soubriquet •
16Nov10 12:21pm •
3
In reply to the comment by Angelo:- The rivers Kwai-Yai and Kwai-Noi meet at a confluence just south of Kanchanaburi, at which the combined rivers become the Mae-Klong. The Mekong is in Viet-Nam.
The section shown in the picture is not a part of the famous bridge, but part of the Whampo viaduct beside the river.
My father was one who came back, but many of his friends died as slave-labourers in the jungles around the railway.
The real Bridge on the River Kwai was nothing like the famous one in the film, it was an iron bridge on concrete piers. However, prisoners built numerous other bridges out of timber further up the line.
The reason the british did not build the railway when they first surveyed it was because of the predicted cost, not in money, but in human lives. The report stated that too many workers would die.
When the Imperial Japanese Army decided to build it, they used, to a great extent, the published british survey, but did not see the deaths of prisoners and natives, nor even their own troops as any sort of obstacle.
This is why it's said "a life for every sleeper" What you americans call "Railroad ties" we call sleepers.