Abandoned and Sacrificed: Tragedy of the Montevideo Maru

AUSTRALIAN MILITARY WWII

“Rabaul, New Guinea, is a tropical paradise, but between January and July 1942 it was a tragic and terrifying place. Hundreds of Australian defence force volunteers and civilians were massacred by the invading Japanese. Forced into the holds of the hellship Montevideo Maru, a further 1053 perished in Australia’s worst maritime disaster. On 22 June 1942, 845 military POWs and over 200 civilian internees left Rabaul on the Montevideo Maru, a freighter requisitioned by the Japanese navy, for Hainan, off the southern coast of China. On 1 July this vessel was torpedoed and sunk by the submarine USS Sturgeon close to Luzon, resulting in the deaths of all prisoners and internees on board. Most were barely adults, still too young to vote. All were forsaken and sacrificed by Australia’s government and military leaders. Decades of official denial and subterfuge have ensued, as families continue to fight for the truth and to understand why the Australian Government was so slow in admitting this ever happened.”

• 303 pages : illustrations, maps, portraits ; 24 cm First Edition #070923 bibliographical references (pages 296-300)
• Montevideo Maru (Ship)
• World War, 1939-1945 — Campaigns — Papua New Guinea — Rabaul
• World War, 1939-1945 — Prisoners and prisons, Japanese
• Prisoners of war — Australia
• World War, 1939-1945 — Atrocities — Papua New Guinea — Rabaul
• World War, 1939-1945 — Phillipines
• Australian