RETURN TO THE RIVER KWAI (XV)

Boulle died in 1994 and thus cannot speak for himself..In fairness to him, it must be said that his book was written as a novel , a work of fiction .It is not a historical record ,and we cannot apply the same criteria of factual accuracy.to it. Boulle was a prisoner of the Vichy French ,but he never worked on the railway and his knowledge of it was gleaned from talking to survivors.John Stewart says that it is his book and the film that have ensured that this whole dreadful period is known about , all over the world . It could so easily have slipped into obscurity. To the eternal credit of Boulle and Lean , people know about this place and what took place here.

This is why thousands visit Kanchana Buri every year.

RETURN TO THE RIVER KWAI (XIV)

In the film,the Japanese are portrayed as technologically incompetent ,incapable of building a bridge.Stewart dismisses this as nonsense - the Japanese army had many capable engineers.And he derides the notion of a British officer openly collaborating with the Japanese – his fellow officers would not have stood for it.This collaborationist aspect of the film has caused anguish to many other veterans too. We worked for them ,yes we did , but we did not bend over backwards to help them , they say. The British officer ,Philip Toosey, the senior British officer at Kanchana Buri , was never a collaborator.He even encouraged his men to sabotage the bridge by putting wood-eating white ants into the main structure.


Stewart also says that the prisoners were dying like flies and were often buried close to where they had fallen.Those who died of cholera were instantly cremated , to prevent the spread of the disease.Improvisation was the order of the day .Thus, a grave marked ‘Johnny’ may not necessarily contain the remains of someone called ‘Johnny’ The situation was far more confused and disordered than that, and not at all as neat and tidy as the cemeteries in Kanchana Buri portray it today.

ภาพจาก WIKIPEDIA

RETURN TO THE RIVER KWAI (XIII)

And ,according to John Stewart , a prisoner who worked as an interpreter for the Japanese and as a technical advisor to David Lean, the total horrible reality of it all was not shown in the film.Stewart had personally witnessed beatings administered on prisoners by Japanese guards ,and had seen friends and colleagues die of dreadful diseases. By 1957, the Japanese were attempting to join the civilized community of nations again, and there were pressing political reasons why they should not be portrayed as vicious savages.Stewart accuses Lean of pulling his punches in this respect ,of softpedalling the brutality .Lean’s film is ‘fiction’,says Stewart.It is all very well to say this, but Lean was trying to make a film that would entertain people.The truth in war is ,sometimes ,too hard to bear.Stephen Spielberg admitted doing the same when making ‘Schindler’s List’ , portraying the Nazi death camps. There are limits to what you can show on a cinema screen ,and film directors are bound by them.

ภาพจาก Kanchanaburi-info.com

RETURN TO THE RIVER KWAI (XII)

The name of the river is also incorrect.The Thais call the river ‘Khwae Yai’which merely means ‘the large tributary’, and is not a name as such.The word for ‘tributary’ is pronounced ‘Kway’. In 1942 ,says Dutch survivor Neil Evers, the river was known as the Mae Klong.and was only renamed Khwae Yai well after the war. Near the railway bridge at Kanchana Buri ,is an area where Thai farmers brought their buffalo to drink and bathe.Now the Thai word for ‘buffalo’ is ‘kwai’ , and this may be the origin of the title of Boulle’s novel.Did he mix up the two Thai words?

As mentioned before,there were two bridges ,not one,and the railway bridge was destroyed by allied bombing in 1945 - not by a British commando unit as portrayed in the film.The bridges and the railway were fully operational from October 1942 until February ,1945.They were then subjected to relentless allied bombing. from February 1945 onwards, finally being put out of action in June of that year.

ภาพจาก WIKIPEDIA

RETURN TO THE RIVER KWAI (XI)

All these figures are rough estimates..They all have the symbol next to them,meaning plus or minus.The plain truth is that nobody really knows exactly how many people died building the railway.The Japanese kept accurate records of their British, Australian and Dutch prisoners , plus the number of deaths and when they occurred, but they destroyed all records of their Asian prisoners.However,it is abundantly clear that the vast majority of the railway workforce was Asian ,vastly outnumbering all the other nationalities.They included Malayans (Tamils ,Malays and Chinese) ,Burmese , Javanese , Singaporean Chinese and Aminese. They had a higher mortality rate than the white men.. About half this Asian workforce perished ,whereas only about one-fifth of the white men died.But these Asians have been forgotten.They do not figure in the film or in the book. No well-trimmed cemeteries exist for them ! No memorials commemorate their sacrifice!

RETURN TO THE RIVER KWAI (VIII)

The ‘Death Railway’ was built to facilitate the Japanese conquest of British India. The invasion of India , ‘the jewel in the crown’ of Britain’s eastern colonies , would be the death blow to Britain’s Asian Empire .To do this ,the Japanese had to move men and munitions from Singapore to the Indian frontier with Burma.By mid-1942 , they had lost control of the sea , so it had to be done by land.. They planned a railway to run through 415 km. (258 miles) of mainly dense jungle and rugged terrain , from Nong Pladuk near Bangkok to Thanbyuzayat in Burma This line could link up with the Malayan and Burmese rail systems to form a continuous rail link from India to Singapore.The Japanese were working to a tight schedule.The sooner the railway was completed,the sooner the invasion of India could start.The work was started in June,1942 and completed in October,1943.After the fall of Singapore and Indonesia,they had many prisoners of war. Let them build it! According to the Japanese Bushido military code ,the Allied soldiers had behaved dishonourably and shamefully , by choosing to surrender rather than fighting to the death. Therefore they were not worthy of respect and could be treated like animals..The Japanese were not signatories of the Geneva Convention and thus did not feel bound by its terms.The Japanese watchword was “Speedo” This meant completing the bridge as quickly as possible, regardless of the cost in human life.

I have recently watched Lean’s film again , and regard it as a classic.

RRETURN TO THE RIVER KWAI (VI)

The numerous cemeteries are immaculately maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.Small, flat ,black gravestones lie in perfect rows on beautifully manicured lawns.Some of the epitaphs rend the heart.On one is inscribed , “ If I could have just one wish ,Johnny,I’d want you back with us again” ,written by a grieving mother.” Another says “My son has found an eternal resting place”There is also a separate cemetery for the Japanese.Only small Asian men with grey hair,trilby hats and large cameras visit it.A few miles up the road is ‘Hellfire Pass’.where the Australians were.They were given the task of cutting through solid rock, using the most basic of tools.They worked eighteen-hour shifts and forty per cent of them perished.You can still see drill bits,nails and saw blades embedded in the rocks. In the museum nearby, there are photographs of skeletal survivors , ribcages clearly visible , looking more dead than alive. They are smiling bravely, glad no doubt to have survived their dreadful ordeal. Many are resting on crutches ,displaying the stumps of amputated legs.