Read my new research paper:
"SUNK EN ROUTE TO FREEDOM"
- New Evidence Linking the Movement of the
Montevideo Maru with Internee Exchanges
Between Japan and Australia
Released May 2009
Last update 07/02/2010
PLEASE NOTE
This paper does not claim there was an exchange negotiation that included
the Rabaul men, or that it should have been announced to the Rabaul men that
they were to be exchanged (although there is evidence of rumours). It shows
evidence that the delay of the Montevideo Maru empty in Rabaul harbour, under
air attack for two weeks, and its sailing to Hainan are consistent with the
Japanese positioning the Rabaul civilians at Hainan (which was both in the
official exchange zone and on the exchange ship route) "just in case"
Australia didn't release the Japanese internees, as Curtin and Evatt were
threatening.
"History is a process and there is not one truth about the past, just
as there is not one truth about the present.
It will depend, in part, on where you are looking at it from, but what I think
you have to try and do in History,
and confronting the present, is to recognize that your view is a limited one
and it may not be the only one.
And try and be aware of other angles and aspects. I think what history also
has to do is sort
out what people think they believe (and what we think we believe) from what
actually happened.
We have views of the past that are simply not borne out by the evidence."
Professor Margaret MacMillan