Bridge Over the River Kwai refers to a bridge over the river Khwae Yai in Kanchanaburi Province, Thailand. It was made famous by the 1957 British war movie Bridge on the River Kwai, which was a fictitious account based on the forced labour on the Death Railway during the Second World War.
The "River Kwai" in the story refers to Khwae Yai, which during the Second World War, was known as the Mae Klong. In 1960, the two main tributaries of the Mae Klong were named Khwae Yai and Khwae Noi.
The bridge over Khwae Yai in fact refers to two bridges. One was built of wood and another of concrete and steel. Both were constructed using prisoner-of-war labour in 1943. The two bridges were bombed by the Royal Air Force in February 1945. The prisoners-of-war were put to rebuilt the bridge, but in April the same year a second raid by U.S. Army Air Froces damaged it once again. The prisoners were again put to repair the bridges, only to have the Royal Air Force destroy it in June. The Japanese surrender after that stopped any further repair work on the bridge. The British Army dismantled close to 4 kilometers of track that was built on the Thai-Burma railroad.
After the war, the Thai government began work to repair the bridge and the railroad. Some replacement of the truss spans of the bridge were supplied by Japan as part of war reparations.
Bridge on the River Kwai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bridge_over_River_Kwai.jpg Mjanich
Looking for information on Penang? Use this Map of Roads in Penang to zoom in on information about Penang, brought to you road by road.
Disclaimer
Please use the information on this page as guidance only. The author endeavours to update the information on this page from time to time, but regrets any inaccuracies if there be any.
About this website
Dear visitor, thank you so much for reading this page. My name is Timothy Tye and my hobby is to find out about places, write about them and share the information with you on this website. I have been writing this site since 5 January 2003. Originally (from 2003 until 2009, the site was called AsiaExplorers. I changed the name to Penang Travel Tips in 2009, even though I describe more than just Penang but everywhere I go (I often need to tell people that "Penang Travel Tips" is not just information about Penang, but information written in Penang), especially places in Malaysia and Singapore, and in all the years since 2003, I have described over 20,000 places.
While I try my best to provide you information as accurate as I can get it to be, I do apologize for any errors and for outdated information which I am unaware. Nevertheless, I hope that what I have described here will be useful to you.