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Mystery of the missing hell ship
The Weekend Australian ^ | 20th June 2009 | Mark Day

Posted on 06/19/2009 4:01:42 PM PDT by naturalman1975

WHEN Kim Beazley slipped his feet under the desk as Australia's defence minister in 1984, he took charge of a vast department with a multibillion-dollar budget and gained access to the nation's most valuable military secrets. But even from his position at the apex of Australia's military machine he was unable to find a definitive answer to one of his family's most enduring mysteries: what happened to Uncle Syd.

Now, a quarter of a century on, Beazley has put his influence behind a campaign to demand answers to questions surrounding one of the nation's most tragic wartime episodes, the sinking of the Montevideo Maru.

Syd Beazley was a technical instructor and carpenter attached to a mission near Rabaul in New Britain in 1941 when the Japanese juggernaut swept through the South Pacific. He was captured along with the bulk of the Australian defenders, the 2/22 Infantry Battalion, known as the Lark Force, when the Japanese overran Rabaul in January 1942.

What now seems certain is that Syd Beazley was among the 845 prisoners of war and 208 civilians who were herded on to a Japanese "hell ship", the freighter Montevideo Maru, in Rabaul harbour on June 22, 1942.

Nine days later, at 2.40am off Luzon in The Philippines, the Montevideo Maru was hit by a torpedo fired from a US submarine and quickly sank. None of the PoWs or civilians survived.

(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.news.com.au ...


TOPICS: Australia/New Zealand; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: pow; secondworldwar; worldwarii

1 posted on 06/19/2009 4:01:42 PM PDT by naturalman1975
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To: naturalman1975

Unsolved Mysteries, someone call Robert Stack


2 posted on 06/19/2009 4:05:10 PM PDT by GeronL (http://libertyfic.proboards.com <----go there now,----> tyrannysentinel.blogspot.com)
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To: naturalman1975
I don't harbour any grudges about this. The Sturgeon commander had no way of knowing who or what was aboard. Their job was to sink Japanese ships

The fact she offered this comment means the reporter implied the US commander might be guilty of something. Typical of the moronic mentality of the liberal western press.

3 posted on 06/19/2009 4:10:46 PM PDT by skeeter
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To: naturalman1975
The Montevideo Maru was one of many freighters that became known as Japanese hell ships because of the conditions aboard. Thousands of prisoners were held in stinking, fetid cargo holds and transported to Japan to be used as slave labour. They were treated brutally and many died.

This, not Gitmo, is torture and violation of the Geneva Conventions.

4 posted on 06/19/2009 4:14:32 PM PDT by colorado tanker ("Lastly, I'd like to apologize for America's disproportionate response to Pearl Harbor . . . ")
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To: naturalman1975

Sad. Were there international conventions at that time about marking PoW ships? IIRC, later in the war they marked such ships with green crosses and sailed with all lights burning. But that might have been after the surrender.


5 posted on 06/19/2009 4:15:18 PM PDT by PLMerite ("Unarmed, one can only flee from Evil. But Evil isn't overcome by fleeing from it." Jeff Cooper)
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To: naturalman1975

the U S Navy had a big problem with dud torpedoes early in the war. The USS Sturgeon could have used a few in that tragic event.


6 posted on 06/19/2009 4:16:11 PM PDT by oyez (To the extent veterans read it as an accusation -- and apology is owed(i.e. not given))
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To: naturalman1975

-Mystery of the missing hell ship-
“Mystery still surrounds aspects of this inquiry,
including the loss of a vital document that is believed
to have contained the names of all the passengers on the
Montevideo Maru. The manifest, written in Japanese,
was sent to Australia in 1946 but has disappeared
among millions of military records.”
-
I don’t understand what the “mystery” is?
That a document went missing?


7 posted on 06/19/2009 4:16:52 PM PDT by Repeal The 17th (When the time comes, right thinking men will know what to do.)
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To: PLMerite

“...they marked such ships with green crosses...”
-
That kind of stuff don’t work in a “real” war.
The japs would have put green crosses on every ship they had.
And so would we.


8 posted on 06/19/2009 4:19:10 PM PDT by Repeal The 17th (When the time comes, right thinking men will know what to do.)
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To: skeeter
Just for the record, Kim Beazley is a he not a she.

One of the only socialist politicians I've ever had any time for - he was a decent Defence Minister, and is a genuine patriot.

9 posted on 06/19/2009 4:22:31 PM PDT by naturalman1975 ("America was under attack. Australia was immediately there to help." - John Winston Howard)
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To: naturalman1975

Sunk by the USS Sturgeon.


10 posted on 06/19/2009 4:22:59 PM PDT by bill1952 (Power is an illusion created between those with power - and those without)
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To: Repeal The 17th

That we really don’t know who was and who wasn’t on the ship. There is a difference between being MIA because a body was never found, but you know where the person died, and being MIA with no idea what happened to the person at all.


11 posted on 06/19/2009 4:24:23 PM PDT by naturalman1975 ("America was under attack. Australia was immediately there to help." - John Winston Howard)
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To: naturalman1975

He was more patient with that reporter than I woulda been.


12 posted on 06/19/2009 4:25:14 PM PDT by skeeter
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To: skeeter
Any ship captain knows that there is always a chance that fellow countrymen may on the receiving end of his salvo. If he is too worried about that chance, he would not be an effective commander. War is Hell.

The modern press seem to think the defense of our nation and allies is a criminal activity.

13 posted on 06/19/2009 4:29:08 PM PDT by oyez (To the extent veterans read it as an accusation -- and apology is owed(i.e. not given))
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To: naturalman1975
The Montevideo Maru thus became Australia's greatest maritime disaster, with 1053 lives lost: 408 more than the sinking of HMAS Sydney seven months earlier

The sinking of the Sydney was a tragic story in itself. I believe that's the Cruiser that discovered the German Auxillary Cruiser Kormoran and was sunk by her. She damaged the Kormoran so badly the raider had to be scuttled. All hands were lost on the Sydney.

14 posted on 06/19/2009 4:51:49 PM PDT by Larry381 ("in the final instance civilization is always saved by a platoon of soldiers" Oswald Spengler)
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To: PLMerite
Sad. Were there international conventions at that time about marking PoW ships? IIRC, later in the war they marked such ships with green crosses and sailed with all lights burning.

I think their were,but the Japanese did not give a damm for international law

15 posted on 06/19/2009 4:55:54 PM PDT by Charlespg
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