NSW. Paybook photograph, taken on enlistment, of NX57251 Private Ralph Shields, No. 2 Company, ...

NSW. Paybook photograph, taken on enlistment, of NX57251 Private Ralph Shields, No. 2 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. Private Shields, aged 52, died as a prisoner of the Japanese on 21 November 1944. He was the son of Richard Nicholson Shields and Frances Shields and the husband of Eva Jane Shields, of Concord, NSW. He is buried in the Labuan Cemetery Section N, Row AA, Plot 16. (Photograph copied from AWM232, items 4 and 5. Personal information from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Database.)