Shadows Over Siam: SBS and RAF Raids and Forgotten Thai Deaths

 

Shadows Over Siam: SBS and RAF Raids and Forgotten Thai Deaths

In the twilight of World War II, Thailand became a covert battleground—its beaches, railways, and harbours targeted by British Special Boat Service (SBS) and Combined Operations Pilotage Parties (COPP) - both units key to the success of the DDay landings. 

The most daring missions unfolded in Phuket, where Operation Baboon and Operation Copyright (March 1945) sought to reconnoitre beaches for a possible Allied landing. Both missions ended in blood: three of seven SBS men killed in the first raid, all six presumed dead in the 2nd raid, and Operation Roger—the planned invasion—abandoned.

But Phuket was not alone. 

British and American forces also targeted Bangkok, Kanchanaburi, and Songkhla, striking Japanese command centres and rail infrastructure. The RAF and USAAF lost an estimated 50–70 aircraft over Thai territory in over 100 raids between 1942–1945, including Blenheims, Liberators, Mustangs, and B-29s. 

Targets included BKK port and the Makkasan railyards to cut supplies from Vichy Indochina and occupied SG/Malaya. At least 200 civilians are estimated to have died.

These losses resulted in roughly 180–250 aircrew deaths, with 40–60 captured as POWs, many sent to Kanchanaburi and Thanbyuzayat camps along the Death Railway. Another 30–50 were listed as missing in action, their fates never confirmed.

The Bridge on the River Kwai, built by POWs and Asian labourers, became a symbolic target in cutting Japanese supplies to the India front—bombed repeatedly, including a tragic friendly fire incident in November 1944 that killed 19 Allied prisoners.

These raids weren’t just tactical. Thailand’s terrain became a canvas for sabotage, resistance, and colonial pressure. Yet post-war memory sanitised the trauma: the Kwai bridge became a tourist site, the SBS dead faded from British archives, and Thai civilian casualties were never fully counted.

Today, revisiting these operations means rupturing the silence—properly warfare. The shadows over Siam still linger waiting to be archived and reckoned with.

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