Bombardment of Thai railway

[Wisarut]

http://www.yimsiam.com/club/board/topicRead.asp?wbID=fanrotfaithai&id=000915

[GWR]

These pictures really bring it home how much damage was inflicted on SRT; although it is all too easy to forget how many lives were wiped out. Am I right in thinking that these are pictures of bomb damage to bridges & trains in Chumporn Province & at Chumporn (Junction) itself; as well as at Kaeng-Khoi Junction?

Incidentally, Khun W. When do you intend to deliver your thesis and/or publish for the general public?

[airlana]

The AWM [Australian War Memorial] has one of the best collections of pictures from WW2 Thailand available on the net.
The pics from "yimsiam" post above are from the AWM

Best to start at their home page

http://www.awm.gov.au

Use the "search our collections" link at right. Enter the picture number eg; P02491.328
You then need to click the image for the complete text.

Alternatively, enter 'key' words into search, although it's a bit of a guess in
selecting the right search terms to get the desired result.

There are hundreds and hundreds of pics to view.

Warning: it's just like Google Earth = ADDICTIVE

Another good source of bombing images is the "RAF Liberator Squadrons" site, particularly 356 sqd

http://www.acseac.co.uk/gallery/index.php?action=showgal&cat=95

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[GWR]

I originally that this might be a case of Yimsiam being asked to withdraw the pics after putting them up without permission. The website itself makes some warning noises on this issue. But the link IS WORKING TODAY!

Here are links to some of the pictures (formerly 'seen' on Yimsiam) from the Australian War Memorial archives with a description in English quoted under each:-
http://cas.awm.gov.au/pls/PRD/ump.retrieve_uma?surl=1222674100ZZIIYRSMUKMT&parm1=UMO_ID&parm2=433372&parm1=DISPLAY_TYPE&parm2=RAW&parm1=DISPLAY_WHAT&parm2=MASTER&parm1=LOGIN_TYPE&parm2=PROFILEG&parm1=AID&parm2=2000
ID Number: OG2469
Maker: Harrison, John T
Physical description: Black & white
Summary: Ban-Tam-Kam, Thailand. c. May 1945. In a round trip of nearly 2,500 miles, from bases in India, RAF Liberator Aircraft of Strategic Air Force, Eastern Air Command, smashed a 600 feet three-span girder bridge at Ban Tam Kam on the Bangkok-Singapore railway. The bridge, 600 miles north of Singapore, had been hit before, but the new strike demolished it, temporarily denying the enemy the use of a vital supply link for the armies resisting in lower Burma and Thailand. Several RAAF members took part in the attack. This low level oblique aerial view was from one of the attacking RAF Liberator Aircraft and shows a bomb exploding in the centre of the bridge.
http://cas.awm.gov.au/pls/PRD/ump.retrieve_uma?surl=1222674100ZZIIYRSMUKMT&parm1=UMO_ID&parm2=500188&parm1=DISPLAY_TYPE&parm2=RAW&parm1=DISPLAY_WHAT&parm2=MASTER&parm1=LOGIN_TYPE&parm2=PROFILEG&parm1=AID&parm2=2000
ID Number: P02491.328
Physical description: Black & white
Summary: Khaeng Khoi, Thailand. 3 April 1945. Aerial view from one of the attacking RAF Liberator aircraft during the attack on the marshalling yards. Great clouds of smoke cover the target area, while a denser cloud of black smoke denotes a direct hit on an oil wagon standing in the middle of the yards. A main centre of Japanese locomotive and wagon repair facilities, seventy five miles north east of Bangkok was attacked by aircraft of No. 356 (Liberator) Squadron RAF of the Strategic Air Force, Eastern Air Command. To attack this target in Siam, the RAF crews flew a total distance of 2,200 miles and carried one of the heaviest bomb loads ever taken by them on such a long daylight mission. Since the destruction of the Makasan workshops at Bangkok, Japanese were compelled to use the Khaeng Khoi repair facilities to an increasing extent. In less than an hour, these facilities had been blasted away. The first wave of aircraft smashed the big carriage shop, setting it on fire, and causing explosions throughout the target area. Three large buildings blew up after another wave had attacked, and as remaining formations dived in, warehouses, transhipment sheds and locomotive sheds crumbled and burst into flames.
http://cas.awm.gov.au/pls/PRD/ump.retrieve_uma?surl=1222674100ZZIIYRSMUKMT&parm1=UMO_ID&parm2=500029&parm1=DISPLAY_TYPE&parm2=RAW&parm1=DISPLAY_WHAT&parm2=MASTER&parm1=LOGIN_TYPE&parm2=PROFILEG&parm1=AID&parm2=2000
ID Number: P02491.265
Physical description: Black & white
Summary: Jumbhom, Thailand. 11 February 1945. Aerial view of the railway yards and bridge which were attacked by aircraft of No. 159 (Liberator) Squadron RAF.
http://cas.awm.gov.au/pls/PRD/ump.retrieve_uma?surl=1222674100ZZIIYRSMUKMT&parm1=UMO_ID&parm2=500162&parm1=DISPLAY_TYPE&parm2=RAW&parm1=DISPLAY_WHAT&parm2=MASTER&parm1=LOGIN_TYPE&parm2=PROFILEG&parm1=AID&parm2=2000
ID Number: P02491.304
Physical description: Black & white
Summary: Chumphon, Thailand. c. March 1945. RAF Liberator and US Army Air Force B-24 aircraft of Strategic Air Force, Eastern Air Command carried out a long distance and highly successful attack on Japanese marshalling yards at Chumphon on the Kra Isthmus on the Malay peninsula. Aerial view from an RAF Liberator aircraft during the raid shows the tremendous devastation caused among railway facilities. Coaches have been thrown and wrecked, railway lines torn apart and administrative buildings completely gutted.

