One of the greatest things about the internet is that it allows one to do one's own research and learn things one could really never learn otherwise. A case in point is the true story behind this popular novel and movie. I've seen at least two productions which purported to tell the "true story" but each of them left out important details.
The real "true story" is far more fascinating than either the movie or the documentaries would lead one to believe.
The wierd thing is there is no one website (at least not that I could find) where the
entire true story is told. You have to research a couple of different things, one being the Thailand-Burma railway - better known as the "death railway" - and another being Lieutenant Colonel Philip Toosey, the real man behind the film's Colonel Nicholson.
One fact you will learn right away is that the cruelty and torture with which the POWs were driven to complete this railway is only hinted at in the film. Of over 60,000 allied POWs who were forced to work on the jungle tracks, some 16,000 died during construction.
Turns out there really was a Colonel Saito who was something of a Schindler-type character, and he really was in charge of the construction of the two Kwai river bridges. He never subjected Toosey to any 'hotbox'. Saito believed that if he treated his prisoners as humanely as possible he'd get better work out of them. By one account he even went so far as to use part of his own salary to bribe other officials to see to it that his prisoners received their Red Cross care packets. Thanks to that humane treatment Colonel Toosey testified
for the defense at Saito's war crimes trial (Saito and Toosey maintained a friendship for many years after the war).
The jungle portion of the Thailand-Burma railway was composed largely of some 140 bridges, the Kwai bridge and one other being the longest and most elaborate. The movie implies that Col. Nicholson and his men designed a bridge superior to what the Japanese had designed. That is not true; the Japanese designs were used and were entirely adequate.
One essential fact of the true story seems to me to be more significant than any single source of information which I can find would imply: that the only still-surviving bridges from that death railway are the Kwai bridge and a handful of other bridges in that region (and btw, one of those bridges really does have a plaque at its base crediting its contruction to POW labor). All of the other bridges had to be rebuilt after the war. A number of sources point out that the first Kwai river bridge was made of wood, and upon its completion the British POWs who built it were moved just downriver to construct another, steel bridge (the movie does hint at this). Colonel Toosey attempted to undermine construction of the first bridge by deliberately infecting the wood with termites. He was apparently unable (or, perhaps?, unwilling?) to do anything to undermine the steel bridge.
I haven't linked to any sites because, in order to get all of this info, you have to consult quite a number of different sites. If you'll do the searches I mentioned above, and pay particular attention to hits from PBS and the BBC, you'll be able to follow the same trail I did to gather all of the info.
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