Changi Murals
Encyclopedia
The Changi Murals are a set of five paintings of biblical theme painted by Stanley Warren
, a British
bombardier and prisoner-of-war (POW) interned at the Changi Prison
, during the Japanese occupation of Singapore
in World War II
(WWII). His murals were completed under difficult conditions of sickness, limited materials and hardships. With a message of universal love and forgiveness, they helped to uplift the spirits of the POWs and sick when they sought refuge in the prison chapel.
After the war, the walls of the chapel were distempered
over, hiding the murals from view. They were forgotten until its rediscovery in 1958. Due to their historical significance, an international search was conducted to locate the original painter in helping to restore the partially damaged and faded murals. Stanley was eventually found in 1959 and, after much persuasion, agreed to assist in the restoration project. He made three trips to Singapore between 1963 to 1988 to restore his former paintings. Due to Stanley's advanced age, only four of the original murals were fully restored. In the 1990s, the former site of the murals was gazetted as a Heritage Site by the National Heritage Board
of Singapore.
in 1917. He was talented in art from young and was a religious man. Stanley was employed as a commercial designer producing poster ads with the Grenada organisation before the war. In January 1940, he enlisted in the army to join the fight against Nazi Germany
and was posted to the Royal Regiment of Artillery as an Observation Post Assistant. His responsibilities included having to make quick drawings of panorama
s used to plot targets for the guns.
(former name for Malaysia) with the 15th Field Regiment Royal Artillery after the Japanese
had invaded Malaya and Thailand
, and Pearl Harbor
had been bombed. Upon their arrival, their fight against the Japanese was brutal and short-lived, and soon his battalion began retreating to Singapore. The Changi Garrison, a heavily fortified coastal defence where most of the British forces were based, consisted of three army barracks; the 2nd Battalion Gordon Highlanders in the Selarang Barracks, the Royal Engineers in Kitchener Barracks, and the 9th Coastal Artillery Regiment of the Royal Artillery in Roberts Barracks. By 12 February, the situation in Singapore was desperate and Lieutenant-General Arthur Ernest Percival
, General Officer Commanding of HQ Malaya Command, ordered the Changi Garrison to withdraw to Singapore Town
. After the British surrender of Singapore on 15 February 1942, Stanley and Allied POWs were ordered to march to Changi for internment; the 15,000 Australians went into Selarang Barracks and the British to Roberts and Kitchener Barracks. Stanley was interned at Roberts Barracks and later joined other POWs to work around Singapore, repairing damage inflicted by the Japanese attacks and getting essential services back to working order. Percival was held in Roberts Barracks until, with all senior officers above the rank of Lieutenant Colonel
, he was sent to Formosa (now Taiwan
) by the Japanese. The food given to the prisoners was of poor quality and inadequate for men working as slave labour. As a result of this and the harsh treatment meted out by the Japanese guards such as the beatings and executions of escaped prisoners, the men's health and morale began to suffer in the long run.
plaque today, only the stairs and road called Lorong Sesuai are still there to be seen). The chaplain of the regiment, well aware of Stanley's religious conviction and artistic background, requested him to decorate the asbestos
walls at the altar area of a small open attap-roofed chapel at Bukit Batok. With charcoal salvaged from around the camp, he drew two murals: Nativity, which featured a Malay Madonna
and Descent from the Cross in which he included soldiers in uniforms, using his comrades as models. By then, he was becoming ill and was suffering from a severe renal disorder complicated by amoebic dysentery
. On 23 May 1942, Stanley was lying comatose and was sent to Roberts Barracks in Changi
which was converted for use as a hospital for POWs to recuperate.
By mid-August 1942, Stanley had recovered enough to be moved to the dysentery wing at Block 151 of Roberts Barracks. Padres
Chambers and Payne had heard that Stanley had decorated the prisoners' chapel at Bukit Batok. So they asked him if he would do some paintings for St Luke’s Chapel, which was recently converted from the ground floor of Block 151, near the area where Stanley was recuperating. The Chapel was dedicated to St Luke the Physician. Stanley agreed, and sought inspiration for the proposed paintings in the Gospels.
