The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (NX25468) Corporal Kenelm Mackenzie Ramsay, No.1 Independent Company, Second AIF, Second World War.

The Last Post Ceremony is presented in the Commemorative area of the Australian War Memorial each day. The ceremony commemorates more than 102,000 Australians who have given their lives in war and other operations and whose names are recorded on the Roll of Honour. At each ceremony the story behind one of the names on the Roll of Honour is told. Hosted by Meleah Hampton, the story for this day was on (NX25468) Corporal Kenelm Mackenzie Ramsay, No.1 Independent Company, Second AIF, Second World War.

NX25468 Corporal Kenelm Mackenzie Ramsay, No.1 Independent Company, Second AIF
Died at sea (Montevideo Maru) 1 July 1942

Today we remember and pay tribute to Corporal Kenelm Mackenzie Ramsay.

Kenelm Ramsay was born on 27 August 1914, the son of Kenelm Kurston Ramsay and Jessie Gwendolen Ramsay of Bellevue Hill in New South Wales.

Known as “Mac”, Ramsay was educated at Tamworth High School and later at the Hawkesbury Agricultural College where he was a talented athlete representing the school in rugby, shooting and athletics.

After leaving school Ramsay became a salesman. He was well-known in the rugby community as a talented forward and went on to play for New South Wales and the Wallabies, Australia’s national team.

Playing for Randwick, he was a member of the grand-final winning sides of 1938 and 1940. He played the first of his four internationals for the Wallabies in 1936 against the Maori side, and went on to represent Australia against both New Zealand and South Africa.

In 1939 he was a member of the “Unlucky 29” – the Wallabies who had just arrived in the UK for a months-long tour when war broke out. The team’s manager told the players: “We have one job in front of us now … to return and get into Australian uniforms without delay.”

Ramsay followed his manager’s instructions, becoming one of 18 Wallabies from that tour to enlist in the Australian forces. He enlisted on 31 May 1940 and underwent training as an infantryman before being assigned to the newly formed No.1 Independent Company in June 1941.

His capacity for leadership, perhaps gained on the rugby field, soon became apparent, and he was promoted to acting lance corporal almost immediately upon joining the unit.

With the threat of war with Japan looming, the company was sent to garrison a number of Pacific islands – including Kavieng, Guadalcanal and Manus – in July 1941. Ramsay received a second promotion, to corporal, around this time.

In early January 1942 the Japanese attacked Kavieng – starting with massive bombing raids before an amphibious landing forced the small Australian force, vastly outnumbered by the enemy, to withdraw. Major James Edmonds-Wilson, commander of No.1 Independent Company, led his men in a fighting rear guard before ordering them to evacuate aboard the schooner Induna Star.
On 2 February, as the Australians sought to sail to Port Moresby, the schooner was attacked and badly damaged by Japanese aircraft. The damage made escape or further resistance impossible, so Ramsay and his comrades became prisoners of war, imprisoned on Rabaul.

Conditions were terrible, and the treatment of the prisoners was harsh. The Japanese planned to heavily militarise Rabaul and began removing all non-Japanese personnel from the area in mid-1942.

As a result, Mac Ramsay was among the group of 133 men of No. 1 Independent Company, along with approximately 720 other military prisoners and 200 civilian internees, ordered to board the Montevideo Maru on the morning of the 22nd of June.

Eight days into the voyage to Hainan, the Montevideo Maru was spotted by the American submarine USS Sturgeon, which manoeuvred into position to fire its stern torpedoes. Survivors from the Montevideo Maru’s Japanese crew reported two torpedoes striking the vessel, followed by an explosion in the oil tank in the aft hold.

The vessel sank in as little as 11 minutes. Of those aboard, barely 20 Japanese crew survived; over 1,000 others died. According to a surviving Japanese crewman, Australians in the water sang “Auld Lang Syne” to their trapped mates as the ship sank beneath the waves.

The sinking is considered the worst maritime disaster in Australia's history.

Unaware of the ship’s loss, the families of those on the Montevideo Maru continued to send letters in the belief that their loved ones were being held as prisoners of war. It was not until after the war that they discovered the fate of those who died on the Montevideo Maru.

Another of the “Unlucky 29” Wallabies, Bombardier Winston Philip James Ide, died in strikingly similar circumstances when the Rakuyo Maru, aboard which he was being transported as a prisoner of war, was sunk by a US submarine, the USS Sealion.

Today, Corporal Ramsay is commemorated at the Rabaul Memorial, at the Montevideo Maru memorial in Ballarat, and the Rabaul and Montevideo Maru memorial here at the Australian War Memorial.

His name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my left, among some 40,000 Australians who died while serving in the Second World War.

This is but one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Corporal Kenelm Mackenzie Ramsay, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.
Chris Widenbar,
Executive Officer to the Director