Duck yard, Changi

When the rice ration at Changi POW Camp was sufficient, a certain amount of swill enabled many men to keep poultry, (mostly ducks) and a motley assortment of pens sprang up everywhere, composed of wire, split bamboo, old sheets of iron and lalang grass. As the rice ration went down and down, so did the birds, until they were turned into soup. At first they had been fed on snails, but the snails became so popular as an edible for the men as a supply of almost non-existent protein, that the snails, like the birds, soon became completely eradicated.