Image copyright: © Australian War Memorial
Creative Commons License This image is licensed under CC BY-NC

ID number ART25090
Title Changi gaol
Collection Art
Object type Drawing
Maker Griffin, Murray (Artist)
Place made Singapore: Changi
Date made 1944
Medium brush and brown ink and wash over pencil on paper
Measurement Overall: 34.6 x 51 cm


Interior of Changi gaol. In 1944 all the POWs, some 10,000 men, held at Selarang Barracks and surrounds had to move to Changi goal proper, which was designed to accommodate 600 men. 5,000 men were eventually squeezed into that building and the Japanese provided materials to build 100 metre huts for living quarters and kitchens outside the gaol for the rest of the prisoners. As an officer, Griffin was quartered in a smaller hut that had been erected at Seralang just after the men had be captured and then moved to the gaol. He shared this hut with three other men, including two British ministers.