NSW. Paybook photograph, taken on enlistment, of NX19307 Gunner Walter Havelock Beer, 2/15th ...

NSW. Paybook photograph, taken on enlistment, of NX19307 Gunner Walter Havelock Beer, 2/15th Field Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery. He was one of over 2000 Allied prisoners of war (POW) held in the Sandakan POW camp in north Borneo, having been transferred there from Singapore as a part of B Force. The 1494 POW's that made up B Force, were transported from Changi on 7 July 1942 on board the tramp ship Ubi Maru, arriving in Sandakan Harbour on 18 July 1942. Gunner Beer, aged 41, died as a prisoner of the Japanese on 21 March 1945. He was the son of Arthur Ernest and Mary Jane Beer, and the husband of Evelyne Isabelle Beer, of Hornsby, NSW. He is commemorated on the Labuan Memorial Panel 4. (Photograph copied from AWM232, items 4 and 5. Personal information from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Database.)