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The Colonel of Tamarkan: Philip Toosey and the Bridge on the River Kwai

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This is the real story of Philip Toosey, the British officer who saved hundreds of lives in Japanese WW II POW camps in Thailand. You must read this to understand the true story of "The Bridge on The River Kwai".

However, this is not just the story of what Philip Toosey did in Thailand; this is a cradle-to-grave story of an extraordinary man. The author's accounts of his childhood and early adult life provide hints of the influence that his parents, his teachers, and his mentors and business associates have on his philosophy of life, a philosophy that is essential to his leadership of men in the POW camps in Thailand.

Col. Toosey was a man who acted his conscience, stood up to the Japanese and Koreans (Korean guards in the POW camps) for his men, sometimes suffering beatings for them, and gained the respect of the Japanese camp leaders as a man who demanded, without compromise, that they abide by the international agreements on treatment of POWs. He was approachable by the lowest ranks and spent much time with his men who were dying of tropical and deficiency diseases and diseases caused by lack of hygiene, i.e., cholera and dysentery.

After the war, he served on veteran boards, helped secure funding for a Liverpool hospital specializing in tropical diseases, and was finally knighted towards the end of this life. His men from the camps stayed in contact with him and he often helped them through financial and personal struggles. His death was hastened by nutritional deprivations he suffered during his imprisonment in Thailand.

He even influenced one of the Japanese guards after the war. After Toosey gave the Japanese guard, Saito, a good report with the war crimes commission, Saito was freed without having to go through the tribunals. Saito changed his life philosophy, became a Christian, and communicated with Toosey in Toosey's later years.

Sir Philip Toosey was a man in full, a man anyone would be proud to call friend, father, or countryman. If you're interested in WW II history, conditions in Japanese POW camps, and how one life can influence so many other lives in a positive and enduring manner, you must read this book.

As a young man Philip Toosey quickly learned his own strengths and weaknesses. No expert at performing complicated mental tasks himself, he became a past master at convincing others to do his bidding -- and getting them to respect and love him as a leader. This knack made him moderately successful as a businessman, but he found his true niche in the Territorial Army (U.K. version of the National Guard). His ability to whip part-time soldiers into fighting form parlayed into command of a regiment when World War II started, but his unit arrived in Belgium just in time to participate in the Dunkirk evacuation. A second command fared little better -- assigned to Singapore, his artillery unit fought well but was caught up in the general collapse in the face of the Japanese onslaught. It was here that Toosey's managerial genius emerged. Faced with unimaginably horrifying conditions and viciously irrational captors, Toosey realized the only way to keep at least some of his men alive was to preserve their discipline and spirit throughout the coming years of captivity. The famed movie "Bridge on the River Kwai" retells a small part of Toosey's exploits, with glaring discrepancies from reality (as Summers recounts in detail). The entire odyssey, encompassing many different locations with conditions even worse than those at the bridge, is a vastly greater and more affecting tale.

This book deserves far wider exposure than it has achieved to date, if the single previous Amazon.com review generated in five years is any indication. It is thoroughly researched, straightforwardly organized, and competently written and edited. The author (Toosey's granddaughter) shares insights into the marital conflicts and other problems of readjustment to civilian life that only a family member would have access to. Most of all, the book dramatizes the life of a man born to lead. The men Toosey commanded in Thailand never forgot the wit and devotion of the individual who, more than any other, shepherded them through their personal hell while sharing their suffering. In later years Toosey became director of multiple banks and corporations, but his first love was always the care and support of his army comrades, many of whom suffered intense post-traumatic stress syndrome before it had a name. (As did Toosey, not surprisingly.) For many reasons, not the least of which is a graphic revisitation of atrocities committed by the Japanese military, this book is well worth reading.

This book tells the story of the real British Colonel in charge of the British POW camp on the Death Railway in SE Asia including the building of the bridges on the Rive Kwai. The cruelty, brutality and downright sadism on the part of the Japanese guards described in this book have never been admitted by the Japanese government to their own people. Unlike the Australian government, the British government made life difficult for any British POW's to talk about events on the Death Railway or to receive disability pay.

This book and "The Forgotten Highlander" by Alistair Urquhart, another survivor of the Death Railway and subsequent slave labourer in the coal mines and factories in Japan are a must read for folk today who have either forgotten or were not aware of the nastier side of WW II in the Pacific.

The book is well researched and is a very good and interesting read. I found the book hard to put down and read well into the night to complete it. When I bought the book and noticed that the author was Philip Toosey's granddaughter I expected, and this was confirmed, that there would be a bias towards Philip Toosey in the book. As an example, as a young man he his behavior was anti-social and he cared little for the welfare of others. There is an example in the book where he started throwing a life ring at passengers in a ship, unfortunately he did not know who he was throwing the life ring at and it hit a boxer who promptly flattened him. Feeling hard done by, when Philip Toosey recovered he went looking for the boxer, I assume, to teach him the errors of his ways, at which point the boxer flattened him again. Behavior like this should have been noted as anti-social, not just glossed over as if it was the boxer's fault as he had a police record.
Concentration camps are terrible and against all the rules of civilized society. When Britain introduced them in the Boer War many women and children were interned and died of disease; the blacks who were held in separate concentration camps had an estimated 14% mortality rate. It is interesting to note that the Japanese guard Noguchi was tried and hanged after the war for the attempted murder of Bill Downer. This was at a time when the killing of unarmed prisoners and civilians by both sides has been well documented (With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa, Sledge).
Also of note is that many civilians were forced by the Japanese to work on the railway. This is interesting since the Australian Army forced PNG civilians to work on the Kokoda Trail.
Overall, once taken in perspective, a very good and well worth the time taken to