. It was an incident concerning seventeen thousand Anglo-Australian POWs, who were forced to vacate their buildings and be exposed for nearly five days in the open without water or sanitation for refusing to sign a "No Escape Pledge". Against this backdrop, Stanley began to paint the murals. No one had asked the Japanese for permission to draw and at no stage did they interfere with his work. Considering the purpose of the murals, Stanley felt that the Chapel was basically dedicated to peace and reconciliation, and so he choose universal themes for the murals which would embrace all mankind. Paint was not readily available in the camp, but with the aid of the other prisoners, who unquestionably put themselves at great risk, materials to make the paint were gradually acquired—brown camouflage paint, a small amount of crimson paint, white oil paint and billiard
chalk were found and brought for Stanley use. Despite still being very ill, Stanley set to work on the murals in early September 1942. His illness meant that he could only paint for a limited period each day, for perhaps 15 minutes at a time followed by a rest. To compensate as much as he could for the lack of coloured paint, Stanley resorted to using large brush strokes and big areas of solid colour when painting. In September 1942, a few weeks after Stanley began painting the murals, he was informed that his work party was to be sent north to Thailand to work on the Thai-Burma Railway. A colonel in charge of the hospital, who knew of his work-in-progress murals, intervened to have Stanley transferred back to the hospital so that he could continue on his work in the Chapel. Most of Stanley's unit who went to the Thai-Burma Railway never returned. Stanley recounted: "Had I gone with them, most certainly, I would have died. So the murals very directly saved my life in the way I could never have foreseen... It's a terrible sense of debt... that one feels to the chapel."
By Christmas 1942, he completed his first mural, the Nativity. Altogether, Stanley managed to produce five large murals on the walls of the Chapel, each mural being about three metres long, in the following order:
All of them were subjects which are at the very heart of Christian
belief. The completed murals uplifted the spirits of the POWs and sick when they seek refuge in the Chapel. Stanley never put his name on any of his paintings as he considered them "a gift to God". In May 1944, Block 151 with the St Luke Chapel's inspiring murals was designated to become a store for an airfield nearby. The lower portion of St Luke in Prison mural was almost completely destroyed when it was demolished to make a link to an adjoining room. The walls of the Chapel was distempered over, hiding the murals from view. Stanley was later sent to Kranji
in the north of Singapore, not far from the Causeway
to Malaya, and remained there till the Japanese surrender on 15 August 1945. After the war, Stanley returned to England
believing that his murals had been destroyed by Allied bombing towards the end of the war. He married and became an art teacher at the Sir William Collins School, now South Camden Community School in London
.
(RAF) occupying the Roberts Barracks. The Chapel was again used as a store, and later as accommodation by the RAF. Once rediscovered, the distemper coating covering the murals was carefully removed — four complete murals and the top-quarter of a fifth were revealed. As there was no signature on any of the murals, a search for the artist was undertaken but failed after initial investigations. By a stroke of luck, the artist's name came to light in the RAF Changi Education Library of all places. A reader came across a book titled The Churches of the Captivity in Malaya, mentioning about the Chapel of St Luke in Roberts Barracks and the artist's name — Bombardier Stanley Warren. The Daily Mirror was notified and again went to work looking for the known artist. In February 1959, he was found living in London with his wife and son. He was shocked when he saw the photo of his mural of the Crucifixion, when a keen-eyed colleague of his showed him the papers.
After much persuasion, he overcame his fear and eventually made three trips to Singapore to restore his murals in December 1963, July 1982 and May 1988. The 1982 restoration was more intensive and the invaluable assistance given to Warren by the officers and boys of the SAF
Boys' School enabled the bulk of the work to be completed. Of the original five murals, only one was not fully restored; the mural of St Luke in Prison. Stanley’s original tracing of the drawing was missing, and he could not remember the details of the missing portion. In 1985, Stanley’s original drawing was discovered in the memorabilia of Wally Hammond who had been a fellow prisoner with Stanley. These original sketches were subsequently donated to the National Archives of Singapore. From the original, Stanley painted a small picture, which was placed below the remaining piece of the mural in 1988. He was, by then, not fit enough to restore the actual mural.
