Des Bettany

Lance Bombardier Des Bettany, 88th Field Regiment (a Lancashire Territorial unit) was a brilliant and prolific cartoonist. He remained in Singapore throughout and recorded everyday life in great detail.

Des’s survival of the years of incarceration was in no small part due to his not being sent to work on the notorious Burma railway, which claimed the lives of some 16,000 allied POWs and a much greater number of forced labour Asian workers. Des was repatriated to England on the  SS Monowai  and arrived home in late September 1945 

His family has created an online archive of his life and artworks.