{"id":1630,"date":"2018-12-19T21:17:56","date_gmt":"2018-12-20T05:17:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.palomar.edu\/mcastillo\/?page_id=1630"},"modified":"2025-10-15T11:02:36","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T18:02:36","slug":"thailand-the-bridge-on-the-river-kwai","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/pages.palomar.edu\/mcastillo\/thailand-the-bridge-on-the-river-kwai\/","title":{"rendered":"H- Thailand – The Bridge on the River Kwai"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(Reading for facts & comprehension)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For AI assistance – click on Artificial Intelligence (AI)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

\u00a0The true story of the Bridge on the River Kwai<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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The Japanese guards were brutal and merciless in punishing the POWs for not obeying their commands.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cOh, please!\u00a0 God please! Just stop! No more!\u00a0 No more! Please don\u2019t hit me anymore!\u201d pleaded John, a private from the Australian army.\u00a0Covering his face with his battered arms, John, a POW under the Japanese command<\/span><\/span>, was down on his knees begging for mercy and pleading to the Japanese guard to stop beating him with his bamboo stick. \u00a0Every time the guard struck his face, neck or back with the bamboo stick, he cringed in pain. \u00a0His lacerated and weak body due to the beatings and his illness caused<\/span> him to drop on his knees and go into a child pose like in yoga as he uttered in a weakening voice, \u201cPlease, guard. No more! Please don\u2019t hit me anymore!\u00a0 Please! No more!\u201d\u00a0 Hunched over like a baby crawling on his knees<\/span>, John was bleeding so badly from the back, neck, and arms.\u00a0 Blood was trickling down his arms from his back and neck.\u00a0 His face was no longer recognizable showing bamboo marks on both sides of his face and forehead.<\/p>\n

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The POWs feared the Japanese guards. They dared not disobey or challenge any orders given by them by the guards.<\/p><\/div>\n

John was totally helpless and hopeless.\u00a0 He was clinging on to life.\u00a0 Looking at John helplessly, the other POWs near him could do nothing.\u00a0 It was hard for them to continue working on the railway forced on them by their Japanese captors.\u00a0 They were frozen and quite fearful of their own fate as well.\u00a0 They could only stand at their positions and stare at John.\u00a0 \u00a0John represented what could happen to them if they disobeyed, looked at the guards the wrong way, defied them, stopped working or just gave up working from exhaustion and weakness.\u00a0 All the POWs coward from the brutal Japanese guards.\u00a0 They feared them so badly that they dared not to offend them in any way. To prevent it from happening,<\/span> they did their best to keep their arms and legs moving to show they were working on the railway despite their tired and weak bodies.\u00a0 The brutal and fearless Japanese guards, however, had no reservations of beating or striking the prisoners whenever they wish if the POWs talked back, looked at them the wrong way, or just stop working due to exhaustion and weakness. \u00a0The bamboo stick, found everywhere in the jungles of Thailand, was the guards\u2019 favorite punishment tool.\u00a0 It was strong, effective, and damaging.\u00a0 The POWs faced a life of doom and certain death.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease! No more! \u00a0Please stop! \u00a0Oh God stop! I can\u2019t take it anymore.\u00a0 Just let me die here,\u201d begged John.\u00a0 These were perhaps his dying words.\u00a0 Yet the guard was merciless.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t care.\u00a0 He seemed to enjoy beating John more as he was crawling on the ground like a baby. \u00a0John was suffering from dysentery. \u00a0Like all the other POWs, he was over overworked, exhausted and sick. \u00a0He was physically and mentally drained.\u00a0 His body and mind had given up.\u00a0 He had no more energy.\u00a0 He had already collapsed and lost consciousness. Yet the Japanese guard kept beating him harder to force him to work. \u00a0The POWs could do nothing to stop the brutality of the Japanese guards.\u00a0They understood them to be merciless and inhuman people who used their brutality to get things accomplished.\u00a0 To the Japanese, brutality was a means to efficiency and purpose.\u00a0 The POWs were the means from which they would achieve their goal – to build a railway from Thailand to Burma.\u00a0 They bathed in their glory for their superiority over the vanquished.\u00a0 During World War II they seemed unstoppable.\u00a0 At the POW camp the prisoners unwilling came to understand the Japanese brutality and mentality.\u00a0 But they absolutely had no respect for them and their cruel ways.\u00a0They knew they were at their mercy. Their only option was to obey and do their work.\u00a0 Their survival depended on how long their bodies could continue working facing the adversaries of Japanese brutality, jungle sickness, malnutrition, lack of medical care, unhealthy living conditions, and exhaustion. Thousands had already died, and John could be the next.\u00a0 The POWs understood their fate and there was nothing they could do about it.\u00a0 This was the miserable life of the POWs who became human slaves to the Japanese building the railway system from Thailand to Burma during World War II.<\/p>\n

