The Bridge On The River Kwai, Incidentally

This really is one of the bridges that the Japanese built to supply their troops in Burma through the port of Bangkok.  The rounded sections are original; the longer, flat topped sections in the middle were built after the war to replace sections destroyed by American bombing.  Therein lies a tale.

It's not that Thailand wanted to declare war on America and England in 1941, in fact they had zero interest in that course of action.  When push came to shove though, the Japanese wouldn't take no for an answer.  So after a few days of terror bombing and a serious invasion by Japanese troops, the Thais decided that a Friendship Treaty was a better way to go.  Thailand retained a big measure of autonomy internally, and was not required to supply troops for the Japanese war effort, but they were forced to declare war on America and England.

This is a mural from the war museum near the above bridge.  (Not the bridge in the movie, that one was further up the river near Burma, but another bridge on the same railway.)  Those planes bombing the bridge are supposed to be American, although by the shape of them and the red star markings they look more like Russian Yak 9's.  We bombed this railway in many locations, including in Bangkok itself, in the Bangkok Noi neighborhood where the train terminus still is.  We bombed the port facilities too.

Here's the punchline: somehow America always comes out as the bad guy in all of this.  We were bombing the Japanese war effort, and Thailand had declared war on us first so you'd think we were in the clear for a little bombing.  The Japanese bombed them too, and shot up the place, but they usually get a pass.  And why all of the residual hostility?  After the war, the English wanted to hang Thailand out to dry with the Japanese, but we said no, we're just going to let it drop, we forced the English to go along.  Where's the love?