Call for recognition of PNG Montevideo Maru disaster
Updated
Relatives of the more than 1,000 Australians who died on the Japanese World War 2 ship Montevideo Maru on July the 1st, 1942, want them to be recognised. They have formed a Montevideo Maru Committee, and are asking the Australian government to remember the troops and civilians taken prisoner from Papua New Guinea by the Japanese.
Presenter: Firmin Nanol
Speaker: Keith Jackson, spokesman of the Montevideo Maru Committee
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NANOL: The Japanese war ship, Montevideo Maru, transported 845 troops and 208 civilian men as prisoners of war after Japan invaded Rabaul in Papua New Guinea's East New Britain province in January 1942.
The ship left Rabaul on June the 22nd, 1942, but nine days later on July the 1st an American submarine torpedoed it off the Philippines coast.
No-one survived the sinking of the warship, in what is believed to be one of Australia's worst maritime disasters.
Now the relatives of the men say they want the Australian government to say sorry about the disaster after more than 67 years.
Spokesperson Keith Jackson says they owe them an explanation as to why and how the tragedy happened.
JACKSON: The relatives would like the Australian Government to explain to them how the men came to be left in Rabaul, when the Japanese invaded, because there were other ships going back to Australia from Rabaul and the men were told not to go on them. So there are those two things. There is a need for more information, a need for some kind of recognition from the Australian Government about this tragedy. And the relatives, even though it is a long time ago, nearly 70 years ago. They still feel grief and they feel there is knowledge they would like to get about what happened.
NANOL: He says there are no historical records of the men who were on board the Montevideo Maru when it was torpedoed by the American submarine.
Mr Jackson says that is something the Australian government should help find out.
JACKSON: The Japanese captured the men and loaded them onto the ship and the Japanese took a list of the names of the men, and that's the list that seems to have gone missing. So there is a bit of a mystery about this. And there was never a list of people. So while the ship's location is known, the list of men who were aboard the ship is not known and that is probably somewhere in the records of the Australian Government and the committee really wants to see that list, to find it.
NANOL: On July the 1st this year, relatives of the men who died plan to unveil a memorial plaque at Subic Bay on Luzon Island in the Philippines, where the Montevideo Maru went down in 1942.
JACKSON: That's right. I'm sure that many of the relatives will want to be there, because this is one opportunity, perhaps the best opportunity, they have had to honour their relatives.
NANOL: The location of the wreckage is known, but no effort has been made to discover the remains. Some believe there is nothing left to find.
Former Australian Opposition Leader, Kim Beazley, has given his support to the Montevideo Maru Committee to ask the Australian government to give recognition to those who died on the ship.
Mr Beazley's uncle, the Reverend Sydney Beazley, who resided in Rabaul at the time of the Japanese invasion, was just 33 when he was believed lost on the Montevideo Maru.
