Burma 1943

The caption (from a publication which I could not identify) indicates that this is the Hintoku-Tampi Bridge on the Burma Railway, close to "Hellfire Pass".  The caption also indicates that the photo was taken in October, 1945.

It is in a way slightly odd that this bridge was available to photograph in October, 1945.  Many similar structures on the railway were (easily) destroyed by air attack, ensuring that whatever theoretical strategic advantage the railway might have conveyed on the Japanese was never realized.  The jerry-built construction of the bridge will be familiar to those who have seen the early part of the movie, "Bridge on the River Kwai".  Not, mind you, that it would have been by any means easy to build; far from it.  But that was all to the good, if one's only interest was to keep the prisoners busy.  And if they were killed by a falling log, or succumbed to dysentery, well, all to the good ... Best regards, JR.

Burma Railway - "Bridge on the River Kwai".

IJA soldiers using Type 89 grenade dischargers, Malaya 1942.