A Lifetime Waiting for the Missing of the Montevideo Maru
RSL Victoria recently received a letter from the daughter of a Montevideo Maru widow. It told the story of loss her mother felt for the rest of her life and was a poignant reminder of the loss felt by those left behind. Below is the story of Beverley Fisher and her mother Rene McNamara.
Beverley Fisher’s mother, Rene McNamara, had a daily ritual which Beverley did not understand. After breakfast each morning, for as long as Beverley could remember, her mother would open the newspaper and turn to the missing persons column.
When she was about 17 years old curiosity finally got the better of Beverley and she asked her who she was looking for.
The answer provided an insight into the profound loss her mother had carried with her for many years.
“She said she was looking for her first husband, Kevin Russell,” Beverley Fisher said.
“She told me she never gave up hope that Kevin had survived and may be looking for her.”
Born years after his presumed death, Beverley knew little about her first husband Kevin, other than he had gone missing in the war and was the father to three of her siblings – but not her.
Her aunt had told her stories about Irene and Kevin’s deep love when they met in their home in northern Tasmania. Kevin would sneak up to Irene’s bedroom window when she was a teenager still living with her parents. They would spend hours late at night just talking. One night her aunt had seen them kissing through the wire screen covering the window.
Kevin and Irene married and moved to Melbourne by the time he enlisted in the army in June of 1940. His military files record him being granted leave for the birth of his daughter Gloria in January 1941, shortly before he was to sail out to war.
Kevin was with the 2/22nd battalion which disembarked at Rabaul, New Guinea, on 3 May 1941. Rabaul had been a German garrison until it was captured by Australian forces in the First World War. It was initially intended to be a radar station but instead became a forward observation post in the defence of Australia. Australia was not yet at war with Japan and the defences it was putting in place would prove too few against the growing threat from the north.
In January 1942, only weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbour, Rabaul was invaded by Japanese forces and quickly overwhelmed. The 2/22nd was briefly able to hold back the attack but Japanese forces landing elsewhere on the island began moving inland and the situation quickly became hopeless.
Australian soldiers retreated through the jungle but more than 1000 of them, including Kevin Russell, were soon captured. Of these, 160 were massacred. The rest became prisoners of war.
Kevin Russell was permitted by his Japanese captors to send a message home to Irene. Written in his own hand over a single page it read:
“This is just a note to let you know that I am a prisoner of war at Rabaul under the protection of the Japanese and I am in the best of health. Please remember me to all at home sweetheart. This is all I am allowed to write dear, so I’ll close with fondest love to you all, hoping you’re all in the best of health. From your loving husband Kevin George Russell.”
That would be the last Irene would hear from her husband.
On 22 June 1942, more than four months after the fall of Rabaul, the remaining prisoners were placed on the Japanese transport ship Montevideo Maru. Eight days later the ship was spotted by an American submarine, USS Sturgeon, near the Philippines. Unable to fire upon it at first, the Americans pursued the unescorted transport; unaware it was carrying Australian prisoners of war.
In the early hours of July 1, 1942, the Montevideo Maru slowed to 12 knots and the USS Sturgeon fired on the Japanese transport. The ship was hit by at least one torpedo and sank within 11 minutes.
It was later reported by Japanese eyewitnesses that the Australian Prisoners of War sang Auld Lang Syne as the ship sank beneath the water.
It is believed Kevin Russell died with the sinking of the ship, but as his body was never recovered, he was recorded as missing presumed dead.
Irene Russell found herself a single mother with three small children, living in a halfway world where her husband was neither alive nor dead.
“Life was hard, but my mother was an expert in adapting, on getting by with very little,” said Beverley Fisher. “She told me that she did not have chairs for the dining room but used boxes from the grocery store with cushions on top.”
Despite remarrying and having seven children with her new husband, the loss of her first love never grew less for Irene.
“My mum loved my dad, Tom, her second husband, very much,” said Irene. “He took on Kevin’s children like his own and we became a very tight knit family, all ten kids.”
But on Kevin’s birthday, their anniversary or ANZAC Day, and any time she heard the last post, Irene was reminded of what she had lost.
“Mum could not bring herself to be involved in the RSL or attend Anzac Day marches,” Beverley said. “The loss she felt was too much for her to be involved.”
Tom worked in the timber industry and as an essential service worker could not enlist in the military in the Second World War. Her husband, Bruce Fisher, was the son of a British Second World War veteran who served in France and Burma. He was an active member of the Moe RSL and, remembering the loss her mother had felt, Beverley and her family got involved too.
Irene died in 1985, never giving up hope that Kevin’s name would appear in the missing persons section of the newspaper.
“Mum had a small plastic bag of letters and photos that she cherished,” Beverley said. “After she passed, I gave the bag to my half-brother, also called Kevin, and it remains in the care of his family.”
The wreckage of the Montevideo Mary was found in the South China Sea on 18 April 2023, more than 80 years after it went down, taking Kevin Russell and hundreds of other Australian Prisoners of War with it. It lies more than 4000 meters beneath the sea, deeper than the wreck of the Titanic.
“When they found the wreckage of the Montevideo Maru, I could only wish mum could have known and maybe she could have found some kind of peace. Strangely, if Kevin had survived, I would not have been born. But every time I go to Canberra, I visit his name on the Memorial wall and shed a tear for what mum lost.”
Photo: Rene McNamara
