Lance Sergeant William Claude Brenchley Wood

Personal Details

• 1870077 Lance Sergeant
• William Claude Brenchley Wood
• 1 Malaya Bomb Disposal Company
• Royal Engineers

Died on the 15th December 1943. Aged 30. Buried at Chungkai War Cemetery. Grave 3. M. 15. Prisoner of the Japanese. 1 Malaya Bomb Disposal Company was part of the Singapore Fortress. In total 42,610 members of the British Army were taken into captivity, 10, 298 died whilst in Japanese hands. The notorious Burma-Siam railway, built by Commonwealth, Dutch and American prisoners of war, was a Japanese project driven by the need fir improved communications to support the large Japanese army in Burma. During its construction, approximately 13,000 prisoners of war died and were buried along the railway. An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 civilians also died in the course of the project, chiefly forced labour brought from Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, or conscripted in Siam (Thailand) and Burma (Myanmar). Two forced labour forces, one based in Siam and the other in Burma worked from opposite ends towards the centre. The Japanese aimed at completing the railway in 14 months and work began in October 1942. The line, 424 kilometres long, was completed by December 1943. The graves of those who died during the construction and maintenance of the Burma-Siam railway (except for the Americans, whose remains were repatriated) were transferred from camp burial grounds and isolated sites along the railway into three cemeteries at Chungkai and Kanchanaburi in Thailand and Thanbyuzayat in Burma. Chungkai was one of the base camps on the railway and contained a hospital and church built by Allied prisoners of war. The war cemetery is the original burial ground started by the prisoners themselves, and the burials are mostly of men who died at the hospital. There are now 1,427 Commonwealth and 314 Dutch burials of the Second World War in this cemetery. The cemetery was designed by Colin St Clair Oakes. Details taken from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission web site.