Taukkyan war cemetery mayanmar

[Little Jo]

Hi All

I just returned from a 3 week trip to Malaysia and Myanmar with friends. We made it a priority to visit the Taukkyan War Cemetery in Myanmar (Formally Burma) about 35 kilometres from Yangon (Formally Rangoon). We were surprised how beautifully the cemetery was being maintained. The Taukkyan War Cemetery is the largest of the three war cemeteries in Myanmar, It was started in 1951 to consolidate the graves from four remote battlefield cemeteries, all of which were extremely difficult to access for friends and relatives.

The different battlefield cemeteries have been kept distinct within the grounds of the Taukkyan site. Numerous other bodies were retrieved from smaller remote jungle sites and also brought here, but the continuing conflict in Burma after the war delayed the work of the Army Graves Service. More graves are still being found, but so far the cemetery contains 6,374 bodies of Commonwealth soldiers. Of these 867 are unidentified. The central pillars are the Rangoon Memorial, bearing the names of 27,000 men who died during the campaigns in Burma and whose body was never retrieved, along with the inscription “they died for all free men”.

We all agreed our visit to the Taukkyan War Cemetery was one of the highlights of our holiday in Malaysia and Myanmar and well worth the visit, though hard to access as Myanmar which is a poor country is only just opening up to tourism and not yet up to the standard we are used to like those found in more affluent Asian countries. It was a visit I had planned to do for a long time.

Cheers

Tony

[Little Jo]

Hi All

The following photographs show the pillars containing the names of 27,000 servicemen whose remains have never been found. One photo shows flowers and photos of one of the men left by relatives who recently visited the cemetery.

Cheers

Tony