Philip Toosey

Brigadier Sir Philip John Denton Toosey (12 August 1904 – 22 December 1975) was, as a lieutenant colonel, the senior Allied officer in the Japanese prisoner-of-war camp at Tha Maa Kham (known as Tamarkan) in Thailand during World War II.

The men at this camp built Bridge 277 of the Burma Railway as later fictionalized in the book The Bridge over the River Kwai by Pierre Boulle, and since adapted into the Oscar-winning film The Bridge on the River Kwai in which Alec Guinness played the senior British officer, Lt Col Nicholson.

Both the book and film outraged former prisoners because Toosey did not collaborate with the enemy, unlike the fictional Lt Col Nicholson.

Toosey was born in Upton Road, Oxton, Birkenhead, one of seven children of Charles Denton Toosey, proprietor of a successful shipping agency (Ross, Skolfield & Company), and Caroline (née Percy), whose father had been governor of Dublin Gaol.

He was educated at home until the age of nine, then at Birkenhead School to the age of thirteen and then at Gresham's School, Holt, Norfolk.

His father forbade him to accept a scholarship to Cambridge and so he was apprenticed to his uncle Philip Brewster Toosey's firm of Liverpool cotton merchants.

During the 1926 general strike, he and members of his rugby team unloaded a refrigerated ship.

In 1927 he was commissioned into 59th (4th West Lancs) Medium Brigade, RA of the Territorial Army, serving under Lt Col Alan C. Tod.

When, in 1929 his uncle's firm went bankrupt, he joined Baring Brothers, merchant bankers as assistant to Lt Col Tod, who was the Liverpool agent at the time.

Toosey continued to develop as an officer within the TA; he was promoted to Lieutenant in November 1931, Captain in April 1932 and Major in April 1934.

He married Muriel Alexandra (Alex) Eccles on 27 July 1932 and they had two sons and a daughter.

In August 1939 his regiment was mobilised and saw brief action in Belgium in May 1940 before retreating back into France.

He was evacuated from Dunkirk.

Following a course at the Senior Officers' School, he commanded and trained a home defence battery at Cambridge.

In 1941, promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, he was appointed to command the 135th (Hertfordshire Yeomanry) Field Regiment, RA.

In October 1941, his unit was shipped to the Far East.

He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for heroism during the defence of Singapore.

Because of his qualities of leadership, his superiors ordered him on 12 February 1942 to join the evacuation of Singapore, but Toosey refused so that he could remain with his men during their captivity.

Toosey and his men were required to build railway bridges over the Khwae Yai near where it joins the Khwae Noi to form the Mae Klong in Thailand.

Two bridges were built: a temporary wooden bridge and a few months later a permanent steel and concrete bridge which was completed in 1943.

The Khwae Mae Khlong above the confluence was renamed the Khwae Yai in 1960.

This was part of a project to link existing Thai and Burmese railway lines to create a route from Bangkok to Rangoon to support the Japanese occupation of Burma.

About a hundred thousand conscripted Asian labourers and 12,000 prisoners of war died on the whole project, which was nicknamed the Death Railway.

A camp was established at Tamarkan, which is about five kilometres from Kanchanaburi.

In the Tamarkan camp, Toosey worked courageously to ensure that as many as possible of the 2,000 Allied prisoners would survive.

He endured regular beatings when he complained of ill-treatment of prisoners, but as a skilled negotiator he was able to win many concessions from the Japanese by convincing them that this would speed the completion of the work.

Toosey also organised the smuggling in of food and medicine, working with Boonpong Sirivejjabhandu.

Boonpong was a Thai merchant who supplied camps at the southern end of the railway taking great risks and was honoured after the war.

Toosey maintained discipline in the camp and, where possible, cleanliness and hygiene.

His policy was of unity and equality and so refused to allow a separate officers' mess or officers' accommodation.

He also ordered his officers to intervene if necessary to protect the men.

For his conduct in the camp, he won the undying respect of his men.

He was considered by many to be the outstanding British officer on the railway.

Behind the backs of the Japanese, Toosey did everything possible to delay and sabotage the construction without endangering his men.

Refusal to work would have meant instant execution.

Termites were collected in large numbers to eat the wooden structures and the concrete was badly mixed.

Toosey also helped organise a daring escape, at considerable cost to himself.

(In the film the fictional colonel forbids escapes.) The two escaping officers had been given a month's rations and Toosey concealed their escape for 48 hours.

After a month the two escapees were recaptured and bayoneted.

Toosey was punished for concealing the escape.