Bangan Camp 214.60 km - Thailand

Bangan Camp

‘D’ Force V Battalion Group 6 

This group worked at Brankassi-Onte-Bangan Camps between 5th May 43 to10th July 1943.

When V Battalion was split up on 6 May 1943 having finished their work at Prang Kasi (Brankassi) a group of 172 men under command of W.O.Glen Blyden of 2/3 Ordnance Stores Company walked north approximately 6 kilometres to a clearing in the jungle to a place called Onte.  Major Clough recorded in his diary there was a wooden bridge bridge constructed across the River Kwae Noi.  On completion of work at Onte, the group moved north approx. 4 kilometres to Bangan.

Bangan was used to store supplies for the Japanese and a base where they would bring in sick men, place them on barges and rail to the hospitals south.

It is thought there would have been 250 men working at Bangan permanently at any one time.   When the Bangan part of the line was completed the POWs were trucked out – they couldn’t believe their luck – having marched all the way from south and now, at the end, they didn’t have to march back! (Some POWs remained for maintenance.) The V Force POWs all left.  They were trucked to Onte and then Kinsaiyok where those who required hospital treatment we able to do so.

It is not known how many Australians deaths there were.