Emotions high at Hellfire Pass memorial
If there wasn’t enough emotion in the eerie misty stillness as first light started to break through Hellfire Pass in Thailand, it certainly flooded the senses when 92-year-old former prisoner of war Neil McPherson proudly came forward to lay a wreath.
An estimated 4000 people, with a strongly Australian and New Zealand representation, either made their way down to the pass itself, or because of the huge numbers, watched on the screen in the carpark. In fact most started arriving a little after 2am to secure a vantage point with others wedged into the cramped pass that leads to the memorial.
For Mr McPherson, who laid the wreath on behalf of the World War Prisoners of war who worked the infamous Death Railway, it was an emotional experience. “I was thinking that I was with prisoners who didn’t survive.”
But when asked whether he still felt any anger towards his captors he responded: “No, no, absolutely none.”
And then with the faintest hit of a smile: “In fact half my grandchildren are Australian and half are Japanese, so that should give you an idea.”
He also said that even when in the prison camps he and most of the Australians remembered Anzac Day.
“Yes, we always remembered it coming around when we were there.”
The notorious Thai Burma railway was built by Australian, British, Dutch and American prisoners of war with a significant number of Asian labourers. More than 12,000 Allied prisoners died in the appalling conditions and brutality on the line, while more than 80,000 of the 200,000 Asian workers also died.
Today there is an almost tranquil serenity about the place, with the walk down the well-maintained wooden steps through neatly managed gardens down the walk trail that taking you to the memorial at the end of Konyu Cutting, that became known as Hellfire Pass.
It is so far removed from what was experienced at this place 70 years ago.
