Portrait of WX7307 Signalman (Sig) Thomas John Watson (left) and WX7133 Sig James Osmund Davies, ...

Portrait of WX7307 Signalman (Sig) Thomas John Watson (left) and WX7133 Sig James Osmund Davies, both 7 Divisional Signals. Watson and Davies are posing in a photographer's painted prop labelled "Sydney Express". Sig Davies, of Gundalbie Station, WA, enlisted in August 1940. He was discharged in March 1944. Sig Watson, of Mount Lawley, WA, was a clerk prior to enlisting in August 1940. He served with No. 1 Independent Company on the island of New Ireland. He was taken prisoner of war (POW) following the Japanese invasion of January 1942 and held at Rabaul, New Britain. On 22 June 1942 Sig Watson 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 the 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 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.