The Burma Railway, known infamously as 'Death Railway' was a 415km railway, built from 1942-1947 during the Second World War. The rail line was built along the Kwhae Noi River Valley to help aid the Japanese armed forces during the Burma Campaign. On the railway, more than 12000 allied prisoners of war, along with several tens of thousands of forced labourers were killed during its Construction. The conditions were horrible, with workers suffering from malnutrition, disease and were inflicted with harsh forms of torture and punishment from the Japanese. 

David Pearce was a Gunner, who served in the Royal Artillery, during World War 2, and was one of the Soldiers of Our School.

He died while building the Burma railway as a Japanese prisoner of war and was buried in the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, which was made for all those who died while building the railway. When the Japanese were defeated in the Battles of the Coral Sea, they needed new ways to support the Japanese involved in the Burma Campaign. Japan had a huge number of prisoners of war which they could use for labour, around 60,000. 30,000 of them were British - one being our own David Pearce. Between June 1942 and October 1943, those forced to work and the PoWs built about 258 miles of the railway from Ban Pong in Thailand.