As everyone knows, the Cold War was won by minor public school boys with bad degrees from embarrassing new universities. Sat on the banks of the Danube they sketched Czech freight trains disguised as if [more…]
Step forward to the present day; SWMBO and I have been visiting Thailand for many years and decided it was time to head out to the Death Railway as Grandad Humbug had been in Burma [more…]
“In the fourth of his articles John Alldridge writes of Longstop Hill as it is today — “a totally unremarkable hill” — and recalls the fighting which has made its name a legend.” – Manchester [more…]
Railway Construction Initially, the railway construction schedule allowed reasonable working conditions to be imposed on the POWs who, at that time, formed the majority of the skilled workforce. This combined with the fact that the [more…]
“In the third of his articles John Alldridge writes of Medjez el Bab, a name which he says the Lancashire Fusiliers will one day carry on their regimental colours.” – Manchester Evening News, November 14 [more…]
The preparatory work was completed by early September 1942 and construction began both in Burma and Thailand on the 16th of that month. Many of the Japanese engineers had attended British universities before heading back [more…]
“In the second of his articles from North Africa, where he is re-covering the ground of the war in Tunisia, John Alldridge revives memories of the 600-mile railway journey between Algiers and Tunis. The railway [more…]
Most Puffins will have watched David Lean’s 1957 film The Bridge on the River Kwai which is based on a novel published five years previously by French author Pierre Boulle. Whilst both book and film [more…]
“Seven years ago today — on November 8, 1942 — Anglo-American forces landed on the coast of French North Africa between Casablanca and Algiers. It was the beginning of a campaign which could have been [more…]
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