For the past five years another POW project has been going on in Asia - this one is in Thailand! Rod Beattie, the curator of the Commonwealth War Graves Cemeteries in Kanchanaburi, has been exploring the length of the Thailand-Burma “Death Railway” in his spare time, collecting information and artifacts in an effort to learn more of what the POWs suffered and to help preserve their memory.
I have been to visit Rod on several occasions and have found that we are very alike in our work and what we are trying to do for the POWs. We have become very close friends and try to help each other in whatever way we can to achieve our similar goals.
This is an exciting year for Rod and his colleagues as they are embarking on a great new venture - the building of the “Thailand-Burma Railway Centre”. This has been a dream of Rod’s for many years and now it is finally coming together. The construction of the new museum and research centre, which is located adjacent to the main War Graves Cemetery in Kanchanaburi, was begun in the spring and the building is now well under way.
Naturally there are great costs involved, and all of the work so far is being privately funded by Rod and his colleagues. I have seen the plans and prospectus for the new centre and it is going to be a wonderful museum - telling the real story of the “Bridge on the River Kwai” and of the POWs and what they suffered. In addition to a first class museum with artifacts and displays, there will be a research centre to help further the study of the war years, and most importantly, a memorial centre to remember the men. The new centre will enhance and upgrade the existing memorials created by the two War Cemeteries and the Hellfire Pass Museum.
I know how much this means to Rod and how he has devoted - and is devoting, every minute of his life to realise his goal. We need to get behind him and the group with our moral and financial support, to help this new centre become a reality. If you or your company or organisation would like to have a part, you can obtain more information by contacting Rod at:

The Thailand-Burma Railway Centre
65/6 Moo Ban Jirakan
Kanchanaburi, 71000, Thailand
Tel. 034 620050 Fax. 034 622975
Email: railway@access.inet.co.th

In May, while visiting my son in Calgary, we discussed our website and what we could do to make it more interesting and informative to our readers. We came up with the idea of turning the site into a real POW memorial - telling the story of the camps and also remembering the men who suffered in those camps to bring us the freedom that we so often take for granted today.
As a result, we have reworked the entire website, changing the look and the coloring to reflect more of a S.E. Asian POW view. We have made the site easier to navigate and more concise in content.
There is now a section on the POW camps, one on the POWs, and another on the Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society itself. This section has all the information about the Society, as well as all of the newsletters we have published to date.
We have also created a memorial Honour Roll - listing the names of all those men that we have been able to find thus far who were POWs on Taiwan. To date we have compiled almost 2600 names, but the list is not complete and we hope to add more names in the future. If you were a POW on Taiwan, or know of anyone who was, please get in touch with us by email or letter with the details and we will add the name to our list.

VIRTUAL POW MUSEUM
- COMING IN THE FUTURE. . .

We have also decided to add a new section to the website - a virtual POW Museum. It will feature a collection of POW and S.E. Asian World War II artifacts that we have been gathering over the past several years. Many of these have been contributed or loaned by the POWs themselves, and a number of other items have been purchased from various sources around the world. We hope to have a photo of the artifact and a description of its history and the part it played in the POWs’ story - just as if you were looking at displays in a real museum.

GUESTBOOK. . .

We have a guestbook on our website and would really like to hear from those who visit. We value your comments and suggestions and would especially like to hear from former POWs or their families.