- Carrying more than 1,000 soldiers and civilian POWs aged between 15 and 60 during World War II, the Japanese transport ship Montevideo Maru was sunk by torpedo on July 1, 1942, unaware that it was carrying prisoners of war by the allied US force. There were 979 Australian soldiers and civilian prisoners of war on the ship, which sank in 10 minutes with 4 torpedoes, and the event went down in Australian history as ‘the worst maritime accident of all time’.
FOUND AT 4000 METERS
The Australian-based non-governmental organization Silentworld Foundation, which carries out the search, announced today that the shipwreck was found near the Philippines coast, at a depth of 4,000 meters. “The wreckage lies deeper than the RMS Titanic, at more than 4000m, and no effort will be made to remove the remains or human remains,” the press release said.
“I am proud to be a citizen of a country that does not forget what it lost in the job, even after years, and does not stop searching,” said John Mullen, the leader of the team that found the wreckage of Montevideo Maru with 20 years of work and 5 years of planning, and Director of the Foundation.
Source: DHA