Sumatra Railway


The Sumatra Railway, also referred to as the Pekanbaru Death Railway, was a railway project of the Imperial Japanese army in Sumatra during the Second World War. It was designed to connect Pekanbaru to Muaro in an effort to strengthen the military and logistical infrastructure for coal and troop shipments. The 220 km long railway would connect the Strait of Malacca, via the Siak River to Pekanbaru, to Padang via an existing railway from Muaro.
The railway was completed on Victory over Japan Day, 15 August 1945. It was only ever used to transport prisoners of war out of the area but quickly became overgrown by the jungle.

Forced labour

Over 120,000 Indonesian, mostly Javanese, forced workers called Romusha were put to work by the Japanese army in addition to 6,500 Dutch prisoners of war, mostly Indo-Europeans, 1000 British prisoners of war, and a combined 300 prisoners of war from the United States, Australia and New Zealand. By the time the work was completed in August 1945 almost a third of the European POWs had died and only around 16,000 of the 120,000 Indonesian Romusha had survived.

Accounts of construction

George Duffy, one of the 15 Americans there and survivor of the sinking of the recounted life and death for the POW workers on MemoryArchive: malaria, dysentery, pellagra, and malnutrition/"beri-beri" were the principal maladies compounded by overwork and mistreatment. "The average age at death of the 700 POWs who perished on that railway was 37 years and 3 months."

Legacy and memorial

The railway was never fully utilised and remains unused and in an advanced state of decay. The Japanese also directed construction of the Burma Railway and Kra Isthmus Railway.
The Sumatra Railway Memorial was unveiled on VJ Day in 2001 at the National Memorial Arboretum in Alrewas, England near Lichfield, Staffordshire. The memorial commemorates the approximately 5,000 prisoners of war and 30,000 locals who were forced to work on the Sumatra railway project and is located next to the Far East Prisoners of War Memorial Building. The memorial's unveiling was attended by former prisoners of war, the Japanese ambassador to Britain and included a peace stone and the planting of flowering trees to symbolise reconciliation.