Brigadier Sir Philip John Denton Toosey CBE, DSO, TD, JP (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.

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

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

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

[2] 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 was ordered to organize Tamarkan as a hospital, which he did despite difficulties including minimal food and medical supplies.

He and some other officers had been separated from his men at Nakhon Nayok camp and were being held there as hostages when Japan surrendered in August 1945.

Despite his weak state, Toosey insisted on travelling 300 miles (500 km) into the jungle to oversee the liberation of his men.

Toosey initially refused repeated requests by the veterans to speak out against the film, being much too modest to seek any glory or recognition for himself.

Eventually Davies documented Toosey's achievements in a 1991 book entitled The Man Behind the Bridge (ISBN 0-485-11402-X) and a BBC Timewatch programme.

A service of thanksgiving for the Life and Work of Sir Philip Toosey took place at Liverpool Parish Church on Saturday 31 January 1976.