Takanoon, Tha Khanun, Takunun, 222.40 - Thailand

Takanoon, Tha Khanum, Takunun,  222.40km 

This was a staging camp for columns heading north.  Known as ‘Whale Meat Camp’ it was described as being the best jungle camp at the time ‘F’ Force was moving through.
The bivouac area was a cleared site on a hill which to everybody’s surprise had not been fouled by coolies.  There was plenty of shade and a fast running stream nearby.  ‘F’ Force stayed one night on their march north and Pond’s Party was the only group from ‘F’ Force to return to this camp.
The other Tha Khanum camps accommodated British POWs only.
It is thought WX8638 Clive Hellmrich and WX10012 Wally Worth were the only members of 2/4th to return to this camp with Pond’s Party.  Hellmrich had requested to join 2/6th Field Park Battalion to which his brother belonged.  The Hellmrich family learnt the heart-breaking news that Clive died 22nd Dec 1943  of malaria, beri beri and dysentery aged 33 years at Kanchanaburi Camp.
Today Clive Hellmrich rests at the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery with 91 members of the 2/4th, including other footballers Edgar Hunt WX9327 who also played for Swan Districts and Frank Clark WX7714 who played in the 2/4th Footy Team.
Wally Worth died of cholera at Kami Sonkarai aged 31 years on 28 August 1943.  Initially buried at Kami Sonkurai, he was later laid to rest.
When Pond’s Party moved to Tha Khanum it was necessary to use a shuttle system to move the POWs.   Fit and nearly fit (who by now were very few) marched to the next camp, erected tents, dug latrines, prepared cookhouses etc. and then returned to the last camp to carry stretcher cases and sick men and their gear forward. … the men were repeatedly ordered back to dig from the mud and then push up the hills the many ox-carts laden with Japanese stores which had become bogged.

 

POND’S PARTY, ‘F’ FORCE THAILAND 

 

We wish to acknowledge the following information is from the AWM:
‘Collection relating to the Second World War service of Lt Col Samuel Austin Frank Pond, officer commanding 2/29 Battalion. The collection consists a 1942-1945 diary kept as a prisoner of war in Changi after the fall of Singapore; regimental roll of 2/29 Battalion; a published history of 2/29 Battalion; a handbook “A Progressive Course of Physical Exercises” (1915); a leaflet “Distribution – amongst former prisoners of War of the Japanese – of Moneys available from the Liquidation of Japanese Assets in Australia”; a letter written on Christmas Day 1942 to Pond from a fellow POW, Cyril Wild; a note accompanying a presentation to Wild written by Pond; an empty envelope addressed to Pond from his wife; two newspaper cuttings; and an obituary.
The diary contains biographical, medical (death statistics) and general notes as well as a daily record of events. Pond wrote the diary in a number of languages, but predominately French, in an effort to delay any punishment the Japanese might exact on him if the diary were discovered. The regimental roll was kept by WO1 Heath Watus RSM during the Burma Thailand railway construction and records movements, illnesses and the fate of battalion members.
On 10 May 1943 as ‘F’ Force marched north through the Thai jungle, 700 men under the command of Lt-Col Pond were halted  at Koinkoita, a short distance before Shimo Ni Thea.   Lt Col Pond reported to Lieutenant Maruyama of the IJA  Engineers.  This group of men would not see the rest of ‘F’ Force until December 1943.
Konkoita had previously been occupied by Romusha and was in a filthy condition with few huts with roofs and insufficient accommodation.  Camp conditions were appalling and the men were exhausted from their long march from Banpong.
The POWs were immediately sent out on work parties the next morning to build bridges and roads.  Within five days, there was a cholera break out in the nearby Romusha Camp. It would not be too long before cholera arrived at Konkoita . As further ‘F’ Force parties headed north passing through Konkoita, cholera travelled to all ‘F’ Force Camps.
Very challenging times lay ahead for Pond’s  Party – they would be fragmented and sent to various camps including Taimonta and Tha Khanun to the south, where they remained for two months.

Tha Khanun, Takunun

The camp site was on a bamboo covered hillside sloping to a tributary of the main river: ‘road one side, dry creek bed the other—railroad the other and creek the other’ was how Dr Roy Mills described it . Only half a day was allocated for clearing and preparing the site before the men were sent to work. Only men who were close to death were spared working parties.
To get to their work site men had to negotiate a high level bridge, 70 metres long and made of slippery logs only 15 cm wide. Or they crossed a low bridge 60 to 90 cm under the water. The hours of work were long, almost inhuman. On two terrible days the men worked from 8 am to around 2 am the following morning. Their work included embankments and a cutting into the near vertical cliff above the Kwae Noi. At times officers were ordered to work in special parties on a slightly lighter contract basis.
Dr Roy Mills described in his book the two types of Cuttings on the Rail.
  1.  Where the railway had to cut through a ridge
  2. The other was when a L-shape cutting was made into a near vertical cliff face usually high above the Menan Kwai Noi River, and the future rail would follow the horizontal part of the L.
Pond’s Party had to work on a L cutting at Takunun.
It was at this camp Dr Roy Mlls examined 464 patients on 8 Aug 1943, i.e. in one day.  In his diary on that day Mills wrote 59 cases cholera since 9 July with 21 deaths,
Tha Khanun was a cholera camp.  ‘It has been hell—accommodation inadequate and even then muddy, Insufficient men to look after them, insufficient containers to boil water for them— pouring rain’, was how Roy Mills described the situation.

In late July dysentery broke out.

Medical Officer Roy Mills at lower Taimonta Camp wrote in his diary………………no roofing. Insufficient tents, Burmese camped beside camp … water a problem—all had to be boiled—shortage of dixies—Rice and onion stew only.
(later published ‘Doctor’s Diary and Memoirs’: Pond’s Party F Force, Thai–Burma Railway, New Lambton, NSW, R.M. Mills, 1994, 56)
In late July the camp was split, some men being moved about 275 metres up the road to a site next to a romusha camp and a cow yard. A forward camp was also established two kilometres north on 10 August. Finally in early September the Australians were marched back to Taimonta.

 

In late October 1943 the track-laying parties from the Thai and Burmese ends of the railway finally met at Konkoita.
The Japanese hosted an elaborate ceremony with a general driving a gold spike into an ebony sleeper.
A train pulled by a locomotive shipped from Japan pulled across the joining point to mark the completion.

 

Below:  the infamous gold spike –  now housed at Imperial War Museum.

 

 

Location of Takanoon, Tha Khanun, Takunun, 222.40 - Thailand (exact)


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