On 20 February 1992, Stanley died in his home in Bridport
, England at the age of 75.
, minister of parliament for Openshaw
, asked the Defence Ministry, Denis Healy, to consider moving the murals to England. His proposal was unsuccessful when the Singapore Ministry of Defence
decided to take responsibility of the murals and to keep them in good condition for display in 1969. (Singapore gained independence from Britain in August 1965). In addition, a copy of one of the murals painted by Stanley had been brought to England and installed in the Garrison Church at Larkhill
in Wiltshire
.
The three-storey Block 151 of Roberts Barracks (off Martlesham Road) still stands today, but is now part of the Ministry of Defence's Changi Airbase Camp. Most of the buildings surrounding Block 151 were demolished in July 2003. Inside the Chapel, there is a photo of Stanley and some narrative about him and the murals but access to the Chapel is restricted. However, for public interest, a replica of Stanley Warren's murals is also on display at the Changi Chapel and Museum, along with an audio-visual theatre that screens videos about POW life, display of POW belongings and collection of books about Singapore during WWII.
Since 1993, the Changi Murals, Changi Prison and other WWII sites in Singapore, is part of a Battlefield Tour organised by the National Institute of Education
and the Ministry of Defence, a bi-annual five-day residential National Awareness programme to create greater awareness of national and security issues among trainee teachers.
for a BBC
documentary, for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission
which marked the 50th Anniversary of the end of World War II.
On 15 February 2002, more than 250 former POWs and their families from Australia
, New Zealand
and the United Kingdom
came over to Singapore for a reunion-cum-memorial service that was held at the Changi Chapel and Museum, and a tour of the Changi Murals and the Selarang Camp. The event was organised by the Singapore Tourism Board
to mark the 60th anniversary of the fall of Singapore.
Stanley Warren
Stanley Warren , a bombardier of the 15th Regiment of the Royal Regiment of Artillery was known for the Changi Murals he painted at a chapel during his internment in Changi prison in Singapore during World War II...
, a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
bombardier and prisoner-of-war (POW) interned at the Changi Prison
Changi Prison
Changi Prison is a prison located in Changi in the eastern part of Singapore.-First prison and POW camp:...
, during the Japanese occupation of Singapore
Japanese Occupation of Singapore
The Japanese occupation of Singapore in World War II occurred between about 1942 and 1945 after the fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942. Military forces of the Empire of Japan occupied Singapore after defeating the combined Australian, British, Indian and Malayan garrison in the Battle of Singapore...
in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
(WWII). His murals were completed under difficult conditions of sickness, limited materials and hardships. With a message of universal love and forgiveness, they helped to uplift the spirits of the POWs and sick when they sought refuge in the prison chapel.
After the war, the walls of the chapel were distempered
Distemper (paint)
Distemper is a term with a variety of meanings for paints used in decorating and as a historical medium for painting pictures. The binding element may be some form of glue or oil; these are known in decorating respectively as soft distemper and oil bound distemper.-Soft distemper:Distemper is an...
over, hiding the murals from view. They were forgotten until its rediscovery in 1958. Due to their historical significance, an international search was conducted to locate the original painter in helping to restore the partially damaged and faded murals. Stanley was eventually found in 1959 and, after much persuasion, agreed to assist in the restoration project. He made three trips to Singapore between 1963 to 1988 to restore his former paintings. Due to Stanley's advanced age, only four of the original murals were fully restored. In the 1990s, the former site of the murals was gazetted as a Heritage Site by the National Heritage Board
National Heritage Board (Singapore)
The National Heritage Board is a statutory board of the Singapore Government, under the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts ....
of Singapore.
