Rod Beattie

In 1942, the Japanese army had captured more than 200,000 Allied prisoners of war and needed a supply route to its frontline troops in Burma. POWs and thousands of Asian laborers were ordered to complete a railway linking Thailand and Burma that would include the infamous, "Bridge on the River Kwai." Meanwhile, the U.S. was developing a "smart bomb." In late 1944, a group of rescued POWs provided the first accurate information about targets along the railway, and the railway was destroyed.