Soon after the completion of the first 50 Kms of the Railway, a few thousand British POWs under the command of LtCol Philip Toosey were moved from NongPlaDuk to Kanchanaburi and tasked with building the wooden bridge across the MaeKlong River. All things considered, they had a fairly benign POW experience. Only a few men reportedly died during that effort, most from injuries rather than disease or deprivation. This is, however, one event that claimed 6 lives. Oddly, it involved the single American citizen among the UK POWs.
Captain Eugene Cowles Pomeroy Jr., born on March 10, 1912, in Washington, D.C., was an American who served in the British Indian Army during World War II. Before the war, he worked as a journalist for the China Weekly Review in Shanghai. In 1941, he was commissioned as a captain in the 2nd Battalion, 12th Frontier Force Regiment. He was captured by Japanese forces on February 3, 1942, at Johore Bahru, Malaya.
Captain Pomeroy attempted to escape with Lieutenant D. Howard and four others from the Kanchanaburi camp in JAN 43 but was recaptured by Thai police and handed over to the Japanese. After being tortured, the two officers were forced to dig their own graves and were executed on 22 FEB 43.
The other four men involved in this escape attempt were:
| Private | 6140958 | ERNEST | CLEAVER |
| Private | 6141853 | JOHN | CROKER |
| Private | 6142762 | NORMAN | DORVAL |
| Private | 6140498 | CHARLES | RICHARDSON |
All of these men were assigned to the work party assigned to construct the wooden bridge at ThaMaKam under the command of LtCol Toosey. Pomeroy was reportedly a trusted member of Toosey’s senior staff.
CWGC records indicate that Lt. Howard’s remains were found in the “Main ThaMakam” cemetery and re-interred at Don Rak. The four enlisted men, are buried at the ChungKai CWGC cemetery in common graves (11. A. 07-10). Such a reburial indicates that their individual remains could not be identified although they were logged as belonging to these 4 men. They had been re-captured and executed earlier in February. Their remains are documented to have been recovered “on the Kanburi-LatYa Road” and re-buried at ChungKai in 1948.
Captain Pomeroy is commemorated on Column 229 of the Singapore Memorial. But his actual story is more complicated. It is said that in the 1950s his brother came to Thailand to try to locate his remains. It is not quite clear why his remains had not been recovered along with those of Lt. Howard in the post-war recovery phase. Survivor accounts state that the two of them had been taken from the camp bound together and were forced to dig their own graves before being shot by the guards.
Using survivor accounts and some local men who said that they had witnessed the execution, his remains were located and repatriated to the family burial plot in Hopewell, New Jersey.
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It is somewhat baffling as to how Lt. Howard’s remains were recovered and interred at Don Rak whereas CPT Pomeroy’s were not. Seemingly they were buried side by side at the time of their execution. Interestingly enough, the official CWGC records of the site of recovery (original burial place) was the Main ThaMaKam cemetery (aka Cem #4) just to the NW of the camp/ bridges. Eye witness accounts say that the two men were made to dig their own graves then were executed together and buried. When and how Lt. Howard’s would have been moved a few hundred meters to Cemetery #4 is completely unexplained.