Bridge over the River Kwai

An interesting thing I learnt about the Bridge is that it wasn’t actually built over the River Kwai!  The river is really the Mae Klong but because of the popularity of the book/movie the Thai Government decided to rename that stretch of the river to Kwai (which is nearby).

Kanchanaburi is quite a nice town and naturally there is a tourist district which caters mainly to the Australian, British and Dutch travellers who come to pay their respects and see the famous bridge.

On our first afternoon we went to the Thailand-Burma Railway Centre which had a very good display starting with information about the Japanese history and politics that lead to their entry into the War and then their expansion into the South Pacific.  For those of you who don’t know – here’s the history lesson:-

The Japanese had always had ambitions to take over those areas of the Pacific held by colonial powers, namely Britain, France, Holland and the USA in the Phillippines.  They already held significant parts of China and the allies had imposed trade embargoes, subsequently restricting Japan from accessing natural resources such as rubber.  In December 1942, Japan invaded Malaya (and attacked Pearl Harbour) and by February held all of Indo-China, Malaya, Singapore, Phillippines and was working through Indonesia en route for Australia.

Now they had the resources and the power they wanted and their next challenge was to invade India.  They had troops in Burma fighting the British on their way to this but had no way of supplying them – hence the Burma-Thailand railway was proposed.

Japanese engineers proposed that the 400 odd km of railway (including numerous bridges and cuttings through mountains and on cliff sides, through uncleared jungle) would take about 5 years, however the army chiefs declared that with the huge supply of POW labour available from their other Pacific victories, a goal was set for 12 months.

About 60,000 allied POW’s and countless 100’s of 1000’s of forced Asian labourers were sent to build the railway in horrifying conditions but did manage to finish the railway in 16 months.  In some camps, the death toll was 50%.

We went to Hellfire Pass, which is a cutting through solid rock built on the side of a mountain.  The Japanese didn’t have the ability to tunnel so removing the rock was the preferred method.  The workers didn’t have proper tools and used hand picks, sledge hammers and bamboo baskets to haul out the rock.  They worked 18 hour days and completed it in 12 weeks. 

 I can tell you it was an amazing feat for men who were sick and had not had a decent meal in however long.  We were here in winter and it was boiling – it is not jungle here but straggly, prickly, bamboo scrub and over the edge is a long drop down the mountainside.  We were all dehydrated and sweating after about 20 minutes in the cutting. 

The Australian Government has erected a memorial museum at Hellfire Pass and it is very good – they do war memorials extremely well I must admit.

It was very moving for Paul and I and hopefully the kids have had a good history lesson.

Please check out the photos on Flickr.