History
Stanley Warren was born in EnglandEngland
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 1917. He was talented in art from young and was a religious man. Stanley was employed as a commercial designer producing poster ads with the Grenada organisation before the war. In January 1940, he enlisted in the army to join the fight against Nazi Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and was posted to the Royal Regiment of Artillery as an Observation Post Assistant. His responsibilities included having to make quick drawings of panorama
Panorama
A panorama is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film/video, or a three-dimensional model....
s used to plot targets for the guns.
Changi
In early 1942, he was posted overseas to MalayaBritish Malaya
British Malaya loosely described a set of states on the Malay Peninsula and the Island of Singapore that were brought under British control between the 18th and the 20th centuries...
(former name for Malaysia) with the 15th Field Regiment Royal Artillery after the Japanese
Empire of Japan
The Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...
had invaded Malaya and Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, and Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
had been bombed. Upon their arrival, their fight against the Japanese was brutal and short-lived, and soon his battalion began retreating to Singapore. The Changi Garrison, a heavily fortified coastal defence where most of the British forces were based, consisted of three army barracks; the 2nd Battalion Gordon Highlanders in the Selarang Barracks, the Royal Engineers in Kitchener Barracks, and the 9th Coastal Artillery Regiment of the Royal Artillery in Roberts Barracks. By 12 February, the situation in Singapore was desperate and Lieutenant-General Arthur Ernest Percival
Arthur Ernest Percival
Lieutenant-General Arthur Ernest Percival, CB, DSO & Bar, OBE, MC, OStJ, DL was a British Army officer and World War I veteran...
, General Officer Commanding of HQ Malaya Command, ordered the Changi Garrison to withdraw to Singapore Town
Downtown Core
The Downtown Core is a 266-hectare urban planning area in the south of the city-state of Singapore. The Downtown Core surrounds the mouth of the Singapore River and southeastern portion of its watershed, and is part of the Central Area, Singapore's central business district...
. After the British surrender of Singapore on 15 February 1942, Stanley and Allied POWs were ordered to march to Changi for internment; the 15,000 Australians went into Selarang Barracks and the British to Roberts and Kitchener Barracks. Stanley was interned at Roberts Barracks and later joined other POWs to work around Singapore, repairing damage inflicted by the Japanese attacks and getting essential services back to working order. Percival was held in Roberts Barracks until, with all senior officers above the rank of Lieutenant Colonel
Lieutenant colonel
Lieutenant colonel is a rank of commissioned officer in the armies and most marine forces and some air forces of the world, typically ranking above a major and below a colonel. The rank of lieutenant colonel is often shortened to simply "colonel" in conversation and in unofficial correspondence...
, he was sent to Formosa (now Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
) by the Japanese. The food given to the prisoners was of poor quality and inadequate for men working as slave labour. As a result of this and the harsh treatment meted out by the Japanese guards such as the beatings and executions of escaped prisoners, the men's health and morale began to suffer in the long run.
St Luke's Chapel
During one of the work parties, Stanley was sent to build a road and stairs leading to a memorial to the Japanese dead on Bukit Batok Hill (Marked with a Bukit Batok MemorialBukit Batok Memorial
The Bukit Batok Memorial is located on top of the tranquil Bukit Batok Hill upon which once stood two war memorials built by Australian POWs to commemorate the war dead of the Japanese and the Allies who fought during the decisive Battle of Bukit Timah in Singapore during the Second World War...
plaque today, only the stairs and road called Lorong Sesuai are still there to be seen). The chaplain of the regiment, well aware of Stanley's religious conviction and artistic background, requested him to decorate the asbestos
Asbestos
Asbestos is a set of six naturally occurring silicate minerals used commercially for their desirable physical properties. They all have in common their eponymous, asbestiform habit: long, thin fibrous crystals...
walls at the altar area of a small open attap-roofed chapel at Bukit Batok. With charcoal salvaged from around the camp, he drew two murals: Nativity, which featured a Malay Madonna
Madonna (art)
Images of the Madonna and the Madonna and Child or Virgin and Child are pictorial or sculptured representations of Mary, Mother of Jesus, either alone, or more frequently, with the infant Jesus. These images are central icons of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox Christianity where Mary remains...
and Descent from the Cross in which he included soldiers in uniforms, using his comrades as models. By then, he was becoming ill and was suffering from a severe renal disorder complicated by amoebic dysentery
Amoebic dysentery
Amoebic dysentery is a type of dysentery caused primarily by the amoeba Entamoeba histolytica. Amoebic dysentery is transmitted through contaminated food and water. Amoebae spread by forming infective cysts which can be found in stools, and spread if whoever touches them does not sanitize their...
