War in the Pacific
In December 1941, Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor and Malaya, launching the
Pacific war. The following month, as part of the same thrust targeting the Philippines
and the Netherlands East Indies, they launched air raids (from 5 January) and a
landing (23 January) against the town of Rabaul, at the northern tip of the Gazelle
Peninsula of New Britain, in the former Australian territory of New Guinea. By late
that day, Australian forces at Rabaul made up of 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 defeated.
Prisoners on board the Montevideo Maru
Of the 1396 Australian military personnel at Rabaul before the attack, 160 were
killed south of the town at Tol, about 400 eventually escaped to Australia, and
the remainder became prisoners of war (POWs). After the invasion, most civilians
gathered around Rabaul where the Japanese forces set up a camp for civilian and
military prisoners.
In June and July 1942 the Japanese naval authorities made two attempts to transfer
these prisoners to Japan. The first group, of about 60 Australian officers and 18
women, including Army nurses, arrived safely. The second, historically thought to
include 845 POWs and 208 civilian internees, left on 22 June for Hainan on the Montevideo
Maru, a freighter requisitioned by the Japanese navy. It was not marked
as a POW carrier. On 1 July it was torpedoed and sunk by the submarine USS Sturgeon
off the Philippine island of Luzon, resulting in the deaths of all prisoners and
internees on board. The loss of life on the Montevideo Maru is described
as the worst maritime disaster, in peace or war, in Australian history.
Aftermath
The deaths of the men on the Montevideo Maru were not fully revealed in Australia
until after the end of the war when evidence was found in Japan. Small pieces of
information had come from wartime sources such as New Guineans who had reached safety
and captured Japanese personnel and, after hostilities had ended, Japanese and surviving
civilians in Rabaul, and the POW officers who had returned from Japan. In September
1945 the Australian authorities sent Australian Army officer Major Harold S Williams,
a pre-war resident of Japan, to Tokyo as a liaison officer with No. 1 Australian
Prisoners of War Contact and Enquiry Unit [B3856, 144/14/89] to investigate this and other POW matters.