Philip Toosey

Sir Philip John Denton Toosey
Lieutenant Colonel Philip Toosey c.1942
Born(1904-08-12)12 August 1904
Oxton, Birkenhead
Died22 December 1975(1975-12-22) (aged 71)
Buried
Landican Cemetery
Allegiance United Kingdom
Service / branch British Army
Years of service1927–1954
RankBrigadier
Service number38862
UnitRoyal Artillery
Hertfordshire Yeomanry
Commands135th (Hertfordshire Yeomanry) Field Regiment, Royal Artillery
Battles / warsWorld War II
AwardsKnight Bachelor
Commander of the Order of the British Empire
Distinguished Service Order
Territorial Decoration

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. 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.