Frank Walters was born in Warwickshire on 25 February 1917 to Frank Walters and Florence Maud Walters née Singleton. He worked as an accountant for a local Building Society and can be found in the 1939 Register living with his parents and younger brother in Meriden, Warwickshire. 

 

Frank enlisted with the 18th Division, Royal Corps of Signals during World War 2, who were a combat support arm of specialist soldiers for the army. The Division served in the Malayan Campaign in the Far East. Frank was captured at the fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942 and became a Japanese Prisoner of War. The Allied defeat at Singapore has been called a 'tragedy' and 'disaster' and 127,000 British and British Commonwealth troops were taken prisoner.

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Little is known of Frank's time incarcerated and a Liberation questionnaire has not been found for him at the National Archives or in Ancestry's digitisation of their records. However, his Japanese index card is held at the National Archives at Kew, Surrey, and he is mentioned in local newspapers in Coventry through family notices. Other men from the 18th Division who were also Japanese POWs are known to have been firstly imprisoned at Changi camp and many were then were sent to work on the Thai/Siam-Burma railway, also known as the Railway of Death, alongside American, Australian and Dutch prisoners. Approximately 12,000 allied POWs died during the railway construction. Other POWs from his division were assigned to 'work parties' stationed around Singapore.

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Frank was liberated and is most likely to have returned to Britain via India/Ceylon. He had a long life, passing away in 1995, and is buried on the Great Packington estate.