Japanese commandant and Korean sentry, Chungkai, 1942

Pencil with wash by Gnr Jack B Chalker, Royal Artillery, Chungkai, 1942.

Two studies of Japanese Army soldiers. The officer holds a katana sword in his hand.

After the fall of Singapore to Japanese forces in February 1942, the artist was one of 130,000 British, Indian and Australian soldiers who were incarcerated at Changi Prison. He was then moved to a labour camp in Singapore town for four months, before being sent by train to Thailand, where he worked on the infamous Thailand-Burma railway project. From the beginning of his captivity, Jack Chalker made notes of everything he encountered, although this was a dangerous activity which attracted severe punishment, if discovered.

Whilst a prisoner-of-war, Chalker kept a diary and made a number of sketches which he hid in hollow bamboo sticks buried in the ground. In June 1944, when he was about to be transferred to Nakhon Pathom, he dug up those drawings which had survived insect damage and concealed them in a false section of his haversack.