. On 23 May 1942, Stanley was lying comatose and was sent to Roberts Barracks in Changi
Changi
Changi is an area at the eastern end of Singapore. It is now the site of Singapore Changi Airport/Changi Air Base, Changi Naval Base and is also home to Changi Prison, site of the former Japanese Prisoner of War Camp during World War II which held Allied prisoners captured in Singapore and Malaysia...
which was converted for use as a hospital for POWs to recuperate.
By mid-August 1942, Stanley had recovered enough to be moved to the dysentery wing at Block 151 of Roberts Barracks. Padres
Military chaplain
A military chaplain is a chaplain who ministers to soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and other members of the military. In many countries, chaplains also minister to the family members of military personnel, to civilian noncombatants working for military organizations and to civilians within the...
Chambers and Payne had heard that Stanley had decorated the prisoners' chapel at Bukit Batok. So they asked him if he would do some paintings for St Luke’s Chapel, which was recently converted from the ground floor of Block 151, near the area where Stanley was recuperating. The Chapel was dedicated to St Luke the Physician. Stanley agreed, and sought inspiration for the proposed paintings in the Gospels.
The five murals
On 30 August 1942, at the time when Stanley was preparing the draft drawings of the murals, the Japanese began an action which would became known as the Selarang Barracks IncidentSelarang Barracks Incident
The Selarang Barracks Incident also known as the Barrack Square Incident or the Selarang Square Squeeze, was an event during the Second World War started on 30 August 1942. The barracks was sited in Changi, Singapore and were used by the Japanese to hold 17,000 Anglo-Australian prisoners-of-war...
. It was an incident concerning seventeen thousand Anglo-Australian POWs, who were forced to vacate their buildings and be exposed for nearly five days in the open without water or sanitation for refusing to sign a "No Escape Pledge". Against this backdrop, Stanley began to paint the murals. No one had asked the Japanese for permission to draw and at no stage did they interfere with his work. Considering the purpose of the murals, Stanley felt that the Chapel was basically dedicated to peace and reconciliation, and so he choose universal themes for the murals which would embrace all mankind. Paint was not readily available in the camp, but with the aid of the other prisoners, who unquestionably put themselves at great risk, materials to make the paint were gradually acquired—brown camouflage paint, a small amount of crimson paint, white oil paint and billiard
English billiards
English billiards, called simply billiards in many former British colonies and in Great Britain where it originated, is a hybrid form of carom and pocket billiards played on a billiard table. Billiards is less well known as "the English game", "the all-in game" and "the common game".The game is for...
chalk were found and brought for Stanley use. Despite still being very ill, Stanley set to work on the murals in early September 1942. His illness meant that he could only paint for a limited period each day, for perhaps 15 minutes at a time followed by a rest. To compensate as much as he could for the lack of coloured paint, Stanley resorted to using large brush strokes and big areas of solid colour when painting. In September 1942, a few weeks after Stanley began painting the murals, he was informed that his work party was to be sent north to Thailand to work on the Thai-Burma Railway. A colonel in charge of the hospital, who knew of his work-in-progress murals, intervened to have Stanley transferred back to the hospital so that he could continue on his work in the Chapel. Most of Stanley's unit who went to the Thai-Burma Railway never returned. Stanley recounted: "Had I gone with them, most certainly, I would have died. So the murals very directly saved my life in the way I could never have foreseen... It's a terrible sense of debt... that one feels to the chapel."
