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Through the Valley of the Kwai (also published under the titles Miracle on the River Kwai and To End All Wars [1] ) is the autobiography of the Scottish captain Ernest Gordon, and recounts the experiences of faith and hope of the men held in a Japanese prisoner of war labour camp, building the Burma Railway during World War II.
Dusty Miller was a British prisoner of war (POW) in Thailand conscripted to work on the Burma Railway during the last three and a half years of World War II. His life and death is attested to in Gordon's book. Miller was a gardener from Newcastle and a Methodist. Like Gordon, he was in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, but was drafted into the Military Police or "Red Caps". He became known to Ernest Gordon during a period early on in their three and a half year incarceration under the Japanese. Gordon was seriously ill, and was attended to by Miller and "Dinty" Moore, a Roman Catholic POW. In their care, Gordon unexpectedly recovered. Through the examples of Miller and Moore, the recovery of Gordon, and the self-sacrificing examples of numerous others, both faith and hope were restored to many soldiers in the death camps.
At the war's end, Gordon was the sole survivor of the three. Upon liberation, he sought news of his friends. He found that Miller had been martyred two weeks before the war's end, crucified by a Japanese guard because of his faith. [2]
Near the end of the war, Dinty Moore was being transferred on a Japanese vessel that should have had Red Cross markings because it was a POW ship, not a warship. An Allied submarine sank it, not knowing that it was a POW ship. [3]
The book was also adapted into a film in 2001 under the title To End All Wars .
The Bridge on the River Kwai is a 1957 epic war film directed by David Lean and based on the 1952 novel written by Pierre Boulle.
The Burma Railway, also known as the Siam–Burma Railway, Thai–Burma Railway and similar names, or as the Death Railway, is a 415 km (258 mi) railway between Ban Pong, Thailand, and Thanbyuzayat, Burma. It was built from 1940 to 1943 by civilian laborers impressed or recruited by the Japanese and prisoners of war taken by the Japanese, to supply troops and weapons in the Burma campaign of World War II. It completed the rail link between Bangkok, Thailand, and Rangoon, Burma. The name used by the Japanese Government was Tai–Men Rensetsu Tetsudō (泰緬連接鉄道), which means Thailand-Burma-Link-Railway.
Hellfire Pass is the name of a railway cutting on the former Burma Railway in Thailand which was built with forced labour during the Second World War, in part by Allied prisoners of war. The pass is noted for the harsh conditions and heavy loss of life suffered by its labourers during construction. It was called Hellfire Pass because the sight of emaciated prisoners labouring by burning torchlight resembled a scene from Hell.
Kanchanaburi is a town municipality in the west of Thailand and part of Kanchanaburi Province. In 2006 it had a population of 31,327. That number was reduced to 25,651 in 2017. The town covers tambons Ban Nuea and Ban Tai and parts of Pak Phraek and Tha Makham, all of Mueang Kanchanaburi District, and parts of tambon Tha Lo of Tha Muang District. Kanchanaburi lies 123 km west of Bangkok.
The River Kwai, more correctly Khwae Noi or Khwae Sai Yok, is a river in western Thailand. It rises to the east of the Salween in the north–south spine of the Bilauktaung range near, but not over the border with Burma. It begins at the confluence of Ranti, Songkalia and Bikhli Rivers. At Kanchanaburi it merges with the Khwae Yai River to form the Mae Klong River, which empties into the Gulf of Thailand at Samut Songkhram.
To End All Wars is a 2001 war film starring Robert Carlyle, Kiefer Sutherland and Sakae Kimura and was directed by David L. Cunningham. The film is based on Through the Valley of the Kwai, an autobiography of Ernest Gordon, then a Scottish Captain, later the Presbyterian Dean of the Princeton University Chapel.
The Bridge over the River Kwai is a novel by the French novelist Pierre Boulle, published in French in 1952 and English translation by Xan Fielding in 1954. The story is fictional but uses the construction of the Burma Railway, in 1942–1943, as its historical setting, and is partly based on Pierre Boulle's own life experience working in Malaysia rubber plantations and later working for allied forces in Singapore and Indochina during World War II. The novel deals with the plight of World War II British prisoners of war forced by the Imperial Japanese Army to build a bridge for the "Death Railway", so named because of the large number of prisoners and conscripts who died during its construction. The novel won France's Prix Sainte-Beuve in 1952.
