Secrets of the Dead: Bridge on the River Kwai
This is a very rough and upsetting documentary on the making of the Burmese railroad. Nothing is spared; there is a lot of discussion of the brutalities of the Japanese guards, the suffering of the prisoners-of-war and Asians used to make the railroad, and the incredible number of deaths involved in its construction.
The railroad was built through 260 miles of jungles and mountains in Thailand and Burma. Allied prisoners of war were used to build the railroad. 1 out of every 5 involved died.
The bomb used to attack the railroad after it was built. The movie terms it the “first smart bomb.”
The bridge on the River Kwai still exists.
The railroad was to help supply Japanese advanced troops. They troops couldn't be effectively resupplied by ships since US submarines were taking a heavy toll of Japanese shipping.
The one surviving trestle on what still remains of the railway. The movie says some 100,000 men died during the construction of the railroad. Apparently at least some of the designs the Japanese used were taken from a US railroad-construction manual.
The 260-mile route of the railroad. The white dots are camps for the men that were built along the route. The entire railroad was to be constructed at the same time rather than start at one end and work to the other end. Malaria and dysentery were just two of the diseases that the men got.
Although the railroad ran alongside the river, at one point the prisoners had to cut a pass through solid rock. It's called Hellfire Pass. The movie says hundreds of men died during its construction. One of the men along on the journey is one of the Japanese that was an engineer on the project.
The film then talks about the battle of Midway and how, before the railroad really got started, the tide had begun to turn against Japan. One result was that the Japanese need for the railroad increased (as they lost the chance to ship supplies by sea), and they made the men work longer hours. This increased the death rate among the men. One of the survivors describes just how cruel the Japanese soldiers were. The Japanese engineer that worked there said that, on one particularly difficult part, there were no prisoners-of-war used, but a picture that he himself took at the time apparently shows Australian prisoners-of-war being used on that spot.
The engineer says he regrets that men died while building the railroad, but “that is the reality of war.”
As of mid-1943, allied bombers were trying to bomb bridges on the railroad track, but bombing from 5,000 feet resulted in few direct hits. (They were trying to hit a target about four feet wide.)
This is an experimental bomb that carries a TV camera that beams images back to a control plane that can guide the bomb's movements. The view looks just like photos from the Gulf wars of guided bombs, although much fuzzier. The camera, though, was so big that there wasn't room for major explosives. A bomb called Azon became the allies first actual smart-bomb.
A more successful bomb was radio-controlled. The bomb could be moved left or right, which made hitting thin, vertical targets easier. The show has actual military footage of the earliest tests of the bomb.
One of the present-day guys gets the other one to understand just how hard it was on the prisoners when he has the guy try to carry a 20 pound rock up a steep embankment and points out the prisoners had to do the same thing literally millions of times.
Some of the sadistic practices of the Japanese guards are discussed. It doesn't make easy listening or viewing.
Apparently, construction of the bridge on the River Kwai itself only resulted in the death of nine prisoners.
At one camp where a bridge was to be built across a swift-moving river, 1200 of 1600 men died. Other men died on the 18-day march to get to the camp. They also talk about regular beatings, and how some men were driven to work by the use of wire whips.
Footage of an interview with the director of the camp is shown, and he claims the men died because the rice they ate disagreed with them so they ate less, got weaker, and got cholera.
They stand on the site of a former camp where over 5000 died. These were not prisoners-of-war, though, but were natives of the area who were used as laborers by the Japanese. Some 90,000 Asian (Burmese, Mayalasian, etc)men, women, and children died working on the railroad.
Late in the war the bridge on the River Kwai itself was bombed, knocking out sections and supporting piers.
Main Index
Japan main page
Japanese-American Internment Camps index page
Japan and World War II index page
|
