Jack Chalker

Jack Chalker, POW, World War II artist

Jack Chalker sketched an important record of the subhuman conditions endured by the allied POWs. He was Weary's hospital artist and so he also sketched all the diseases, tropical ulcers and the operations. Such was Jack's devotion to Weary, he put his life on the line recording the conditions and the cruelty in the camps.


Jack Chalker’s art studies were interrupted by Hitler’s War.  He was called up as a gunner in the Royal Artillery and was posted to the beleaguered garrison at Singapore only to be captured (along with 137,000 other troops) at the surrender in February 1942.  Chalker recorded life first in the Changi area, then Havelock Road labour camp in Singapore Town. He spent almost six months at Kanyu River working on the Burma-Thai Railway.  In March 1943 after succumbing to dysentery and dengue fever he was sent to Chungkai.  In 1944 he was moved to Nakhom Pahtom Hospital camp where he remained until the Japanese capitulation in August 1945.

 

The bulk of these works were drawn and painted in the Thai-Burma Railway camps and some were produced following the surrender in Bangkok.  The making of any records of the adverse conditions, particularly in up-country in the working camps was strictly forbidden and infringement of the rules resulted in savage punishment. 

 

Drawings were hidden in sections of bamboo buried in the ground, the attap roof of jungle huts or in an artificial leg worn by an amputee prisoner. 

Note:  Many of the works have been exhibited at: Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine- 1985, The Royal West England Academy Bristol - 1997, The Dixon Gallery London Institute of Education -1987, The Octagon London University -1989, The Arts Centre Bridgewater - 1989, The Barber-Surgeons Hall London - 1997, Royal College of Surgeons London -1997, Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation Galleries London -1998, The Peace Museum Kyoto Japan 1999.      The entire collection, once split between Jack Chalker and ‘Weary’ Dunlop, is now housed at the Australian War Museum in Canberra, donated by ‘Weary’ Dunlop’s sons, Alexander and John Dunlop and the Tattersall’s organisation.  They are kindly reproduced by courtesy of the Australian War Memorial and the artist, Jack Chalker.

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"Punishment"
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One of the many sketches included in his book - Burma Railway - Images of War.  Click the icon under the illustration to see more of his sketches.

 

Chalker recalls observing such a torture on arrival in Ban Pong Camp in October '42.  "The tin container was filled with stones or water, when the neck was straightened the jagged edge of the tin lacerated the chest ... he was in great distress and clearly the Japanese intended to torture him further."