Ernest Gordon was the former Presbyterian dean of the chapel at Princeton University. A native of Greenock, Scotland, and the son of James Gordon and Sarah R MacMillan, as an officer in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, Gordon spent three years in a Japanese prisoner of war (POW) camp during the Second World War. He chronicled his experiences on the Death Railway in his book Through the Valley of the Kwai. The book served as an inspiration to the film To End All Wars, where he was portrayed by actor Ciarán McMenamin. The film opened in 2001, and the film's DVD release, which came out after his passing, dedicated the film to his memory.
Thanbyuzayat is a town in the Mon State of south-eastern Myanmar. It is the administrative center for Thanbyuzayat Township. Thanbyuzayat is about 64 kilometres (40 mi) south of Mawlamyine (Moulmein) and 24 kilometres (15 mi) south-east of Kyaikkami (Amherst) and Setse beach.
Return from the River Kwai is a 1989 British film directed by Andrew McLaglen and starring Edward Fox, Chris Penn and Timothy Bottoms.
Takashi Nagase was a Japanese military interpreter during World War II. He worked for the Kempeitai at the construction of the Burma Railway in Thailand, and spent most of his later life as an activist for post-war reconciliation and against Japanese militarism. He made over a hundred visits to Thailand, and from the 1970s, arranged several meetings between former Allied prisoners of wars and their Japanese captors, in efforts to promote peace and understanding. In 1993, he met and reconciled with British former POW Eric Lomax—in whose torture sessions Nagase had been involved—an encounter retold in Lomax's 1995 autobiography The Railway Man.
Major Joseph Gordon Smith was a soldier who served with the 2nd Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and the Royal Army Ordnance Corps. Smith served in Malaya during the Second World War and survived being held as a prisoner of war by the Japanese. During his imprisonment, Smith experienced many hardships and was forced to work on the Burma Railway, an experience which was illustrated by the film The Bridge on the River Kwai.
Major Arthur Moon was an Australian army doctor who saved the lives of dozens of Far East prisoners of war as the Thailand-Burma Railway was being constructed during World War II.
The Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery is a prisoner of war cemetery for victims of Japanese imprisonment who died building the Death Railway in Burma. It is at the Burmese end of the Second World War railway construction, in Thanbyuzayat, 65 kilometres south of Mawlamyine (Moulmein). Thanbyuzayat is considered the terminus of the Death Railway, and is where it connected with the Burmese main line.
Fergus Gordon Anckorn was a British soldier who, as starting as the conjurer Wizardus at age 18, was the longest-serving member of the Magic Circle.
Ernest Warwick (1918-2009) was a British author, prisoner of war and survivor of the Burma to Siam death railway.
Tamarkan was a Japanese prisoner of war work camp during World War II. The camp was initially used for the construction of the bridge over the Khwae Yai or Mae Klong River and not the River Kwai. The camp was located about five kilometres from the city of Kanchanaburi. In November 1943, Tamarkan was turned into a convalescent camp and hospital. By 1945, the camp was gone.
The Wang Pho Viaduct, is a railway bridge made of wooden trestles which follow the cliff along the Khwae Noi River. The Wang Pho viaduct was constructed by allied prisoners of war of the Japanese during World War II as part of the Burma Railway. It is sometimes referred as the Double Viaduct, because of a nearby smaller viaduct. The viaduct is still in use and can be reached from the Wang Pho railway station.
Konkoita is a former prisoner of war camp in the Sangkhla Buri District of the Kanchanaburi Province, Thailand. Located near the Karen village of Ban Kroeng Kruai, it was the location where the two sides of the Burma Railway met on 17 October 1943 at 262.87 kilometres from the starting point in Thailand. Konkoita and neighbouring villages were flooded in June 1984 by the construction of the Vajiralongkorn Dam. The population in the area was resettled several kilometres from the original villages.
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