Vic. Paybook photograph, taken on enlistment, of VX30185 Private Eric Bloom, No. 2 Company, ...

Vic. Paybook photograph, taken on enlistment, of VX30185 Private Eric Bloom, 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 Bloom, aged 42, died as a prisoner of the Japanese on 8 February 1945. He was the son of John Eric and Mary Ann Bloom, and the husband of Doris May Bloom, of Chiltern, Vic. He is commemorated on the Labuan Memorial Panel 22. (Photograph copied from AWM232, items 4 and 5. Personal information from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Database.)