The Sinking of the Montevideo Maru

Were you to survey Australians with a simple question: ‘What is Australia’s greatest maritime disaster’, our guess is that most could not answer at all. A few might hazard that the loss of 645 sailors on HMAS Australia[i] on 19^th February 1941 off Carnarvon, WA, would qualify.  The only other candidate some might mention is the sinking of the hospital ship AHS Centaur[ii], torpedoed off the Queensland coast on May 14, 1943, with the loss of 268 medical staff and civilian crew members from the 332 people on board. It is unlikely that anyone, until the news reports of the past few days, would nominate the sinking of the MV Montevideo Maru despite its far greater loss of 1,053 soldiers and civilians.

Some six months into Australia’s participation in the Pacific War, the Japanese ship, the Montevideo Maru was transporting more than 1,000 PoW’s and civilians from Rabaul to Hainan Island in China.  She was alone when spotted on July 1, 1942, by the submarine USN Sturgeon…