Amazing lost sketches of life inside Japanese PoW camp discovered

[cali]

Amazing lost sketches of life inside Japanese PoW camp discovered in a shoe box by British war veteran's stunned family - and now they're going on the Antiques Roadshow

By Sarah Graham

Astonishing drawings of British soldiers in brutal Japanese Prisoner of War camps have turned up nearly 70 years later on TV's Antiques Roadshow.

The lost sketches showing the appalling conditions the men endured were drawn by artist soldier John Mennie who gave them to fellow PoW Eric Jennings.

Mr Jennings never spoke about his wartime experiences and his family were stunned when they found the sketches stashed away in a shoe box after his death.
Harrowing: Newly-discovered sketches show the appalling conditions in which Japanese PoWs were held. This one shows an operation being carried out in the open air

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One of the drawings is a rare image of the 'Selerang Square Squeeze' - a shocking atrocity meted out to 16,000 PoWs in Changi, Singapore in 1942.

The Japanese kettled the Allied soldiers in a cramped square for five days in unbearable heat to make them sign documents stating they would not try to escape.

Many men died from disease and dysentery during the incident and four more were callously executed by their sadistic captors.

A second drawing shows a British surgeon carrying out a life-saving operation on an emaciated prisoner in the open.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2038221/Amazing-sketches-British-PoWs-held-Japanese-camp-revealed-ex-prisoner-takes-Antiques-Roadshow.html#ixzz1Y9fPcQ4O

[DearAbby]

1. Amazing

[cali]

2. really powerful.

[grasswire]

3. thank you for this

My uncle, a U.S. Army captain, was a prisoner of the Japanese for several years. He was captured in the assault on Corregidor. He was wounded when he went out under fire to retrieve a wounded soldier. His leg wound developed gangrene, and a U.S. Army surgeon sawed off his leg, in a cave on the island. My uncle was able to keep a diary on the labels of tinned fish cans, which he brought home. The labels were submitted as evidence of war crimes, sent to Washington. I understand that several members of the family read the diaries before they went, but no one ever spoke of them in my recollection.

[cali]

4. wow. what a story. thanks for relating it.

[gateley]

5. My Dad was a flight surgeon in WWII, and somehow he

saved the life of a Japanese P.O.W. -- I don't recall the specifics. Anyway, this prisoner was an artist, and did the most beautiful charcoal portrait (is that the right word?) of my father. It is signed with his name, followed by P.O.W. and the year. I treasure it, and it is one of the only things I have left of my parents.

Seeing these photos made me think of it.

These are, of course, heartbreaking.

[DinahMoeHum]

6. Folks, if you can, get ahold of illustrator Ronald Searle's book

about his POW captivity in SE Asia:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kwai-Back-Drawings-1939-1945/dp/0285637452

Most of Searle's drawings from this book are now part of the permanent collection at the Imperial War Museum in London.

Hopefully, if the families of John Mennie and Eric Jennings do sell these at auction, the drawings will eventually end up at that museum. Probably the best place for them.

[MoonRiver]

7. Thank you for this.

My dad served in the Pacific theater during WWII. He saw a lot of bad stuff but,thank God, was never a POW.