Bombardment of Thai railway

[The Enforcer!]

Maybe yesterday's Nation gives us a clue.

It had a feature article on Saphan Phra Phuttha Yotfa and noted that it was heavily damaged in WWII.

The Enforcer!

[GWR]

This article is about the building of the Mergui road, which seems to have been primarily intended as a 'bolthole' when the Japanese realised the tide was turning. It might provide some clues about this bridge:-
http://www.cofepow.org.uk/pages/asia_burma3.htm

Quote:-

The rest partially revived me and although the fever was still with me I began to take notice of events around me. Kirikan had changed; it's hive of activity being replaced by an air of desolation. Frequent air strikes by Allied aircraft had left a train of destruction. Buildings had been flattened and the ground was pock-marked with craters. A few smiling Siamese came over and chatted to us in the universally used pidgin English, completely ignoring our guard. They brought us coffee, bananas and tobacco which we accepted gratefully. They told us the news of the end of the war in Europe and the headlong flight of the Japanese in Burma.

We entrained that evening, slowly making our way to Ratburi. Allied planes were sweeping the skies almost continuously. Many times we stopped and took to the paddy, running helter-skelter away from the train which presented a sitting target. Fate was with us and we wended our way slowly towards Ratburi and into a scene of utter chaos. The town had been blanket-bombed the previous day. The railway track was the focal point of utter wreckage. The bombers had scored a direct hit on a troop train. Pieces of carriages and metal lay everywhere and a gaping hole presented what had once been the station. A span of the giant steel bridge that carried the railway over the river was missing and hastily erected to bridge the gap was a crazy, swaying, narrow bamboo construction.

End of Quote:-

Map of the 'Mergui Road':-
http://www.cofepow.org.uk/pages/asia_burma1.html

[Wisarut]

The railway bridghe in Ratchaburi referred by 'Mergui Road' is
Chulachomklao Bridge across the Mae klong river.

This bridge has been onced cut down by the local people to
derail Japanese Military Train though

[GWR]

http://www.2bangkok.com/images/490th.jpg
This thread may be relevant too. The photo doesn't appear to show a train on the bridge. The width tends to suggest a single track, but a photo zoom doesn't show enough to confirm or deny that:-
http://www.angkor.com/2bangkok/2bang...9&postcount=15

[GWR]

This account by a Canadian Airman allocated to the RAF seems to suggest the British Airforce destroyed or at least badly damaged the bridge at Ratchaburi at the end of the war. It also details other attacks on the Moulmein railyards:-
http://www.rquirk.com/ewstory.html

QUOTE:
A week later, on January 8, the destination was again South Moulmein, with the engine sheds and sidings and fuel stores as the targets for their 8000 lbs bomb load. Freddie now flew with a new aircraft, Liberator KH255, with the latest turret and .50 ammo to replace the previous .33. This mission, which took 11 hours, 55 minutes, and the next were uneventful. On January 11 it was off to South Moulmein once more, to lay eight mines and drop their eight 100 lb bombs. They were twelve and a half hours in the air on this, the second-last of Freddie's operations.

The last op, and the one that Freddie remembers all too well, was the longest and most frightening of his sorties. They took off at 1700 hours in the sturdy KH255. The target was complicated, for there were allied prisoners of war in the vicinity. The Primary objective was the Rajburi bridge, which the Japanese had to cross to get to a merchant vessel that had food stores for them. The target was heavily defended. At the pre-op briefing the Intelligence Officer warned the crews:

"Gentlemen, there are six of you going out, but there are only three of you coming back, because it's a heavily fortified target".

In the event, Fredddie's plane was late on target and the crew decided to bomb not the bridge but the road leading to it. In his logbook Freddie even stated that they jettisoned their bombs. They also strafed the Japanese ship. Freddie later recalled:

"When we did the Rajburi bridge, we went to strafe the merchant ship.
UNQUOTE:

[Wisarut]

Saphan Ratchaburi (now Saphan Chulalongkorn) had been damanged once whne the localSeri Thai had used the hacksaw to chom the iron bridgeso the C56 Loco of IJA fell in to MaeKlong river.

howevber, the overall damage of Saphan Ratchaburi was minimal compared to the 3 main bridges (Paramin Bridge, Sarat Thani bridge and Rama 6 bridge). Therefore, they could make aquick repair without relyign the raft.

[GWR]

More from Elliot McMaster, the Oz who described the bomb damage to the junction at Chumpon. There is a possibility that Elliot might be talking about the Tapi Bridge here; as he is describing a river crossing significant enough to warrant the use of cargo barges:-
http://greatlakeshistorical.museum.c...llections.html