N85071 Lieutenant (Lt) P W Fisher (left), Second in Command of the Anti Aircraft Battery Rabaul, ...

N85071 Lieutenant (Lt) P W Fisher (left), Second in Command of the Anti Aircraft Battery Rabaul, and N85247 Lt D M Selby (right), Officer Commanding, outside their hut at Malaguna Camp. The Anti-aircraft Battery was equipped with two out-dated 3 inch anti-aircraft guns. When the Japanese attack was expected the battery was moved to Frisbee Ridge, on Observatory Hill overlooking Simpson Harbour, and was also assigned the additional role of coastal defence against landing craft. Both officers survived the retreat from Rabaul in 1942, however, of the fifty-one other ranks in the battery only seven survived. Some were massacred by the Japanese at Tol. On 22 June 1942 an estimated 845 POWs and 209 civilians embarked from Rabaul aboard the Japanese transport ship MV Montevideo Maru. The POWs were members of the the Anti Aircraft Battery Rabaul, No. 1 Independent Company, 2/22 Battalion 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 of 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.