Cruel, unjust, and inhuman events in history have happened all over the world.\u00a0 Such events like the 9\/11 World Trade Bombing in New York, the Holocaust in Germany, the atrocities committed by Khmer Rouge regime led by Pol Pot in Cambodia, and the Bataan Death March in the Philippines need to be remembered, \u00a0analyzed, understood, and scrutinized so that human civilization will learn from it and keep it from ever happening again else uncivilized, unhinged, and unchallenged countries will repeat them and cause more deaths to the helpless in the world.\u00a0One such event occurred in World War II during the building of the railway from Thailand to Burma involving 250,000 Asian laborers and 75,000 Australian, British, Dutch and American POWs.\u00a0This event has been memorialized in the 1957 movie called \u201cThe Bridge on the River Kwai.\u201d\u00a0 The real history, though, of how the railway between Burma and China was built, including the bridge, is a horrific one. \u00a0Here is their story.<\/p>\n

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Romushas, or local workers, were paid very little but helped the Japanese to complete the railroad lines.<\/p><\/div>\n

Before the outbreak of World War II<\/span>, Japan invaded French Indochinaand occupied Manchuria, Taiwan and\u00a0Korea.\u00a0–\u00a0 In December 1941 the Pacific War began with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and the invasion of Malaysia.\u00a0 By mid-1942, Japanese forces were fighting the British in Burma, their ultimate aim being an offensive against India.\u00a0 Because the Japanese had to maintain their armies in Burma, they needed a more secure supply route than the vulnerable sea-lanes between Singapore and Rangoon.\u00a0 Thus, they decided to construct a railway, 415 kilometers long, through jungle and mountain from Ban Pong in Thailand to Thanbyuzayat in Burma.\u00a0 This railway, which crossed over the river Kwai, would be used to carry their supplies as a vital link for the Japanese forces in the war.\u00a0 Since the Japanese had free labor through the captured Allied POWs and the local workers (or Romusha), they were able to build the railway and the bridge to connect Thailand and Burma. With a multi-national workforce of approximately 250,000 Asian laborers or Romushas and over 60,000 Australian, British, Dutch as well as over 15,000 American POWs (prisoners of war), the Japanese could construct the bridge as a supply rout from Thailand to Burma where they were expanding their war efforts. \u00a0Work on the line began in southern Burma and in Thailand in October 1942.\u00a0 On 16 October 1943, the two ends of the Burma-Thailand railway were joined at Konkoita in Thailand. \u00a0Within 16 months the\u00a0bridge was completed but it took another two years to complete the entire rail line. Instead of the five year predicted completion, the bridge on river Kwai, was completed in 16 months.\u00a0 How was this possible?<\/p>\n

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Romusha workers suffered more than the POWs as they had no organization and no medical care unlike the POWs.<\/p><\/div>\n

During WWII, the Japanese set up a POW camp in Indochina on an island on the banks of the Kwai River. Since they had these POW camp in Indochina, it gave them the inevitable advantage of using the labor of the POWs and the locals to construct a railway bridge over the river. \u00a0During the time of construction from 1942 until its completion and maintenance in 1945, the Japanese commanders and guards were ruthless and merciless to the prisoners who were beaten and tortured.\u00a0 If the prisoners or romusha resisted, refused to work or disobeyed the guards, they were severely beaten by the Japanese guards.\u00a0 Not only were the beatings an obstacle for the POWs, but also their exposure to harsh conditions of the jungle, the rain, the sun, and the snakes.\u00a0 There was a third devastating factor that caused the demise of the POWs and Romulas.\u00a0\u00a0The unhealthy living conditions, their meager diet, diseases from dysentery, malaria, cholera, beriberi, and pure exhaustion caused the deaths of thousands of POWs and Romulas.<\/p>\n

