Prisoner of war chess set from Ambon

Thirty three piece chess set consisting of both black and white pieces. There are two kings, two queens, two knights, two rooks, two bishops and eight pawns of each colour. The white pieces are coloured by a mixture of ground coral and shells. The pieces have been turned down on a lathe and are well made.

This chess set was made some time after 1942 in Tantoei POW Camp on Ambon. The idea to make the lathe was put forward by QX10876 Sapper George Pratt, Royal Australian Engineers, who used a frame of wood with a pulley and shaft and a bearing at the end of the shaft as the lathe. The lathe was powered by a bicycle wheel on its upturned frame with a rope belt, hand operated via the pedals. George Pratt died in the camp hospital on 8 May 1945. The lathe tool was a scrounged chisel and the work for this particular set was carried out by QX5858 L E Hohl. Up to fifty chess may have been made this way. This set is missing its board. The original boards were made from wood, ivory and brass hinges taken from a grand piano in an abandoned Dutch house adjacent to the Tantoei camp. The chess sets were designed by a non-chess playing draughtsman, Walter Hicks, who changed the complexity of his design according to the skill of the craftsman making the set. This set is of medium complexity - the horses have some mane, and defined nostrils; the royal pieces are patterned. Basic sets omitted patterning and the mane and nostrils on the horses. Advanced sets showed horses with flowing manes and flared nostrils. This set was presented to an American POW Lieutenant Robert Bellarmine Grainger, who was popular with the Australians. He later became a Jesuit priest and continued to use the set with his fellow priests. On his death the set was passed to another former US POW from Ambon, Ed Weiss, who had been a sergeant in the Signal Corps.