Most of the railway was dismantled shortly after the war. Only the first 130 kilometres (81 mi) of the line in Thailand remained, with trains still running as far north as Nam Tok.
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It originated in Thailand and cut across to the Burmese war front to aid in the Japanese invasion of India. Originally called the Thailand-Burma Railway, it earned the nickname “Death Railway” because over one hundred thousand laborers died during its 16 month construction between 1942 and 1943.
Located in central Tennessee, Camp Crossville developed a reputation as one of the three worst POW camps in the United States during World War II. The first group of prisoners arrived on November 28, 1942.
The reasons for the Japanese behaving as they did were complex. The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) indoctrinated its soldiers to believe that surrender was dishonourable. POWs were therefore thought to be unworthy of respect.
The bridge depicted in the film is most definitely real. In fact, there were two: one a wooden railway bridge and the other a ferroconcrete structure built using imported bridge sections from Japanese-controlled Java. It's this structure, Bridge 277, that still stands and is a famous local tourist attraction.
Allied prisoners of war (POWs) and other forced laborers from the region built the railroad. Estimates say that nearly 300,000 people were forced to work on the railroad. Brutal treatment and disease resulted in thousands of deaths. As a result, the railway earned the nickname Death Railway.
Between June 1946 and July 1947 a total of 111 Japanese and Korean soldiers were convicted for crimes on the Burma-Thailand railway in Singapore. Death sentences were given to 32 of these men. Among those tried were some of the most feared men on the railway.