The Japanese had a hierarchical system of discipline in which physical punishment of lower ranked soldiers were common. If the POW were a high ranking soldiers or officers, the Japanese guards would give him more leniency and attention. \u00a0However, if a prisoner of war were of the lowest ranks, then the Japanese guards were at liberty to punish them as they wish and often brutally with a bamboo stick, their favorite punishment tool.\u00a0 On the railway, Japanese engineers exercised the most power.\u00a0 Beneath them were guards, mostly Koreans, who became renowned for their brutal, often murderous treatment of prisoners of war and the Romusha.<\/p>\n

The railroad work went on 24 hours a day with the aid of oil pot lamps and bamboo\/wood fires that were kept burning all night long.\u00a0 Looking down on the work area at night made it appear they were working in the \u201cjaws of hell\u201d. \u00a0Thus, the workers called it \u201cHellfire pass.\u201dThe relentless beatings on the POWs and laborers by the Japanese succeeded in finishing the bridge in 16 months instead of five years as expected.\u00a0 But what was the price for building this railway?\u00a0 The project cost the lives of approximately 15,000 prisoners of war and 100,000 civilians as a result of sickness, malnutrition, exhaustion and Japanese brutality.<\/p>\n

During that time there were no modern equipment available for railway work.\u00a0Instead, the earth and rock were broken by shovels, picks and chunkels (hoes), and carried away in baskets or sacks through human labor provided by the POWs and the Romushas. Embankments of stone were constructed by hand, and metal taps and sledgehammers were used to drill holes for explosives to clear the jungle.\u00a0 Most of the bridges along the railway were timber trestle bridges made from timber cut in the surrounding jungle.<\/p>\n

From April 1943, the work pace increased greatly as the Japanese strove to meet a proposed August deadline for completion.\u00a0 This was the notorious \u201cspeedo\u201d period.\u00a0 POWs and Asian laborers were punished for any type of misdemeanor or disobedience. \u00a0Guards inflicted many types of punishment as their superiors ordered.\u00a0 Punishments ranged from face slapping to severe bashings, and often men were forced to hold large rocks of heavy tools above their heads for hours at a time and were beaten if they grew too weary to carry on.\u00a0During \u2018Speedo\u2019, guards beat sick men out of hospital beds to get them to work, and on the work site men were subjected to many beatings. \u00a0When the POWS and the Romusha worked during the wet season, there were many outbreaks of cholera that claimed thousands of lives.<\/p>\n

Of the 60,000 Allied POWs who worked on the railway, 12,399 (or 20%) died.\u00a0 Between 70,000 and 90,000 civilian laborers are also believed to have died.\u00a0 The reasons for this appalling death toll were the lack of proper food, totally inadequate medical facilities and the brutal treatment of Japanese guards and railway supervisors.<\/p>\n

Rice, with left-over vegetables and dried fish, was the basic food of the POW.\u00a0 This meager diet provided by the Japanese was supplemented to some extent through trade with local people who gave bananas, green vegetables or any fruits to the Japanese soldiers and the POWs.\u00a0 However, food was always scarce, and starvation led to many diseases, like dysentery, malaria, cholera, beriberi and pellagra.\u00a0 The POWs\u2019 health weakened day by day living in appalling conditions, battling humidity, rain, snakes, and the elements, and facing malaria, dysentery, cholera and tropical ulcers.<\/p>\n

POWs lived in \u201cattap\u201d which was a woven palm thatch and bamboo huts.\u00a0 Huts were overcrowded and the cooking and sanitary arrangements at camps were very primitive.\u00a0 Lack of clothing and footwear increased the risk of illness.<\/p>\n

The Asian laborers (or \u201cRomusha\u2019\u201d as they were known) fared even worse.\u00a0 Unlike the POWs, they had no Army doctors to give them basic medical treatments. They were left to die in the work site or in the jungle from malnourishment, sickness or exposure to the elements.\u00a0 As a result 90,000 civilian laborers died building the railway.<\/p>\n

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POWs labored 14 – 18 hours a day despite their fatigue, illnesses, poor diet, and unhealthy living conditions.<\/p><\/div>\n

Ostensibly, working on the railway for prisoners of war and Romusha was a struggle and a battle for survival. To many prisoners and laborers building the railway under duress, threat of harsh punishment, poor health, living conditions, and diet, death became a normal part of everyday existence.\u00a0To continue living required every ounce of determination, inner strength, will power, and even luck. \u00a0\u00a0These brave souls kept working literally until they dropped.\u00a0 Most were determined they would live to return home. \u00a0Others struggled to live, even wracked with disease and dying, while many just gave up and wished their death could be sooner.\u00a0 Men kept working till they dropped dead on the tracks.\u00a0 Doctors fought hard for those who retained the will to live and continued caring for the dying.\u00a0 But the only way to stop the dying was to complete the railway.<\/p>\n

