THE unveiling of a commemorative seat at Mornington Memorial Park at 11am on Monday 23 January marks the 81st anniversary of the largest loss of life in Australian maritime history, when the Montevideo Maru was sunk in the Pacific during World War II.
The memorial includes a storyboard paying tribute to the 1053 Australian soldiers and civilians who died when the Montevideo Maru was sunk during the Japanese invasion of Rabaul on 1 July 1942 and became was one of the most shocking tragedies of the war in Australia and in the Pacific.
The Battle of Rabaul was the first battle Australians fought in the Pacific war on what was then Australian territory. Rabaul was the administrative capital of the Mandated Territory of New Guinea, although it was changed to Lae a couple of months before January 1942.
The prisoner transport ship Montevideo Maru was not marked in any way to distinguish it from other Japanese shipping, and therefore it became a target of the allies, who fired four torpedoes at it from the USS Sturgeon off Luzon on the Philippines coast. Around 15 per cent of Australians who died as prisoners and internees of the Japanese died in the disaster.
The ceremony is an acknowledgement of the great loss of family members in the tragedy and the importance of having places of quiet reflection to think of soldiers and civilians caught up in war, so that their sacrifice is not forgotten.
Most of the soldiers and civilians in Rabaul spent five months in captivity working as forced labour for the Japanese before boarding the ship. Many were killed in the aftermath of the invasion and others died while trying to escape through dense tropical jungle, high mountains, crocodile infested rivers and also in the Tol Massacre. They died of hunger, disease, perils of having to escape hundreds of kilometres with no maps, medicines, firearms, as well as from their mistreatment by the Japanese.
Families last heard from their men with letters sent early January 1942 (some received letters in April 1942 saying the men were prisoners) and, while they lived in hope, they did not hear anything further until at least October 1945 after the war ended. It was nearly four years before they got word their men were dead.
Many of the civilian wives and families lived in Victoria after they were evacuated from Rabaul.
For further information, speeches by then Governor General, then Chief of Army and then President of the Rabaul and Montevideo Maru Society can be read at montevideo-maru.org/events/70th-anniversary-2012/
Mornington woman Gillian Nikakis, whose father Bill died on the Montevideo Manu, spearheaded the commemorative tribute, after requesting that Mornington Peninsula Shire Council install a memorial to remember the men of the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles (NGVR) and others who disappeared with the sinking of the MS Montevideo Maru.
She said it would provide a place of reflection to remember the men and their brave actions during the war as well as a place where Australians could learn some war history.
Light refreshments will be provided at Mornington RSL following the event on 23 January, the same day 81 years ago that Japan formally invaded and occupied the then-Australian Mandated Territory of Rabaul.
First published in the Mornington News – 17 January 2023
