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Leongatha & District
HISTORICAL SOCIETY
HISTORY OF THE FORMER WOORAYL SHIRE
Dumbalk • Inverloch • Koonwarra • Leongatha • Meeniyan • Ruby
Tarwin Lower • Venus Bay • Walkerville
EDWARDS, Herbert
Number:
VX27881
27 Brigade Coy, Australian Army Service Corps
Melbourne 25 September 1920
Beatrice Edwards his mother Son of Ernest and Beatrice Amy Edwards, of Frankston, Victoria.
27 June 1940 at Caulfield
Meeniyan
Motor mechanic
12 September 1944 in the sinking of the Rakuyo Maru in the Luzon Strait, South China Sea. He was aged 24.
He is remembered on the Labuan Memorial and the Leongatha Memorial.
He was from Meeniyan
In September 1944 the Ruyuko Maru was transporting 1317 Australian and British POWs from Singapore to Formosa (Taiwan). The soldiers were survivors of the Thai Burma railway had recently returned to Singapore from Burma and Thailand. On 12 September the vessel was attacked by three US submarines. It was sunk by the USS Sealion. Some of the POWs survived on rafts and were rescued a few days later. In all 1159 POWs, including Herbert, died.
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