Temporary Exhibitions
Surviving the Railway: Memories of Far East Prisoners of War Exhibition
22nd March – 21st September 2025
With the 80th anniversary of VJ Day falling on 15 August this year, find out about this oft-overlooked part of Second World War history that left an indelible mark locally. The ill-fated 18th Infantry Division was a territorial formation of East Anglian battalions including the 4th, 5th and 6th Royal Norfolks, along with Suffolk and Cambridgeshire Regiment battalions. Being Territorial battalions, they contained a high number of Norfolk men.
The display features an archival film exploring the grim realities of internment together with objects and accounts held by the Royal Norfolk Regimental Museum.
Created for the exhibition are a new Roll of Honour, commemorating the 2,913 men, who served in the 4th, 5th and 6th battalions of the Royal Norfolk Regiment in Singapore. A book of short biographies will be added to during the life of the exhibition as more information comes to light from the families of those who served.
The men captured in Singapore would go on to suffer three and a half years of brutal treatment at the hands of the Japanese, with many being sent up country to build the Thai-Burma railway, otherwise known as the ‘Railway of Death’. Around a quarter of these men would die from starvation, brutality and disease, but their stories stand as testament to the enduring nature of the human spirit in the face of seemingly hopeless circumstances.
Objects on display include a tiny but resonant fragment of a railway sleeper brought back home by Corporal F. G. Backham of King’s Lynn and a small aluminium box decorated and personalised from a Dutch chlorine tablet tin by POW Captain R.W. Cole, an officer in the 6th Battalion.