By Christmas 1942, he completed his first mural, the Nativity. Altogether, Stanley managed to produce five large murals on the walls of the Chapel, each mural being about three metres long, in the following order:
- NativityNativity of Jesus in artThe Nativity of Jesus has been a major subject of Christian art since the 4th century. The artistic depictions of the Nativity or birth of Jesus, celebrated at Christmas, are based on the narratives in the Bible, in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, and further elaborated by written, oral and...
- Ascension
- CrucifixionCrucifixionCrucifixion is an ancient method of painful execution in which the condemned person is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead...
- Last SupperLast SupperThe Last Supper is the final meal that, according to Christian belief, Jesus shared with his Twelve Apostles in Jerusalem before his crucifixion. The Last Supper provides the scriptural basis for the Eucharist, also known as "communion" or "the Lord's Supper".The First Epistle to the Corinthians is...
- St Luke in Prison
All of them were subjects which are at the very heart of Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
belief. The completed murals uplifted the spirits of the POWs and sick when they seek refuge in the Chapel. Stanley never put his name on any of his paintings as he considered them "a gift to God". In May 1944, Block 151 with the St Luke Chapel's inspiring murals was designated to become a store for an airfield nearby. The lower portion of St Luke in Prison mural was almost completely destroyed when it was demolished to make a link to an adjoining room. The walls of the Chapel was distempered over, hiding the murals from view. Stanley was later sent to Kranji
Kranji
Kranji is a suburb in northwestern Singapore, located about from the city centre.-Etymology:Kranji is named after a local tree, the kranji or keranji . Its abundance has rapidly dwindled since the first half of the nineteenth century.-History:The first Singapore-Kranji railway from Tank Road to...
in the north of Singapore, not far from the Causeway
Johor-Singapore Causeway
The Johor–Singapore Causeway is a 1,056-metre causeway that links the city of Johor Bahru in Malaysia across the Straits of Johor to the town of Woodlands in Singapore. It serves as a road, rail, and pedestrian link, as well as water piping into Singapore.The causeway is connected to the...
to Malaya, and remained there till the Japanese surrender on 15 August 1945. After the war, Stanley returned to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
believing that his murals had been destroyed by Allied bombing towards the end of the war. He married and became an art teacher at the Sir William Collins School, now South Camden Community School in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
Rediscovery
Forgotten for nearly 13 years, the Changi Murals were accidentally rediscovered in 1958 by servicemen of the Royal Air ForceRoyal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
(RAF) occupying the Roberts Barracks. The Chapel was again used as a store, and later as accommodation by the RAF. Once rediscovered, the distemper coating covering the murals was carefully removed — four complete murals and the top-quarter of a fifth were revealed. As there was no signature on any of the murals, a search for the artist was undertaken but failed after initial investigations. By a stroke of luck, the artist's name came to light in the RAF Changi Education Library of all places. A reader came across a book titled The Churches of the Captivity in Malaya, mentioning about the Chapel of St Luke in Roberts Barracks and the artist's name — Bombardier Stanley Warren. The Daily Mirror was notified and again went to work looking for the known artist. In February 1959, he was found living in London with his wife and son. He was shocked when he saw the photo of his mural of the Crucifixion, when a keen-eyed colleague of his showed him the papers.
Restoration
In 1960, the RAF contacted Stanley and the idea of restoring the murals was brought up. He was initially reluctant to return to restore his works due to the painful memories of war and captivity the murals would bring back to him: "I didn't immediately want to come. I felt that there would be some sort of... trauma. I'm trying to forget this, you know, I tried so hard... It took years really to eliminate the memories and fears... the long drawn out experience and really waiting for death over three and a half years, it's long time to expect death. And I really tried to forget... But of course I was never able to do that."After much persuasion, he overcame his fear and eventually made three trips to Singapore to restore his murals in December 1963, July 1982 and May 1988. The 1982 restoration was more intensive and the invaluable assistance given to Warren by the officers and boys of the SAF
Singapore Armed Forces
The Singapore Armed Forces is the military arm of the Total Defence of the Republic of Singapore; as well as the military component of the Ministry of Defence. The SAF comprises three branches: the Singapore Army, the Republic of Singapore Air Force and the Republic of Singapore Navy...
