Ian Watt - Biography

Biography

Born March 9, 1917, in Windermere, Westmorland in England, Watt was educated at the Dover County School for Boys and at St John's College, Cambridge, where he earned first-class honors in English.

Watt joined the British Army at the age of 22 and served with distinction in World War II as an infantry lieutenant from 1939 to 1946. He was wounded in the Battle of Singapore in February 1942 and listed as "missing, presumed killed in action."

In fact, he had been taken prisoner by the Japanese and remained a prisoner of war at the Changi Prison until 1945, working on the construction of the Burma Railway which crossed Thailand, a feat that inspired the Pierre Boulle book 'Bridge Over the River Kwai', and the film adaptation by David Lean. He criticized both the book and the film for the liberties they took with the historical details of his imprisonment and, more subtly, their refusal to acknowledge the moral complexities of the situation.

More than 12,000 prisoners died during the building of the railroad, most of them from disease, and Watt was critically ill from malnutrition for several years.

"There was a period when I expected to die," Watt told the San Francisco Examiner in a 1979 interview. "But I didn't know how sick I was until they gave me some of the vitamin pills that had just come into the camp. I remember being very surprised that I was considered sick enough to receive vitamins."

Professor Watt died in Menlo Park, California, USA.