Burma. c. October 1945. Informal group portrait in front of a motorised rail car used for ...

Burma. c. October 1945. Informal group portrait in front of a motorised rail car used for transporting the War Graves Commission survey party on daily sorties from their base. Sergeant Lloyd Rankin (War Graves Commission) is shown with the Japanese crew, who are, left to right: Nagase Takashi (interpreter), Lance Corporal Iwamoto, and Private Hayashi (rear), both rail car drivers from the 5th Railway regiment, stationed at Apalon, Burma, and an unidentified steam train driver. Photographed by the War Graves Commission survey party whose task was to locate prisoner of war (POW) cemeteries and grave sites along the Burma-Thailand railway. They also took the opportunity to recover equipment and documents which had been secretly buried, under instructions from senior POW officers, in the graves of deceased POWs.