NGX513 Rifleman Lineker Johnston, New Guinea Volunteer Rifles, (on right) and an unidentified ...

NGX513 Rifleman Lineker Johnston, New Guinea Volunteer Rifles, (on right) and an unidentified soldier (left). Johnston, an employee of the Bank of New South Wales, Rabaul, was was taken prisoner of war (POW) following the Japanese invasion of January 1942, and held at Rabaul. On 22 June 1942 Rifleman Johnston was one of an estimated 845 POWs and 209 civilians who embarked from Rabaul aboard the Japanese transport ship MV Montevideo Maru. The POWs were members of 2/22 Battalion, No. 1 Independent Company, and other units of Lark Force. Civilians included officials of the New Guinea Administration and missionaries. The ship sailed unescorted for Hainan Island. On 1 July 1942 all the prisoners died when the Montevideo Maru was torpedoed by a US Navy submarine, USS Sturgeon, off the coast of Luzon Island in the Philippines. In January 1946 The Argus reported his death and noted that a letter from him had been included in a number which had been dropped [c 1942] over Port Moresby by the Japanese.