55 Kilo Camp, Burma Accession Number: ART29421

Description

Depicts a painting of the "55 Kilo Camp Burma Thailand Railway, at the end of the lean to is the operating "theatre. Jack Chalker was serving in the Royal Artillery when he was captured at the fall of Singapore. In October 1942 he was in a party sent to Thailand to construct the Burma-Thailand Railway. Chalker secretly made drawings of the various camps and conditions endured by the prisoners. He drew and painted on whatever materials he could find or steal from the Japanese, hiding his work in sections of bamboo buried in the ground, the attap roofs of huts, or the artificial legs worn by amputees in the hospital camps. His work provides a candid and moving record of the prisoners' suffering. Many of Jack Chalker's sketches were reproduced in 1945 at the Australian Medical Headquarters in Bangkok. At the end of the war Chalker travelled to Bangkok at the request of Weary Dunlop. Chalker was required to reproduce three sets each of many of the sketches he had made while in captivity.

Details

Accession Number
ART29421
Artist
Jack Bridger Chalker
Classification
Art
Object Type
Work on paper
Physical Description
Medium: watercolour over pencil on paper
Measurement
Overall: 18.2 cm x 27.3 cm
Medium
watercolour over pencil on paper
Date Made
1945
Whole/Part
Whole
Item Count
1
Credit Line
Presented 1989
Copyright
AWM Licensed copyright

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Last modified: 18 July 2025 - 2.56 am