The mental and physical effects of their ordeal had a lingering post-war effect .\u00a0\u00a0 Many found it difficult to adjust to normal civilian life and most continued to suffer from a range of conditions attributable to poor diet and harsh treatment in captivity during the war. \u00a0They were all suffering from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) from their cruel treatment working on the rail lines.\u00a0 Many ex-prisoners of war published their diaries or wrote about their war experiences, spreading understanding of the experience and helping themselves to come to terms with its impact on their lives.<\/p>\n

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The Kanchanaburi Cemetery of POWs who died building the railway from Thailand to Burma.<\/p><\/div>\n

In honor of those who perished while building the railway from Thailand to Burma during their long captivity, the Kanchanaburi Chungkai and Thanbuyzayat cemetery was constructed in Thailand.\u00a0 It is located about 2 hours north of Bangkok.\u00a0 The cemetery, the largest of three on the Burma-Thailand Railway, is located near the site of the former \u201cKanburi\u201d Prisoner of War Base Camp through which most prisoners passed on their way to other camps.\u00a0The cemetery, designed by Colin St. Clair Oakes, was created after the war by the Army Graves Service who transferred graves into it from camp burial grounds and solitary sites all along the southern half of the railway and from other sites in Thailand.\u00a0 More than 5,000 Commonwealth and 1,800 Dutch casualties are commemorated in the cemetery, including some 300 men who died of sickness.<\/p>\n

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The Hellfire Pass was lit up all night to allow POWs worked all day and night.<\/p><\/div>\n

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The Hellfire Pass – current view of the pass through which visitors can take a 4 km walk.<\/p><\/div>\n

There are many stories of struggles and human triumphs that occurred after the building of this railway system.\u00a0 One such story is Tom, an Australian who enlisted in February 1941, when he was just 17.\u00a0 He served as a corporal with 22 Brigade Headquarters.\u00a0 Captured as Singapore fell in February 1942, Tom served a three-year stint as a POW with A-Force, working mostly on the construction of the Burma-Thailand railway.\u00a0 During this time Tom was interned in ten different camps, contracting malaria and dysentery.\u00a0 Later, at the 55 kilo \u2018hospital\u2019 camp he worked as a medical orderly tending other POWs.\u00a0Forty years after working on the railway, Tom made a decision to return to Thailand to locate Konyu cutting (Hellfire Pass).\u00a0 In 1984 he was not only successful in locating Hellfire Pass but also inspired to preserve this significant site in memory of all those who suffered and died while constructing the Burma-Thailand railway. \u00a0Tom approached the Australian government to have Hellfire Pass dedicated as an historic site.\u00a0 Initially, funding was provided to build a memorial, formally dedicated in 1987, and increase access to the site.\u00a0 In 1994, further funding was allocated to build the Hellfire Pass Memorial Museum, walking trails and information displays.\u00a0 The Museum was officially opened on April 25, 1998 and now receives over 80,000 visitors each year.<\/p>\n

The Memorial commemorates the suffering and sacrifices experienced by those Allied prisoners of war and Asian forced laborers who suffered and died on the Burma-Thailand railway from 1942-1945.\u00a0 \"\"The Memorial acknowledges the suffering and sacrifice by Allied prisoners of war elsewhere in the Pacific during WWII.\u00a0 The Memorial provides an important educational function for the people of Thailand and visitors from Australia and other countries.\u00a0The Memorial stands as an enduring symbol of the close relationship between Thailand, Australia and those nations whose citizens worked on the Burma-Thailand railway.<\/p>\n

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A. \u00a0Learning new vocabulary<\/strong><\/em> – Choose the correct meaning of these words from the story.<\/p>\n

Rubric for this assignment<\/p>\n

0 – 1 \u00a0 mistake \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 A. \u00a0Student understands the vocabulary well.<\/p>\n

2 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0mistakes \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 B – \u00a0 Student has little problems understanding the vocabulary.<\/p>\n

3 – \u00a0mistakes \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0C. \u00a0– \u00a0 Student show signs of understanding the vocabulary.<\/p>\n

4. \u00a0 mistakes \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 D. \u00a0 \u00a0– \u00a0 Student has significant problems understanding the vocabulary.<\/p>\n