Sunday, October 17, 1943. The Burma Railway completed.
The German surface raider Michel was torpedoed and sunk off of Japan by the USS Tarpon. On the same day the German's lost the U-540, U-631 and U-841 in the Atlantic.
The Burma Railway, constructed with Asian slave labor and Allied POWs, was completed.
Tamils working on the bridge.
The railway may be best remembered today due to the fairly inaccurate movie, The Bridge On the River Kwai, which is nonetheless a great movie.
POW illustration of the construction of Bridge 227 across the Kwai.
A second concrete bridge replaced the original wooden bridge shortly after its construction. It was destroyed by the RAF in February 1945. Shortly after the war, most of the original railway was dismantled and only the original 81 miles remains in use.
Chicago began running its subway for the first time.
