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Welcome
75 years have passed since a brilliant young art student set sail from
Liverpool to fight Japanese aggression in the Far East. Captured
on arrival in the chaotic fall of Singapore, Jack
Chalker joined
the 60,000 allied prisoners driven to the limits of human endurance
in the slave labour camps of the infamous Burma Railway. “A
sleeper laid for every life lost” ran the legend, and the
author’s brushes and paints, improvised with genius from
the unlikeliest of sources, record not only the misery, squalor,
savagery, heroism and fortitude of the prison camps, but also the
horrific reality of disease, wounds and the ravages of starvation.
Unseen for nearly three generations, the drawings
in this book, accompanied by Chalker’s own commentary, occupy
an enthralling niche in the chronicling of the Second World War.
As an historical document, a medical record, and a tribute to the
memory of the thousands who lost their lives, Burma
Railway is a
profoundly moving document, exquisite in its detail, unique in its
honesty.
Jack Chalker 1918 – 2014
Obituary from The Telegraph
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