The Montevideo Maru Memorial Committee is a small and informal group that meets around a table from time to time and by email much more frequently.
Its handful of members report, check progress, plan and make commitments for their self-imposed task of gaining national recognition for that most appalling of tragedies, the sinking of the prison ship Montevideo Maru on 1 July 1942 – Australia’s worst maritime disaster.
The committee
consists of relatives of some of the 1,053 men who died together with others of
us who have become captivated by the story. Having learned as many of the facts as can be gleaned from the
official records (although it is known there are some records that have never seen the
light of day), we share the relatives’ belief that this is unfinished business.
As this is an
issue I’ve referred to more than once already in these Notes, and as it is
likely to be a recurring topic, it’s probably worth stating succinctly the
reasons why this matter remains of importance, not only to those people
affected but to all Australians.
Firstly, there
are the victims’
relatives and their thirst for knowledge and need for closure. Because there
remain so many questions about the tragedy, it is impossible for these people
to assure themselves that the full story has been told. In the dishonouring of
the rights of the relatives to official recognition of this tragedy, there is
an implicit dishonouring of the memories of the 1,053 men who died.
Second, there is so much that is unknown about political decisions made in Canberra in January 1942 that left just 1,300 Australian troops (Lark Force) to defend Rabaul against a 5,000 strong Japanese invading force supported by overwhelming air and naval power.
Lark Force and hundreds of civilians were then denied, yes
denied, an exit from Rabaul when a Norwegian freighter,the MS Herstein [left],
became available. It departed from Simpson Harbour loaded only with copra.
Third, there was
the discreditable official silence, for the entire duration of the war,
surrounding the fate of the 1,053 (it is thought) troops and civilians loaded
on to the Montevideo Maru. And then there was the unsolved puzzle of who
exactly was on board the vessel. There was a roll kept by the Japanese that
apparently fell into Australian hands after the war. It went missing.
Fourth, there has been the unfathomable official reluctance since the war to give due recognition to the Montevideo Maru tragedy, which is at least as significant as the sinking of the light cruiser Sydney (645 deaths) and the hospital ship Centaur (268 deaths).
While disasters should not be put into a league table of mortality, the comparisons indicate that what happened to the Montevideo Maru was of a scale that warrants official recognition.
A memorial to be
unveiled on Subic Bay next July has been paid for entirely by private
subscription: individual citizens and small associations keeping the flame alive.
Fifth, there are
stories that Australians should know about our history. This is surely one of
them.
These are the
reasons why this matter must be pursued.
Photo: Committee member Chris
Diercke recently tracked down this rare image of the 'Herstein'
in a Norwegian maritime journal.
Late last year, when I wrote on the PNGAA website about the Montevideo Maru and the circumstances in which it came to make its fateful final voyage, this response came in from Hooky Street (who, by the way, has just joined the Montevideo Maru Memorial Committee).
As an account by a person involved firsthand in this story, I thought it worth repeating here….
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The articles on the Montevideo Maru very explicitly & sensitively remind us of the terrible tragedy & complicity of the Australian Labor Government in the fall of Rabaul in Jan 1942. This was only the start of their callousness and indifference that permeated their approach, which continued throughout the war & after, to the pioneer families which had so responsibly implemented the administration of the German Colonies mandated to them by the League of Nations after World War 1.
My father, James Lee Street, was not on the Montevideo Maru although for awhile when listed as missing presumed a POW, the ship seemed to be part of the story. We subsequently learned of his eventual fate as being murdered in the Tol Plantation massacre, in a telegram delivered at 6.00pm on Xmas eve 1945.
The treatment received by my mother by the government over the next couple of years, as the widow of a man who had served in the 1st AIF at the Somme and gave his life in the Second World War as a member of the 2nd AIF, was vindictive & lacking in compassion.
Since they are currently having an inquiry into the sinking of the HMAS Sydney it seems logical to now look at the whole sad story of Rabaul which culminated in the Montevideo Maru sinking which today is Australia's greatest maritime tragedy in terms of loss of life.
I wonder if there is a politician in today's Parliament to pursue this terrible blot on our military history so that the true story is written & hopefully never repeated. How do we learn from history if we don't know what really happened.
Philip (Hooky) Street
Posted by: Keith Jackson | 19 April 2009 at 12:58 PM