On This Day 3 April 1942, the last survivors still at liberty after the sinking of HMAS Perth (pictured just before it sank) were captured.
A boat, with twelve sailors, was forced to surrender to the Japanese. The party had found the boat ashore and had made it seaworthy and set out to sail to Australia, but 37 days of adverse winds and constant searching for food and water drinking weakened them.
On 1 April the boat was shelled by a Japanese destroyer, but they escaped under cover of darkness. On the 3rd they entered a small port called Kota Agung in Sumatra hoping it was still in Dutch hands. It wasn’t. They were fired on and had no choice but to surrender. They went into captivity with the rest of the Perth and Houston’s survivors. They had been at large unbeaten, largely sustaining themselves for 5 weeks. It was an epic attempt at escape and evasion and survival.