[GWR]

I'm still looking for further info on the Chumpon to Khao Fachi military railroad. We certainly know it endured its share of allied bombing.

A lot of the pictures in the Australian War Memorial have contradictory descriptions beneath them.There are many photos showing the bombing of a railway marshalling yard at Ban Na Nien, 8 miles west of Chumpon. I guess this could be a reference to Chumpon Station itself, but it's only about 1 km from the downtown. Do they perhaps mean from Pak Nam Chumpon? The port is roughly 8 miles from the railway station. It would also make sense to build the railway to the port, as we know IJA were unloading ships from both Japan & Singapore at this port for onward transport to Burma. Presumably, this line would have intersected the Southern Line at Chumpon Station, before continuing on thru' the Isthmus of Kra. The amount of freight evident in these photos would be consistent with a need to marshall freight before sending it off on different lines. And some descriptions even talk about destroying the 'lines' [plural] leading into Chumpon. One picture may even show a railway junction near the railway bridge, although I think it is more likely that a road joins the track at this point, and the bridge is also decked out for road vehicles. The arc at which this line joins doesn't seem sufficient for a normal railway; although it might show a 'hastily constructed' junction which necessitated slow negotiation by freight trains:-

http://cas.awm.gov.au/pls/PRD/ump.retrieve_uma?surl=1588330219ZZCQLVJOZSOB&parm1=UMO_ID&parm2=462113&parm1=DISPLAY_TYPE&parm2=RAW&parm1=DISPLAY_WHAT&parm2=MASTER&parm1=LOGIN_TYPE&parm2=PROFILEG&parm1=AID&parm2=2000

ID Number: SUK13887
Physical description: Black & white
Summary: Chumphon, Thailand. C. 1945-03. The Chumphon railway bridges on the Bangkok-Singapore railway. This low-level picture shows damage not only to the bridge but to its approaches after air attacks by RAF Liberator aircraft and US Army Air Force B-24 aircraft of Strategic Air Force, Eastern Air Command.
Could Na Nien be a marshalling yard on the Kra line just west of Chumpon? The photos don't make this very clear, but the location does look different from Chumpon Station. The only placename I can find with 'Nien' in it is on the line North - Ban Nong Nian. But then we read a description that says something like ' heavy damage was inflicted at Na Nien before the pilots decided to head off for attacks on the Southern Line'. This seems to indicate that they were originally NOT engaged in an attack on the Southern Line. :confused:

