I’ve never seen the movie, but I’ve seen the bridge! When Japan invaded Thailand in the early 1940s, it captured thousands of British, Australian, Polish, and Americans and forced them (along with thousands of Asian laborers as well) to build a railway between Burma and Thailand in order to create a supply route. So after lunch on a raft down the river and under the newly-constructed bridge that spans the River Kwai, we went through the JEATH War Museum.
This museum featured paintings, news clippings, and photographs attached to the natural walls under the open-air thatched roof hallway. JEATH is an acronym for all the nations involved building this “Death Railway” (Japan, England, Australia, Thailand, and Holland). Included were photographs of emaciated men wearing loincloths, who were literally being worked to death. Some of the POWs were very sick and still forced to work, even with massive sores on their bodies. The only thing they ever had to eat was rice with a little salt. No meat at all. The Japanese had never signed the Geneva Conventions, and they did not feel obliged to respect the human rights of prisoners of war.
We later made our way to the Hellfire Pass museum, an establishment dedicated to POWs who had lost their lives building the bridge during WWII. After taking off our shoes, we entered the museum, donned our audio guides, and watched a short video clip. This was like the other museum, but focused mainly on Hellfire Pass—evidently the section of the railway that had the most horrific working conditions due to the rough terrain.
The museum revealed photographs of sick and injured men being forced to work, and dozens of faded yellow letters penned by soldiers were protected behind glass cases, along with the generic fill-in-the-blank forms wives received to hear of their husband’s status as a POW. They were disturbing to read. Tropical ulcers and cholera plagued the men and some literally worked until they dropped dead of exhaustion. A POW cemetery with almost 7000 graves is memorialized in Kanchanaburi.
After slipping our feet into our shoes again, we walked down the stairs for 10 minutes until we made it to the bottom to walk on the original railing of Hellfire Pass. I did not go very far because at one point all walkers were required to carry long sticks to push snakes off the path ahead of them.
After slipping our feet into our shoes again, we walked down the stairs for 10 minutes until we made it to the bottom to walk on the original railing of Hellfire Pass. I did not go very far because at one point all walkers were required to carry long sticks to push snakes off the path ahead of them.