Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Jack Mills was the 4th son and 5th child in the family of 11 children. He went to school at Elbow Hill, about 16 km south of Cowell.  Jack lived on family properties in Carpa, Cowell, Elbow Hill and Myola Station near Iron Baron. He worked as a shearer, mostly on farms and stations on Eyre Peninsula. Jack was shearing in the Carpa-Elbow Hill district until enlisting in the army.

Jack enlisted in the Australian Permanent Forces at Adelaide SA on 13 January 1940 and was allotted Army Number SP 6530. He trained as a gunner. He transferred to the AIF on 25 February 1941, was allotted Army Number SX11448 and served in Australia with the 10th Australian Heavy Artillery Battery. As a member of L Heavy Battery, Royal Australian Artillery, Lark Force, he embarked at Sydney NSW on 18 April 1941 for service in Rabaul.

In March 1941 a small Australian Army garrison of approximately 1,400 personnel was sent to Rabaul, New Britain to garrison the outpost, protect its airfields and seaplane anchorages and act as a link in a chain of observation posts across the northern frontiers.  (Lark Force – Rabaul and New Britain VWMA)

In January 1942, Lark Force received information that the Japanese fleet was approaching Rabaul. Inadequately supported and without an extraction plan, when the Japanese landed on 23 January 1942, Lark Force was overrun by some 5,000 Japanese troops and more than 100 aircraft  (Young, G. AWM website).

Jack was reported missing on May 1942 and believed to be a prisoner of war, later determined to be interned in Borneo. He embarked on 22 June for Hainan on the Montevideo Maru, a freighter requisitioned by the Japanese navy. It was not marked as a POW carrier. On 1 July it was torpedoed and sunk by the submarine USS Sturgeon off the Philippine Island of Luzon, resulting in the deaths of all prisoners and internees on board.

Jack’s official records states:                                                                                                                                                                          

13/10/1945 Landforces For official purposes presumed to be dead. Ex Rabaul believed to be on Montevideo Maru.

Families now have some closure, as 81 years later, on the 18 April 2023, the wreck of the Montevideo Maru was discovered at a depth of over 4,000 m in the South China Sea, off the northwest coast of Luzon, Philippines. It is an official war grave site.

Jack is remembered at the Australian War Memorial, The Cowell cenotaph and The Bita Paka War Cemetery (Rabaul) New Guinea.

Links/Information: 

World War 2 Biographies (Folder, located at Cowell RSL) Stocker, B.

National Archives Australia – RecordSearch

Australian War Memorial ‘The Loss of Lark Force’ Young, G. 20 March 2024.

Lark Force – Australia’s Northern Periphery 1942. VWMA https://vwma.org.au/explore/units/1822

Members of the Mills Family