To locate Montevideo Maru

Port Moresby: Thursday 15 May, 2008

The Papua New Guinea Association of Australia (PNGAA) has asked Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to commit the Commonwealth Government to an expedition to locate the last resting place of the Montevideo Maru and the men she carried. The sinking of this vessel in the South China Sea off the Philippines in the early hours of July 1, 1942, claimed the lives of 1,053 Australian troops and civilians who had been interned in Rabaul. It remains Australia’s greatest ever maritime disaster. The sinking of the Montevideo Maru has special relevance for anyone associated with Papua New Guinea, PNGAA president, Keith Jackson said.

Comments

[Richard E. Jones]

LIKE many other folk with PNG connections, I endorse moves to pressure the Rudd Government into finding the last resting place of the Montevideo Maru.
Among the 1,053 Australian military personnel and civilians entombed when the ship went down may have been some special Salvation Army bandsmen.
I have a feeling that the members of the Brunswick (Melbourne) Salvation Army brass band might have been among those 1,053 lost persons.
A man named Arthur Gullidge was the leader of this band. I am not sure of his Salvos rank nor indeed why he and his bandsmen were on the Montevideo Maru, but it seems most likely they had been interned in Rabaul.