairly hardened blokes 20yrs my senior but this cemetery really got to them. There is nothing spectacular about this place but it just seemed to have a certain aura that brought tears to these guys eyes. A very humbling experience.
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 12:45 am on Jan. 28, 2005
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Noknoi
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Bros
Thanx for the excellent post. I really appreciate it.
Rice
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Thai Girls : Meet Active Thai Girls
Posted on: 1:54 am on Jan. 28, 2005
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Minder
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THE PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA
THE HON JOHN HOWARD MP
ADDRESS AT THE OPENING OF THE HELLFIRE PASS MUSEUM KANCHANABURI THAILAND 24 April 1998
......
We can only wonder how they managed to endure and to survive. They existed in a hell where the slightest pause, or misconstrued gesture, could result in appalling retribution - in beatings with rifle butts or bamboo canes or boots. Here alone, at Hellfire Pass, 68 young men were beaten to death for being too exhausted, or too weak, or too sick.
None of us can imagine how men can claw out solid rock with nothing more than their own hands and primitive tools. Let alone imagine how near naked and starving men could build a railway through 420 torturous kilometres of jungle, across rivers and over rugged mountain ranges. Or how survival is possible on a handful of rice each day and living each hour stalked by disease and pain. Or how madness could be kept at bay.
Yet this Memorial does not seek to magnify tragedy but to commemorate triumph.
And celebrate the brilliance of Medical Officers such as Albert Coates, Bruce Hunt, Roy Mills, Weary Dunlop and every one of their colleagues. The compassion of medical orderlies who risked their own lives in cholera wards tending the sick and the dying.
... The thousands of British, American, Indian and Dutch imprisoned with Australians, enduring the same abuses, dying the same deaths. The estimated quarter of a million romusha, forced labourers from Singapore, Malaya, Java, Vietnam, Burma and Thailand of whom 90,000 are said to have perished - numbers only the brutality of man in foul climate and harsh terrain could seek to camouflage.
It is a place also to recognise the kindness and bravery of the Thai people who attempted to ease the suffering of our men. Who risked their own subjugation for the deliverance of others. Through simple deeds of hard-boiled eggs left anonymously on riverbanks to be found by starving prisoners. And great heart-stopping risks taken to smuggle medicines into workcamps.
At this sacred place, we affirm that Australia will never forget acts of courage made on behalf of its people.
I wish to recognise two extraordinary individuals, Boonpong and his wife Boopa Sirivejaphan, who were shadowed by the threat of torture and even death to smuggle much needed medical supplies, money and other goods to allied prisoners along this railway. The extent of their sacrifice was kept secret from grateful prisoners until 1945 yet their selfless actions sustained life and morale for many Australians throughout their servitude.
On behalf of a thankful nation I present this posthumous award, a certificate of our appreciation, to the grandson of Boonpong and Boopa, Veeravej Subhawat. Let it mark our enduring gratitude for the virtuous deeds of your grandparents and let it symbolise the warmth of our friendship which has grown ever stronger since the war.
As a token of an unrepayable debt, I also wish to announce today the contribution by the Australian Government of a further $50,000 towards the Weary Dunlop/Boonpong Exchange Trust. A trust in memory of all Australian Medical Officers and of every Thai citizen who risked torture and death to provide comfort and hope to our sick. A trust to allow talented young Thai surgeons to travel to Australia to refine their skills.
Out of war, a legacy of peace.
........................................................
The name Boonpong is more likely to be recognised in Australia than in his native Thailand. The image of "Weary" Dunlop has come to personify all that is good in Australians in the face of adversity and hardship.....so Boonpong should be a symbol of the bravery, tenacity and kindness of the Thai people...yet his deeds remain unknown in his homeland.
LEST WE FORGET
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Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 2:44 am on Jan. 28, 2005
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cyborg
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It has been ages since I was in Kanchanaburi (93) but I recall taking a boat ride to the JEATH museum/cemetary. Lots of graves and I seem to recall another one that I believe was already mentioned near the bridge itself.
The one near the bridge had a large display with bones of prisoners and tons of photos lined the walls.
Odd thing was that there was a Japanese news crew there doing extensive photgraphy of the photos on the walls.
All in all a very enlightening and somber experience visiting these sites.
Cyborg
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 7:05 am on Jan. 30, 2005
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