Hannah, Robert Buchanan

Accession Number PR04517
Collection type Private Record
Record type Collection
Measurement 1 wallet: 1cm
Object type Letter
Maker Hannah, Robert Buchanan
Place made Pacific Islands: Bismarck Archipelago, New Britain, Gazelle Peninsula, Rabaul Area, Rabaul
Date made 1942
Access Open
Conflict Second World War, 1939-1945
Copyright

Item copyright: Copyright expired - public domain

Public Domain Mark This item is in the Public Domain

Copying Provisions Copyright expired. Copying permitted subject to physical condition. Permission for reproduction not required.
Description

Collection relating to VX37681 Sergeant (Sgt) Robert Buchanan Hannah who served with 2/22 Infantry Battalion, 8th Division, which formed part of Lark Force. Comprises one original handwritten letter and accompanying envelope, written by Sgt Hannah to his family after he became a prisoner of war of the Japanese in Rabaul. The one page letter is undated, however it was most likely his last letter sent home to Australia when the Japanese allowed the prisoners of war on Rabaul to write letters to their families. These letters were part of a mailbag letter drop by the Japanese after an air raid over Port Moresby. Sgt Hannah died at sea on 1 July 1942, when the Japanese transport ship he was on, the Montevideo Maru, was sunk off the north coast of Luzon by an American submarine.