The links on this site are a bit fiddly, but I have now found a 'Na Nien' picture with the exact description which suggests this attack might not be on the mainline:-

http://cas.awm.gov.au/pls/PRD/ump.retrieve_uma?surl=1588330219ZZCQLVJOZSOB&parm1=UMO_ID&parm2=500168&parm1=DISPLAY_TYPE&parm2=RAW&parm1=DISPLAY_WHAT&parm2=MASTER&parm1=LOGIN_TYPE&parm2=PROFILEG&parm1=AID&parm2=2000

ID Number: P02491.310
Physical description: Black & white
Summary: Na Nien, Thailand. 19 March 1945. This vivid deck-level view shows a stick of bombs bursting on storage sheds at the railway sidings, while another RAF Liberator aircraft flies over the target area. To disrupt Japanese supplies reaching the Burma front, over eighty heavy bombers of Strategic Air Force, Eastern Air Command, flew across the Indian Ocean in the longest raid they have yet accomplished. When the crew returned from their mission, some of them had been in the air for seventeen and a half hours and had flown 2,500 miles. While US Army Air Force B-24 bomber aircraft attacked a series of targets south of Chumphon in the Gulf of Siam, RAF Liberator aircraft attacked the heavily used railway sidings, eight miles west of Chumphon. Some of the aircraft, which went into attack from as low as 400 feet, saw prisoners of war (POWs) waving to them as they passed over the Kra Isthmus. The whole sidings were covered by the attack and many railway buildings were left burning while one part of the sidings was completely burnt out. Trains were set on fire, and a large oil fire started. Not content with this devastating attack some of the crews flew another fifty miles further south and strafed locomotives on the Singapore rail route.

[Wisarut]

I canot see those photo from Australian War memorial at allsicne I'm not a member of that website .... :(

[ncr]

I canot see those photo from Australian War memorial at allsicne I'm not a member of that website .... :(You don't need to be a "member".... I think the links provided just don't work. (Maybe too long, and then they get truncated during the conversion?) Try http://cas.awm.gov.au/ and then enter the photo numbers given by GWR in the search box, then hit "Search". :)

[GWR]

NCR might well be right about the links. I might try just pasting them in without [tags] and see if that works instead. They were working before. I like to check my own links.

NO, it doesn't work. I suspect there's a bit of fancy programing in the structure of the archive to force you to go to their search engine. And so far I have the impression that their advanced search engine doesn't work all that well. I got zero entries for common-or-garden search terms like CHUMPON & RANONG; only to find those terms dozens of times when I put THAILAND in the search box and sifted through all 1200 items manually.
That said, NCR's idea of putting the ID number in the (simple) search box works fine for the entries I have included.

[airlana]

The AWM site uses cookies to control the search function and a new set of cookies used each time you visit the site, which is why normal linking wont work. I came across this problem years ago when trying to save the page link into my favorites list, so had to revert to saving the page or keeping a log of the image numbers.

Perhaps I should have explained in clearer terms in my earlier post No.3, that links don't work, when referring to the 'yimsiam' pictures.

QUOTE "Use the "search our collections" link at right. Enter the picture number eg; P02491.328
You then need to click the image for the complete text."

When discussing different images from the AWM site, may I suggest we use the "image number" rather than linking the url.

The search parameters soon become frustrating, as I said earlier "enter 'key' words into search, although it's a bit of a guess in selecting the right search terms to get the desired result"
The reward after hours of searching is of course finding a useful image.

After from that the AWM does have some great info not available elsewhere.

airlana
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[Wisarut]

Probably, I SHOULD list the log on the bombardment of Thai Railways [at least in BBk area] and check if there are ANLY photographs available ... ;)

[RAF Liberators]

Another good source of bombing images is the "RAF Liberator Squadrons" site, particularly 356 sqd

http://www.acseac.co.uk/gallery/index.php?action=showgal&cat=95

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Thanks for the plug guys :)
99 and 355 Squadrons also bombed the railroads. I have some more photos that I haven't added to the site yet.

[airlana]

Thanks for the plug guys :)
99 and 355 Squadrons also bombed the railroads. I have some more photos that I haven't added to the site yet.


Look forward to seeing the photos when you get them added.

I know this will be a 'longshot' question, but is there available any sort of list
giving dates and targets of SEAC bombing missions for Thailand, either in total or by squadron?

airlana