Last month Denis and Judy Ireland of Walcha and Colin, Helen and Lesley Pearce of Tamworth with Member for New England Tony Windsor heard the Minister for Veterans Affairs, Alan Griffin, and the Shadow Minister for Veterans Affairs Louise Markus make a bi-partisan promise of a $100,000 grant towards a $400,000 memorial to be erected at the Australian War Memorial to honour the men who died after the Japanese captured Rabaul in 1942.
Judy Ireland’s uncle Keith Moreden Smith was a Prisoner of War on the Montevideo Maru.
Most of those to be remembered died when the Japanese ship, the Montevideo Maru was sunk off the Philippines coast while transporting the men from Rabaul to prisons in China. The sinking is Australia’s worst maritime disaster.
About 350 relatives and friends of the victims heard both parliamentarians speak in the House of Representatives and later at a reception hosted by the Minister.
President of the Rabaul and Montevideo Maru Society, Professor Keith Jackson said this is a very significant day for people who served in the New Guinea Islands and their relatives.
“We are keen to let succeeding generations of Australians know about the tragedy of the Montevideo Maru,” Professor Jackson said.
“It was only after Colin and Helen Pearce were married that they discovered each both lost an uncle in the sinking of the Montevideo Maru.”
Email a friend