Bridge on the River Kwai

"Bridge on the River Kwai" is just one example of how prisoners of war never stopped fighting the enemy. The movie is based on the experiences of prisoners of war who were forced to construct a railroad for the Japanese - "Death Railroad".

The prisoners were abused by their Japanese oppressors and beaten brutally. They worked 18 hour days to construct a railway that would be used to transport Japanese goods and troops from Bangkok to Burma. The soldiers were starving and became skin and bones. They worked in temperatures over 120 degrees. They contracted diseases such as malaria and dysentery. Thousands of soldiers died during the construction process, mostly British.

They had no contact with the outside and were not told what day it was, giving them the impression that the Japanese were winning the war.

Prisoners of war were not the only laborers working on the railroad. Local laborers from Malaysia and Burma were hired, but their death rate was much higher than that of the soldiers. A total of 90,000 local laborers died during construction.

While the bridge portion of the railway was not actually built over the River Kwai as referenced in the movie, there was indeed a bridge built that was later bombed by the Allies in 1945. While the story of the movie might not be entirely accurate, its depiction of the daily life  and decreasing sanity of prisoners of war resembles the real life event.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/10382906/Burma-Railway-British-POW-breaks-silence-over-horrors.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/10563753/Death-Railway-survivors-remember-their-experiences.html
https://www.thedailybeast.com/riding-thailands-wwii-death-railway?ref=scroll
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/death-railway-bridge-the-bridge-over-the-river-kwai