In early April 1942, just a few weeks after the fall of the Netherlands East Indies to the Imperial Japanese forces and barely a fortnight after being herded into a prisoner of war camp on the island of Java, a group of British and Australian prisoners asked permission to build a Christian place of worship. The camp was Tandjong Priok and it housed over 4,000 British, Australians, Dutch and a handful of Americans.
The 15th February 2002 was the 60th anniversary of the fall of Singapore and on that day a British charity representing the children and families of Far Eastern Prisoners of War (COFEPOW) launched an appeal to create a permanent memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum at Alrewas, Staffordshire. This would include copies of two hand painted windows originally installed by the prisoners in their chapel.
"David Hillhouse, an artist based in Merseyside and specializing in painting on glass, was commissioned to undertake the painstaking work of reproducing the two windows as closely as possible to the originals. This highly specialised work involves painting in reverse on the back of the glass. The only images he had to work from were two of the photographs, close-up images showing the detail. In order to get the detailed work as accurate as possible, David examined each photograph closely using a magnifying glass before transferring the images to the glass.
He made an amazing discovery while examining the British section of the window. There was something wrong with the head of the Lion Rampant on the Royal Coat of Arms (which forms the British General Service badge). Normally this is turned to the left, opposite the Unicorn which faces right. However, in the St George's chapel window, the Lion's face is looking straight ahead. On closer inspection David realized that it had a human-looking face. And in its mouth a cigar! There, unmistakably, and magnified for all to see is Churchill's face, together with his trademark cigar.
Since the opening of the FEPOW Memorial building at Alrewas, two further descriptive panels, hand-painted on glass by David Hillhouse, have been added one either side of the Java Memorial Windows, telling the story of this remarkable chapel and all that it represents."