Montevideo Maru

Memorial

Rabaul RSSAILA Will Build It If Widows Approve

THE War Graves Sub-Committee of the Rabaul Branch of the RSSAILA has undertaken to maintain the Monte video Maru memorial in Rabaul, since there is no other organisation to take the responsibility.

The memorial was built by the Army near Colyer Watson’s old wharf in Rabaul, from which the ill-fated vessel is believed to have departed about June 1942, carry ing men of the 22nd Battalion. AIF, and some hundreds of New Guinea residents who had been caught by the Jap invasion.

The ship was sunk by the Allies on its ;way to Japan and all prisoners were lost.

The present memorial is of cement and it is believed that its life will not be a very long one.

The War Graves sub-committee would like to replace it with a stone memorial, suitably inscribed but they feel that they would like to have the approval of the New Guinea widows of those men who lost their lives on the ship. The sub-com mittee would be responsible for raising 'the funds necessary to build the memorial. (Editorial Note: PIM wrote to the De partment of External Territories, Canber ra, asking for a list of the widows of Montevideo Maru victims, but as yet has not received a reply. It is likely that the various New Guinea women’s organisa tions in Australia would be best qualified to supply lists of Montevideo Maru widows, as many of the members of these organ isations are Rabaul widows. The organ isations are: New Guinea Women’s Club of Sydney; New Guinea Women’s Associa tion, Melbourne; and the New Guinea Women’s Association, Brisbane. Else where this issue it is suggested that when, or if, the new memorial is built there be included thereon the names of those men who, while not Montevideo Maru victims, were killed or mysteriously disappeared while prisoners of the Japs in Rabaul).