Studio group portrait of three brothers from Rockhampton, Queensland, who enlisted within three ...

Studio group portrait of three brothers from Rockhampton, Queensland, who enlisted within three months of each other in mid 1940. Left to right: QX2936 Private (Pte) (later Corpral) Max Harold (Peter) Flood, 9 Division Signals; QX8467 Signalman (Sig) William Edward "Splinter" Flood, 1 Independent Company and QX8250 Pte Richard Joseph Flood, Northern Command Infantry Training Depot. Corporal Peter Flood, the youngest of the three, survived the war but his two brothers did not. Pte Richard Flood died of injuries on 8 October 1940 after falling from a balcony whilst on pre-embarkation leave. He was 26. Signalman William Flood served on the island of New Ireland. He was taken prisoner of war (POW) following the Japanese invasion of January 1942 and held at Rabaul, New Britain. On 22 June 1942 he was one of an estimated 845 POWs and 209 civilians who embarked from Rabaul aboard the Japanese transport ship MV Montevideo Maru. The POWs were members of the No. 1 Independent Company, 2/22 Battalion and other units of Lark Force. Civilians included officials of the New Guinea Administration and missionaries. The ship sailed unescorted for Hainan Island. On 1 July 1942 all the prisoners died when the Montevideo Maru was torpedoed by a US Navy submarine, USS Sturgeon, off the coast of Luzon Island in the Philippines.