Service: Army – 2/2Pioneer Battalion
Service number: VX56017
Locality on Enlistment: Tomahawk Creek
Duration of Service: 16 May 1941 – 6 Dec 1945
Prisoner of War: Yes
Honours: None for display
Date and Place of Birth: 14 Nov 1923 Colac
Parents: Frederick GILL and Ruby Florence LEAKE
Spouse: Edna Jane SELL
School/s: Irrewillipe East SS
Occupation: Timber worker
Date and Place of Death: 24 Aug 1984 Sale
Place of Burial: Colac Cemetery
NOTES:
Written parental consent was required for anyone enlisting in the Australian Military in WW2 who was under the age of 21. This may have been why Richard lied about his age being 21 when he was in fact only 17 years old. Following the completion of the fighting in Syria, the 2/2nd Pioneers landed in Java in late Feb 1942 and joined “Blackforce”. They took part in a brief, but bitter engagement before being ordered to surrender; a large number of the 2/2nd personnel were captured – over 800 men – of whom 258 later died in captivity. Dispatched across south-east Asia, the men were used as forced labour on the Burma–Thailand railway, and in camps on Java and Borneo. Richard spent three years as a prisoner of war of the Japanese on the Burma Railway and the coal mines in Japan.