Back to Gravesites         

World War 11 Casualties
 

 

If you could spare a few dollars to help with the running costs of this website would be very much appreciated.

Thank you from Gravesites of Tasmania.

Kingston Donald Harold

 
Donald Harold Kingston was born on the 10th Sept 1918 at Kellevie Tasmania the son of Francis (Frank) Kingston and Bertha nee Clifford.

He lost his life whilst on board the Tamahoko Maru which Sunk 24th June 1944 .

In this incident 74 Tasmanians lost their life. 

With the coastline of Japan in sight, one of the Japanese ships in a convoy with Prisoners of War on board, exploded after being torpedoed by the US submarine “USS Tang” in command of Lt.Cdr. R.H. O'Kane  

The “Tamahoko Maru” which was closest to the torpedoed vessel was almost blown apart and water poured in through a hole in her side.  There were 80 men sleeping on top of the main hatch cover and not one of them survived.  

Hundreds of prisoners jumped into the sea as the “Tamahoko Maru” started to sink.  Some were later picked up by a Japanese whale chaser.  

The final count was that 560 POW’s had died.  Of the 267 Australians on board only 72 survived.  The following day, 212 survivors were brought into the harbour at Nagasaki to spend the rest of the war in the POW camp, Fukuoka 13 where many more lost their lives.

Many thanks to Rex Burdon for supplying the photo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please note that there might be information from other websites or brochures "reprinted" here- under the laws of "fair use". In every instance -we hope- we have provided a direct link to the owners web site. We do not claim rights or ownership to any of their information. We do thank them sincerely for their efforts. We have in every instance made a good faith effort to contact and request 'reprint' permission. Nonetheless, we do want to be certain that nothing gets lost due to web site disappearance and the like, so it appears duplicated here.

Tasmanian War Casualties, Honouring the past, building understanding.

Copyright © 2016 Tasmanian War Casualties