Warrant Officer Class 2 Charles Richard Benson, 2/22nd Battalion, Australian Imperial Force

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Montevideo Maru

Australian War Memorial

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Charles Benson was born on 15 November 1898 in the English town of Bath, one of seven children born to Sawrey Brownlow Benson, a reverend, and Nellie Sangster Benson. In 1922, when he was around 24 years old, he emigrated by himself to Australia, and arrived in Melbourne on the 28th of December.

In 1938 Benson married Henrietta Stanton, and they settled in Wootong Vale, near Coleraine, Victoria, where he worked as a stockman.

Benson had already served one year at the Royal Military College and five years commissioned in the Indian Army when he enlisted in the Second Australian Imperial Force on 22 May 1940. He gave his year of birth as 1900 in order to seem to be less than 40 years of age. He was taken on strength at the Redbank Reinforcement Depot in Caulfield in Melbourne. In July he was attached to the newly raised 2/22nd Battalion, which began training in Victoria, when he was promoted to sergeant and then warrant officer. In October the battalion marched 235 km to Bonegilla, near Wodonga on the border with New South Wales, for further training, before they entrained to Sydney. On 17 April 1941 Benson embarked with his unit for Rabaul, New Britain, arriving on the 26th.

The 2/22nd Battalion joined various other Australian and local units to form “Lark Force”. Its role was to protect the airfields at Lakunai and Vunakanau and the seaplane base at Rabaul, and to provide early warning of Japanese movements through the islands. Like other forces in New Britain, it was ill-equipped. Nonetheless, the 2/22nd spent the next months constructing defences and training for operation in a tropical environment.

In January 1942 Japanese air forces began bombing New Britain. The airstrips were destroyed, and on 23 January enemy forces landed on Rabaul. They overwhelmed the Australian defence; many were killed, and though 400 members of Lark Force managed to escape to Australia, 836 were captured. Among those taken prisoner was Warrant Officer Charles Benson.

On 22 June 1942, Benson and hundreds of civilians and military prisoners were loaded aboard the transport ship Montevideo Maru. It was to be sailed to Hainan Island, where its prisoners would be forced into labour. On the 1st of July, however, the ship came within range of an American submarine, USS Sturgeon. Unaware that the ship was transporting Allied prisoners, the submarine torpedoed the Montevideo Maru. All of its 1,053 prisoners and civilian internees, including Charles Benson, perished in the sinking.

Despite efforts made by both the International Red Cross and the Australian government, the families of these men were not informed of the fate of their sons until October 1945.

Warrant Officer Class 2 Charles Richard Benson is listed on the Roll of Honour at the Australian War Memorial, along with some 40,000 others from the Second World War.

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