''Through the Valley of the Kwai'' (also published under the titles ''Miracle on the River Kwai'' and ''To End All Wars'') is the

autobiography An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life. It is a form of biography. Definition The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...

of the Scottish captain

Ernest Gordon Ernest Gordon (31 May 1916 – 16 January 2002) was the former Presbyterian dean of the chapel at Princeton University. A native of Greenock, Scotland, and the son of James Gordon and Sarah R MacMillan, as an officer in the Argyll and Sutherla ...

, and recounts the experiences of

faith Faith, derived from Latin ''fides'' and Old French ''feid'', is confidence or trust in a person, thing, or In the context of religion, one can define faith as "belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion". Religious people often ...

and hope of the men held in a

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese

prisoner of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of wa ...

labour camp A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especi ...

, building the

Burma Railway The Burma Railway, also known as the Siam–Burma Railway, Thai–Burma Railway and similar names, or as the Death Railway, is a railway between Ban Pong, Thailand and Thanbyuzayat, Burma (now called Myanmar). It was built from 1940 to 1943 ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Dusty Miller

Dusty Miller was a British

(POW) in

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

conscripted to work on the Burma Railway during the last three and a half years of World War II. His life and death is attested to in Gordon's book. Miller was a gardener from

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...

and a

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...

. Like Gordon, he was in the

Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders Argyll (; archaically Argyle, in modern Gaelic, ), sometimes called Argyllshire, is a historic county and registration county of western Scotland. Argyll is of ancient origin, and corresponds to most of the part of the ancient kingdom of ...

, but was drafted into the Military Police or "Red Caps". He became known to Ernest Gordon during a period early on in their three and a half year incarceration under the

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

. Gordon was seriously ill, and was attended to by Miller and "Dinty" Moore, a

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

POW. In their care, Gordon unexpectedly recovered. Through the examples of Miller and Moore, the recovery of Gordon, and the self-sacrificing examples of numerous others, both faith and hope were restored to many soldiers in the death camps.

Death

At the war's end, Gordon was the sole survivor of the three. Upon liberation, as he sought news of his friends, he found that two weeks before the war's end Miller was

martyred A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...

, having been

crucified Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the victim is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross or beam and left to hang until eventual death from exhaustion and asphyxiation. It was used as a punishment by the Persians, Carthagin ...

by a Japanese guard as a result of his faith. Near the end of the war, Dinty Moore was being transferred on a Japanese ship, which should have had Red Cross markings, as it was a POW ship, not a warship. An Allied submarine sank the ship, not knowing it was a POW ship. Cana Academy, canaacademy.org, Ernest Gordon: Building Heaven in the Midst of POW Hell, by Joseph Wood, October 27, 2017
/ref>

In popular culture

The book was also adapted into a film in 2001 under the title ''

To End All Wars ''To End All Wars'' is a 2001 war film starring Robert Carlyle, Kiefer Sutherland and Sakae Kimura and was directed by David L. Cunningham. The film is based on '' Through the Valley of the Kwai'', an autobiography of Scottish captain Ernest G ...

''.

References

External links

Ernest Gordon's ''To End All Wars''
British autobiographies Memoirs of imprisonment {{WWII-memoir-stub

Dusty Miller

Death

In popular culture

See also

References

External links