The Bridge on the River Kwai by the other prisoners. Julie Summers, in her book "The Colonel of Tamarkan", writes that Boulle, who had been a prisoner of war in Thailand, created the fictional Nicholson character as an amalgam of his memories of collaborating French officers. He strongly denied the claim that the book was anti-British, although many involved in the film itself (including Alec Guinness) felt otherwise. Ernest Gordon, a survivor of the railway construction and POW camps described in the novel/film, stated in a 1962 book, "Through the Valley of the Kwai": "In Pierre Boulle's book "The Bridge over the River Kwai" and the
The Bridge on the River Kwai general amnesty, releasing Nicholson and his officers and exempting them from manual labour. Nicholson is shocked by the poor job being done by his men. Over the protests of some of his officers, he orders Captain Reeves and Major Hughes to design and build a proper bridge to maintain his men's morale. As the Japanese engineers had chosen a poor site, the original construction is abandoned and a new bridge begun downstream. Shears is enjoying his hospital stay in Ceylon when British Major Warden invites him to join a mission to destroy the bridge before it is completed. Shears is