Prisoner's improvised smoking pipe: Sapper Frances Henry Woodruff, 2/10th Field Company, Royal Australian Engineers

Smoking pipe made at Changi from an unknown wood by Sapper Woodruff. The bowl is unevenly drilled, and has a thick brass washer screwed into the topl. Another improvised brass collar serves as the clamp between bowl and stem; the stem is loose in the collar. The mouthpiece appears to be carved from a section of ivory (possibly from a piano key), with an airhole drilled through the centre.

Pipe made in Changi from local wood by Frances Henry Woodruff. Woodruff was born on 4 December 1918 at Fairfield, Victoria, and enlisted on 6 June 1940, being assigned to 2/10 Field Company, Royal Australian Engineers with whom he served as a sapper. In 1942, he was taken prisoner by the Japanese in Singapore.

Woodruff noted when offering his donation in 1976 that 'we were able to obtain some tobacco which I believe was grown in Java. For a while I rolled it in any sort of paper I could find. I got tired of this, and decided to make a pipe. It is of great sentimental value to me, for I feel it consoled me when I was feeling down. I was a prisoner for 3½ years.'

He was released from imprisonment in August 1945 and discharged from the army at the end of November.