1. THE BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAE

2. THE BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAE is, know to most people through Pierre Boulle’s novel and the movie based on it According to Boulle the finest espionage agents British Force 136 could muster risked tiller lives to plant explosives on the bridge the Allied prisoners of war built for the Japanese.

3. The actual World War II history of the “Death Railway” is somewhat different from the novel. The prisoners built several bridges at the site of the present steel bridge.

4. All three bridges were bombed not by British underground agents but by British Air Force planes. The planes flew to Thailand from bases in Ceylon U.S. Air Force planes also flew mission in the area from Chungking, in the south of China.

5. Two wooden bridges were built by British, Dutch, Australian, and American prisoners of war. One bridge was built at the site of the metal bridge; the other was approximately 100 meters downstream from the metal bridge. The remaining wooden support of the downstream bridge can be seen during the dry season.

6. The metal bridge was brought from Java by the Japanese. It was brought up to Kanchanaburi by barge and was assembled by the prisoners. Bombing of the bridge took place several times during the summer of 1945.

7. Bullet holes can still be spotted on the original spans of the bridge. But the bombs did no great damage to the steel bridge until the eighth, ninth and tenth attacks, which destroyed three spans of the bridge. The spans destroyed were the fourth through the sixth from the Kanchanaburi side. (After the war they were replaced by two larger spans.)

8. After the war, the state Railway of Thailand bought the railway from the Allies for 50 million baths. The destroyed spans were replaced by the State Railway. The repair work was done by a Japanese firm as part of war indemnity.

9. The railway bridge is still used by the Thai State Railway, which runs a passenger train to end of the lines, Saiyok No.1 Waterfall (Nam Tok) once a day. The train leaves Kanchanaburi at 6:00 a.m. and return in the evening. The track west of the Nam Tok Station was dismamtled after the war because it was unsafe.

10. “Kwae” is a Thai word meaning “the branch of a river”. The Big and Little Kwae meet at the town of Kanchanaburi. The branches join to form the Maeklong River, which flows to the Gulf of Thailand.