Boys' School enabled the bulk of the work to be completed. Of the original five murals, only one was not fully restored; the mural of St Luke in Prison. Stanley’s original tracing of the drawing was missing, and he could not remember the details of the missing portion. In 1985, Stanley’s original drawing was discovered in the memorabilia of Wally Hammond who had been a fellow prisoner with Stanley. These original sketches were subsequently donated to the National Archives of Singapore. From the original, Stanley painted a small picture, which was placed below the remaining piece of the mural in 1988. He was, by then, not fit enough to restore the actual mural.
On 20 February 1992, Stanley died in his home in Bridport
Bridport
Bridport is a market town in Dorset, England. Located near the coast at the western end of Chesil Beach at the confluence of the River Brit and its Asker and Simene tributaries, it originally thrived as a fishing port and rope-making centre...
, England at the age of 75.
Parliamentary discussions
Stanley's murals were discussed in the British Parliament in October 1968. Charles MorrisCharles Morris (politician)
Charles Richard Morris is a retired British Labour politician.Morris was educated at Brookdale Park School, Manchester. He was a postal and telegraph officer and a national executive member of the Union of Post Office Workers 1959–63...
, minister of parliament for Openshaw
Openshaw
Openshaw is a ward of the city of Manchester, in Greater Manchester, North West England. It lies about two miles east of Manchester city centre. Historically a part of Lancashire, Openshaw was incorporated into the city of Manchester in 1890. Its name derives from the Old English Opinschawe, which...
, asked the Defence Ministry, Denis Healy, to consider moving the murals to England. His proposal was unsuccessful when the Singapore Ministry of Defence
Ministry of Defence (Singapore)
The Ministry of Defence is a ministry of the Government of Singapore entrusted with overseeing the national defence needs of the Republic of Singapore. It is the headquarters of the Singapore Armed Forces...
decided to take responsibility of the murals and to keep them in good condition for display in 1969. (Singapore gained independence from Britain in August 1965). In addition, a copy of one of the murals painted by Stanley had been brought to England and installed in the Garrison Church at Larkhill
Larkhill
Larkhill is a garrison town in the civil parish of Durrington, Wiltshire, England. It is a short distance west of Durrington village proper and north of the prehistoric monument of Stonehenge. It is about north of Salisbury....
in Wiltshire
Wiltshire
Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...
.
The murals today
Since 1993, the Changi Murals, Changi Prison and other WWII sites in Singapore, is part of a Battlefield Tour organised by the National Institute of Education
National Institute of Education
The is an institute of the , Singapore.NIE, Singapore, provides all levels of teacher education, from programmes to for in-service teachers and executive for Principals, Departmental Heads and other school leaders. NIE also administers postgraduate programmes that lead to the award of in...
and the Ministry of Defence, a bi-annual five-day residential National Awareness programme to create greater awareness of national and security issues among trainee teachers.
Commemoration
In November 1994, a two-man British team was in Singapore to film the Changi Murals and Kranji War MemorialKranji War Memorial
The Kranji War Memorial is located at 9 Woodlands Road, in Kranji in northern Singapore. Dedicated to the men and women from United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Sri Lanka, India, Malaya, the Netherlands and New Zealand who died defending Singapore and Malaya against the invading Japanese forces...
for a BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
documentary, for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark, record and maintain the graves, and places of commemoration, of Commonwealth of Nations military service members who died in the two World Wars...
which marked the 50th Anniversary of the end of World War II.
On 15 February 2002, more than 250 former POWs and their families from Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
and the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
came over to Singapore for a reunion-cum-memorial service that was held at the Changi Chapel and Museum, and a tour of the Changi Murals and the Selarang Camp. The event was organised by the Singapore Tourism Board
Singapore Tourism Board
The Singapore Tourism Board is a statutory board under the Ministry of Trade and Industry of Singapore, tasked to promote the country's tourism industry.-History:...
to mark the 60th anniversary of the fall of Singapore.