Lost at Sea: The Tragic Fate of SS Montevideo Maru
On July 1, 1942, the SS Montevideo Maru, a Japanese prisoner-of-war transport ship, was torpedoed by an American submarine off the coast of the Philippines. Over 1,000 Australian and British POWs were on board, along with some Japanese civilians and crew. None survived. The tragedy remains one of the worst maritime disasters in Australian history, and the families of those lost are still searching for closure.