To The Kwai and Back: War Drawings 1939-1945

1986 | History & Politics

In 1939, as an art student, Ronald Searle volunteered for the army. Called up in September, he embarked for Singapore in 1941, where, within a month of his arrival, he was taken as a prisoner of the Japanese.

After fourteen months in a prisoner-of-war camp Ronald Searle was sent north, to work camp on the Burma Star. In May 1944 he was sent to the notorious Changi Gaol in Singapore and was one of the few British soldiers to survive imprisonment there. Throughout his captivity, despite the risk, Ronald Searle made drawings, determinded to record his experiences. He drew his fellow prisoners, and their Japanese guards and he recorded historic moments; the Japanese triumphantly entering Singapore, the planes dropping leaflets that announced the end of the war.

The drawings in this remarkable book were hidden by Searle and smuggled from place to place, stained with the sweat and dirt of his captivity. They are a record of one man's war, and are among the most important, and moving, accounts of the Second World War. They document the sacrifice of those who served in the Far East and are testimony to Ronald Searle's unique talent.

Ronald Searle (Author)