Twenty-five years after the end of the Japanese war a prisoner goes back. In company with three of his former Japanese captors John Coast, author and ex-P.O.W., revisits the scenes of his enforced labour along the banks of the River Kwai. Here, twenty-five years ago, thousands of British lives were sacrificed by the Japanese to drive a railway line through the jungle from Bangkok to Burma.

If it hadn't been for the now famous film The Bridge on the River Kwai few people would remember their epic struggle for survival. But ironically, just because of the film, fact and fiction have become somewhat confused.

Tonight's film is a personal and evocative account of just what did happen during the building of this infamous railway.

(First shown in the One Pair of Eyes series on BBC-2)