David Pearce

Service number: 1459957

Rank: Gunner

Battalion: Royal artillery

Date of Death: 04/07/1943 Age 26

Place of Burial: Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, Thailand

Address: Treharris, Glamorgan 

Other Information: He was the son of David and Ruby May Pearce

He died while building the Burma railway as a Japanese prisoner of war and the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery is one 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. During this time the workers suffered from disease, malnutrition and poor treatment as well as harsh punishment and torture from the Japanese.