Bridge on the Kwai – Gateway to a Lost Railway

In search of the lost Thailand to Burma railway engineer Bashar Altabba discovers its tragic history. Bashar travels to Thailand to examine the extraordinary engineering techniques adopted by the Japanese in the building of the famous Thailand to Burma railway. But it isn’t long before he discovers that engineering isn’t really what his journey is all about. When former Allied prisoners of war recall their experiences of working on the railroad, Bashar comes face to face with the dark side of this amazing engineering achievement.

At the height of World War II the Japanese decided to carve a railway through the mountainous jungles of Thailand and Burma. Like the pyramids of Egypt the railway would be a testament to imperial might, built with little else than the muscle power of 250,000 men. Dutch, Australian, British, and American prisoners of war were to be forced into slavery, with more than one in five of them worked to death. There were far more victims of the railway whose deaths were to be completely unrecorded. The Allies couldn’t prevent a human tragedy, but in the last year of the war the Americans unleashed a secret weapon on the railway, their first “smart” bomb. It was to prove a spectacular success, yet the story of the daring bombing raids has remained largely unrecognised. The most famous bridge on the railway, the bridge on the River Kwai, survives today, its place in history secured by a Hollywood movie. But other remnants have faded away into the jungle. For all its fame the Bridge on the Kwai is little more than a gateway to a lost railway – this is the story of its rediscovery.

When the imperial Japanese army overran the Malay Peninsula and Burma in 1942 it humiliated the old European colonial powers. But Japan’s advance had been so rapid that its front line in Burma was now dangerously stretched and vulnerable to counter attack. Resupply by sea was too slow and exposed to allied submarines. Japan’s only hope was to cut a railway through the virgin jungles of Thailand and Burma. It would be the most audacious engineering feat in World War II – but how would they do it?

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