A wartime sketchbook of scenes in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, drawn by a prisoner, are to go under the hammer.

The sketches by John Picken, a lance corporal in the Royal Mechanical Engineers, who was a prisoner in the Fukuoka war prisoners camp in Java, are being sold by his son, who found them in a garage.

Also being sold are letters sent to his father by his family and fiancee during his incarceration in World War II.

The items, which give an insight into the harrowing experiences of prisoners of war, will go under the hammer later this month at a sale by auctioneers Golding Young & Thomas Mawer in Lincoln.

They were found in the garage of his Lincoln home by Mr Picken’s son Keith after his father’s death in 1996.

During L Cpl Picken’s time in the Fukuoka camp he drew sketches of it, the mines where he worked, guards and elephants, and asked fellow PoWs to draw and write poetry in the book as well.

Mr Picken junior, 62, of Sudbrooke Park, Lincoln, said he did not want to keep the reminders of his father’s “bitter experiences”.

“My father went to hell and back twice in those camps,” he said.

“He worked down the mines where he caught pneumonia which was left untreated.

“Once, a Japanese officer hit him in the mouth with a rifle butt and he lost some of his teeth, then they took out the stumps without morphine.

“In later life, if he saw anything relating to the Japanese PoW camps, it gave him nightmares.

“We inherited the house after my father’s death and found the sketchbook and letters behind a wine rack in the garage.”

Born in Wolverhampton, Mr Picken joined the Royal Mechanical Engineers and initially serviced gunning placements around the Manchester Ship Canal before being sent abroad.