In Dunedin's Andersons Bay Cemetery is a stone with a few names and a brief epitaph for an absent family member. Jack Forrest McKenzie was born in Dunedin and was a Private in the Federated Malay States Volunteer Force, a Territorials-type force which was mobilised in 1941 to defend the Malayan Peninsula against the invading Japanese forces. Jack's unit was part of the Line of Communications Brigade and it is likely they never made contact with the enemy. But they were part of the Army and, as such, became prisoners of war when they disbanded in December 1941. When the Japanese decided to build a railway through Thailand to support their drive west through Burma towards India Jack was one of the prisoners who were used as slave labour on the project. It was brutally hard work under punishing conditions with starvation rations.
I can find no cause of death for Jack. The most common one for those men was starvation or exhaustion. Sometimes they were beaten to death by guards for minor infringements or disobedience. Some slowly succumbed to vitamin deficiency or tropical diseases.
Jack is buried with other victims of the Burma Railway in Chungkai Cemetery, Thailand. He was 37 years old.
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| From the NZ War Graves Project |
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