NSW. Paybook photograph, taken on enlistment, of NX34186 Lance Corporal Vincent Kerr Tanko, No. 1 ...

NSW. Paybook photograph, taken on enlistment, of NX34186 Lance Corporal Vincent Kerr Tanko, No. 1 Company, Australian Army Service Corps. 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. Lance Corporal Tanko, aged 32, died as a prisoner of the Japanese on 7 February 1945. He was the son of Bertram Vincent and Hilda May Tanko, and the husband of Ruth Holland Tanko, of Wollongong, NSW. He is commemorated on the Labuan Memorial Panel 21. (Photograph copied from AWM232, items 4 and 5. Personal information from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Database.)