Could this be the most important place to see the Anzac Day Dawn Service outside of Gallipoli? This is what it’s like to be in Hellfire Pass and the Death Railway on 25 April at the break of day.
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Christina and I wake to the buzz of our alarm and push through the flap of our tent at Hintok River Camp into the already steamy pre-dawn air.
It’s too early for the birds, but too late for the night noises. Everything is silent and still.
Before long, we’re clambering down flights of steel steps by torchlight to the floor of a deep gully known as Konyu Cutting — better named Hellfire Pass.
We’re in western Thailand in Kanchanaburi Province, which pushes against the border of Myanmar.
Known for its thick verdant rainforests, sprawling thunderous waterfalls and broad, wild rivers, Kanchanaburi is also famous for the Thai-Burma Railway (better known as the Death Railway) and its deadly role in World War II.
Anzac Day at Hellfire Pass, Thailand
Today is 25th April — Anzac Day — and Hellfire Pass is one of the most venerable sites in the world for the Anzac Day Dawn Service. It commemorates all who have been lost to military endeavour, but in particular those who fell here as prisoners of war in the 1940s.
Hellfire Pass got its name from the appalling conditions the POWs had to endure, but also from how it looked from the top of the cutting.
In the 1940s, paraffin lamps lit the way for POWs forced to toil throughout the night. From above, the flames in the ravine looked like the very mouth of hell itself.
This morning, the path is lit with similar lamps, giving the cutting an eerie air. Shadows move and jump across the rock walls, and silent figures in full military dress march next to us and before us.
Looking back, we see the high, narrow walls of Hellfire Pass pinching in above our heads, the sky beyond still full of the night’s dying darkness.
The path is wide (it had to be wide enough to fit a train down) and brings us to the end of the cutting, where it opens out into a broad shallow bowl. On one side is grandstand seating, on the other, giant rock steps act as more tiered seating, and both are filling up fast.
More and more people pour in from the pass until there is almost nowhere to stand, but only a low murmur of voices comes from this great gathering.
In the centre of it all is the cenotaph, the black angular marble memorial to those that war has taken.
Dawn Service in Kanchanaburi
Soon, the first crisp navy shadows of dawn show through the blackness in the sky and the service begins.
The Catafalque Party — a ceremonial guard of four armed service personnel — marches down the steps of the cutting and stand watch at the compass points of the cenotaph, their heads bowed, their weapons inverted. The soldiers maintain such incredible stillness, which adds to the solemnity of the moment.
From the opening prayers to the haunting Last Post and the two minutes’ silence, and the final dismount and retire of the four soldiers in the Catafalque Party, the service is one of those things that stay inside you.
An indelible memory.
After the Dawn Service
The walk back through Hellfire Pass is no less significant or symbolic, but there seems to be less tension in the already hot morning air.
Groups of military stop along the cutting to get photos together, and the chatter of the crowd is lighter and louder than before. But messages and motifs lodged in the rock of loved ones and comrades lost to the war effort cast a grim light darker than the shadows from the looming walls.
At the top of the cutting and in front of the excellent Hellfire Pass Interpretive Centre, we find breakfast is in full flow.
Stalls are turning out sausage sizzles, meat pies and Anzac biscuits, but also some outstanding local fair. We tuck into a pot of rich spicy green curry as the crowd relaxes and the happier side of this important day takes form.
Soon, Two-Up rings form and the British Club Bangkok Pipe Band – a marching band of pipers in full kilt regalia full the air with music.
As we finish up breakfast, we’re aware that back home, Australia’s Anzac Day celebrations would be in full flow and lunch would just be about to begin.
