Sinking of the Montevideo
EIGHTY years ago, the Montevideo Maru was sunk in an attack on the Japanese navy.
The ship was carrying prisoners of war, with Australian military personnel on board.
The deaths, which were not fully revealed in Australia until after the Pacific War ended, included Private Henry Courtney Gerard, from South Townsville.
It remains Australia’s worst military maritime sea disaster.
Private Gerard, who was 22 when he died, still has family in Townsville.
In December 1941, Japan launched an attack on Pearl Harbour and Malaysia, sparking the Pacific War and bringing World War II into the region.
When the Japanese launched an attack on Rabaul, the base of Australian and New Guinea forces, our troops were defeated.
The troops, made up of the 2/22 Infantry Battalion and 1st Independent Company, the main components of Lark Force; members of the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles; and, smaller anti-aircraft and ambulance units, were poorly equipped.
Extra equipment and reinforcements were meant to come, but never made it.
Of the 1396 Australian military personnel at Rabaul, about 160 were killed south of the town at Tol, about 400 escaped to Australia and the rest became prisoners of war (POW). Among the POWS was Private Gerard.
The first group of about 60 Australian officers and 18 women, including army nurses, were taken to Japan by the navy.
But the second transfer went drastically wrong. More than 840 POWS and about 208 civilian internees were loaded on to the Montevideo Maru, bound for Hainan.
It was not marked as a POW carrier.
On July 1, the ship was torpedoed and sunk by the American submarine USS Sturgeon off the Philippine island of Luzon.
All the prisoners on the ship died.
The Australian War Memorial says Japanese survivors believe it took 11 minutes from when the torpedo struck for the ship to sink. The strike came soon before 2.30am.
The Australian War Museum says that of the 88 Japanese guards on the ship, only 17 survived the sinking and marched through the Philippine jungle.
Families back in Australia did not know the full extent of what happened to the men on the Montevideo Maru until after the war.
In 1945, Major Harold Williams gained access to Japanese files that showed the Montevideo Maru had been carrying Australian prisoners when it sank.
One of the files included a 48-page list of names, written in Japanese.
While the translation was not perfect, it helped identify the next of kin.
The original copy of the roll has been lost, as has the initial translation.