![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() In the Australian section were friends Russell Braddon, whose books on his Changi experiences would sell well over a million copies, and Sydney Piddington, who had performed magic to entertain the men in the early days of Changi before the Japanese closed the prison’s theater. The polo player Robert Skene and character actor Percy Herbert were also among the men of Changi. James Clavell, who would go on to write Shogun, The Fly screenplay and King Rat (which was based on his time in Changi), was among the prisoners. Some of the thousands of prisoners held at Changi would go on to become famous. Thousands of prisoners from Australia, Britain and the United States were crammed into British barracks meant to hold a fraction of the prison population. They literally worked all day and were fed a half a cup of rice at night. As prisoners of the Japanese, though, the men of Changi still lived under harsh conditions. While the average mortality rate for prisoners in Japanese prisoner of war camps was about 25%, the rate at the Changi prison camp in Singapore has been estimated to be much closer to 1%. ![]()
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