page_title: Changi Prison
section_title: Conversion into a prisoner of war camp
hierarchical_section_title: Changi Prison / History / Conversion into a prisoner of war camp
caption_attribution_description: English: Allied prisoners walk through the prison gates of Changi Prison (or possibly Sime Road Camp), Singapore, waving and smiling.
context_page_description: Changi Prison Complex. often known as simply Changi Prison, is a prison located in Changi in the eastern part of Singapore.
context_section_description: During World War II, following the Fall of Singapore in February 1942, the Japanese military detained about 3,000 civilians in Changi Prison, which was built to house only one-fifth of that number. The Japanese used the British Army's Selarang Barracks, near the prison, as a prisoner of war camp, holding some 50,000 Allied soldiers, predominantly British and Australian, and from 1943, Dutch civilians brought over by the Japanese from the islands in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). POWs were in fact rarely, if ever, held in the civilian prison at Changi. Nevertheless, in the UK, Australia, The Netherlands and elsewhere, the name "Changi" became synonymous with the infamous POW camp nearby, since most of the Japanese prisons were in the Changi area. Around 500 detainees were women who had been separated with their children and marched to the cramped prison camp from their homes. These women and also girls sewed quilts for the prison hospital, daringly embroidering their own secret symbols and stories into the squares, including forget-me-nots, butterflies, angels, scenery of trees and sheep, other symbolic flowers and even a domestic sitting room, ships, birds and a map of Scotland, and one of Australia. They risked severe punishments by sewing depicting their prison environment and adding dozens, or even over 400 names, in one case onto the cloths. One depicted the Changi Stroll, the forced march of the captive women and children over 9 miles to the prison under the occupation by the Japanese on 8 March 1942, coincidentally now International Women's Day commemorating women and the defiance of the suffragettes. Surviving examples of the prison handiwork are in the archives of the British Red Cross, Imperial War Museum, London or held at the Australian War Memorial. About 850 POWs died during their internment in Changi during the Japanese occupation of Singapore, a relatively low rate compared to the overall death rate of 27% for POWs in Japanese camps. However, many more prisoners died after being transferred from Changi to various labour camps outside Singapore, including those on the Burma Railway and at Sandakan airfield.
  Allied POWs, mainly Australians, built a chapel at the prison in 1944 using simple tools and found materials. Stanley Warren of the 15th Regiment, Royal Regiment of Artillery painted a series of murals at the chapel. Another British POW, Sgt. Harry Stodgen, built a Christian cross out of a used artillery shell. After the war, the chapel was dismantled and shipped to Australia, while the cross was sent to the UK. The chapel was reconstructed in 1988, and is now located at the Royal Military College, Duntroon, Canberra. The prisoners of war also established an education program nicknamed the Changi University.
  After the war, the prison was used by the returning British to hold former Japanese staff officers, Kempeitai, police and guards from concentration camps. Executions were conducted in the inner yard where three gallows were erected. British soldiers were stationed there as prison guards. On 17 October 1945, all 260 German seamen of former U-Boats based in Southeast Asia (in joint operations with the Imperial Japanese Navy during the war) were moved from Pasir Panjang to the prison. On 26 June 1946, all German soldiers and a few civilians were notified they would be shipped back to England on a passenger liner, the Empress of Australia, before their eventual return to Germany.
caption: Allied prisoners of war piling out of the main gate of the Changi Prison after the British liberation of Singapore in September of 1945
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