The Japanese ship was torpedoed en route from what is now Papua New Guinea to China’s Hainan by a US submarine, unaware of the POWs onboard.
Australia’s Defense Minister Richard Marles said on Saturday that the wreck of a Japanese merchant ship, sunk in World War Two with 864 Australian soldiers on board, had been found in the South China Sea, ending a tragic chapter of the country’s history.
Marles said the SS Montevideo Maru, an unmarked prisoner of war transport vessel missing since being sunk off the Philippines‘ coast in July 1942, had been discovered northwest of Luzon island.
