WA. Paybook photograph, taken on enlistment, of WX8488 Warrant Officer Class 2 Thomas Spurling, ...

WA. Paybook photograph, taken on enlistment, of WX8488 Warrant Officer Class 2 Thomas Spurling, 2/6th Field Park Company, Royal Australian Engineers. 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. Warrant Officer Class 2 Spurling, aged 42, died as a prisoner of the Japanese on 11 March 1945. He was the son of John Samuel and Florrie Spurling, and the husband of Edith Emily Spurling, of Fremantle, WA. He is commemorated on the Labuan Memorial Panel 6. (Photograph copied from AWM232, items 4 and 5. Personal information from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Database.)