ARCHIVES
SCOTCH BOYS AND THE
THE FINAL RESTING PLACE OF AT LEAST EIGHT OLD BOYS WAS RECENTLY DISCOVERED
The sinking of the SS Montevideo Maru on 1 July 1942 is regarded as Australia ’ s greatest maritime tragedy . It was being used by the Japanese to transport mostly Australian POWs – both military and civilian – from Rabaul , New Guinea , to the Chinese island of Hainan . The US submarine USS Sturgeon pursued it , and – unaware it had POWs on board – successfully torpedoed it , with the loss of 1054 lives . Their families did not learn of the disaster until after the war .
On 18 April 2023 the wreck was discovered off the northwest coast of Luzon , at a depth of over 4000m in the South China Sea . It is the resting place and the war grave of at least eight Scotchies .
The oldest , Louis William Carson ( born 15.4.1894 at Yannathan , SC 1914-15 ), served in World War I as a private in the AIF ( 1916-18 ). He was a plantation owner and a civilian on Fead Island , Papua New Guinea , at the time he was taken prisoner . Louis married Ruby Aileen Stainer in the Anglican Church at Rabaul on 12 January 1925 , and they had a son , Graeme and a daughter , Diana .
Charles William Booth Houghton ( born 16.2.1904 at Perth , SC 1916-19 ) was a salesman , a stockman on Coonong Station near Urana , New South Wales , and a cattle expert . He married Violet Louisa Battershill at Woollahra on 20 December 1937 and appears
to have left Australia soon afterwards . In 1942 Charles became a rifleman in the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles . He was one of at least 845 members of Lark Force captured in the fall of Rabaul who were on the Montevideo Maru . He had no children , and Violet never remarried .
Incorrectly reported in Great Scot as having died in 1980 , only in recent years did I discover the true , unfortunate fate of Thomas Evan Evans ( said to have been born 24.5.1904 at Nelson , New Zealand , SC 1919-22 ). He was enrolled by Old Boy Evan Stanley Evans , who married Thomas ’ mother , Constance Veronica Trask on 29.3.1910 ). Thomas was variously described as a pathologist and as a medical assistant . Sources differ on where and when he married Mrs Grace ( nee Hagan ) Lansley .
Thomas was an Aircraftman 1 in the RAAF in 1941 and then became a Sergeant in the New Guinea Volunteer Reserve . As his service ended on 21 January 1942 he was considered a civilian at the time of his death . His wife , son David , and daughter Genifer survived him .
Lark Force member Kenneth John Kennedy ( born 10.1.1905 at North Fitzroy , SC 1918-21 ) left after Year 11 to go into accountancy . He became a clerk , and married Elizabeth Amelia Shannon at Scotch
98 Great Scot Issue 169 – September 2023