Vic. Paybook photograph, taken on enlistment, of VX32493 Private Howard Richard Fitzgerald, No. 1 ...

Vic. Paybook photograph, taken on enlistment, of VX32493 Private Howard Richard Fitzgerald, 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. Private Fitzgerald, aged 30, died as a prisoner of the Japanese on 7 March 1945. He was the son of Francis Edward and Frances Elizabeth Fitzgerald, and the husband of Joyce Margaret Fitzgerald, of Newport, Vic. He is commemorated on the Labuan Memorial Panel 23. (Photograph copied from AWM232, items 4 and 5. Personal information from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Database.)