2023-04-22 08:51:04
After eight decades of obscurity, the wreck of a Japanese ship that was torpedoed during World War II with more than 1,000 people, most of them Australian prisoners of war, has been found off the coast of the Philippines.
And the “Silentworld Foundation”, which is active in the search for antiquities in the depths of the sea, announced on Saturday that it had spotted, on April 18, the ship “Montevideo Maru” at a depth of more than four thousand meters in the South China Sea, 110 kilometers from the Philippine island of Luzon.
The ship was found after a 12-day deep search campaign using a sonar-equipped drone.
The sinking of this ship was one of the largest catastrophic marine accidents in Australian history.
The American submarine “USS Sturgeon”, whose crew did not know that it was carrying prisoners of war from the Allied forces, sank the Chinese island of Hainan, which was occupied by the Japanese army.
Silent World said 1,060 people were killed in the shipwreck, including 979 Australians captured during the Battle of Rabaul in New Guinea. At least 850 of these Australians were soldiers.
The organization itself explained that planning for the search for the ship took five years. Search operations began on the sixth of April.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a statement posted on social media that he had “finally found the resting place” of the lost ship’s dead, expressing his hope that “today’s news will bring some comfort to their long-awaited loved ones.”
The organization said that the shipwreck will be left in its place and nothing or human remains will be moved out of respect for the families of the victims.
Among those killed on board the ship were 33 sailors from the Norwegian cargo ship “Hirstein” who were captured by the Japanese in Rabaul, and about 20 Japanese were guards and crew members of the ship, according to the institution itself.
She explained that among the victims of this incident were also citizens of the United Kingdom, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Solomon Islands, Sweden and the United States.
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