The original version of this historical sketch was published on the Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists website, encyclopedia.adventist.org. It has been adapted for content and space.
Malcolm Abbott was the superintendent of the Seventh-day Adventist Mission in New Guinea when he was taken as a civilian internee during World War II in Rabaul, New Guinea, and subsequently lost his life at the age of 33.
Early life
Malcolm was born into an Adventist home in Waverly, a suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, on January 12, 1909.
A biographical sketch in the Adventist Archives gives us more detail on his education. “After attending school at Gordon, he became a student of the North Sydney High School, where he was highly esteemed for his good character and his athletic prowess. When it was suggested, at the age of sixteen, that he be transferred to the Australasian Missionary College, it was with reluctance on the part of the headmaster (who had instructed Mac’s mother also) that he was released.”1
Malcolm graduated from the three-year business course at the Australasian Missionary College and accepted an appointment as clerk in the Sanitarium Health Food Company. He also spent time in the Australasian Union Conference office and was later hired as accountant and preceptor of the New Zealand Missionary College.
While in New Zealand, Malcolm married Una Frances (“Fran”) Spengel. Fran was a nurse who had graduated from the Sydney Sanitarium. She was born in Boonah, Queensland, in 1906. Her family had moved to Avondale so the children could attend the Australasian Missionary College and had purchased the property and home previously owned by W. C. White opposite Sunnyside, the home of Ellen G. White.
Malcolm spent three years in educational work at the New Zealand Missionary College, followed by some years of clerical work for various church entities, before his ordination in September 1939. That same month he was chosen as the superintendent of the New Guinea Mission.
Wartime tragedy
“Having faithfully served in this capacity for three years, [the Abbotts’] furlough fell due late in 1941. Knowing that Pastor and Mrs. Tutty were also due a furlough at the same time, Pastor Abbott said he and Sister Abbott would postpone their leave for a few months, in order not to deplete the field of workers. Had he taken his leave when due, he would have been in Australia at the time of the fatal invasion of New Guinea.”2
In December 1941 the Seventh-day Adventist missionary family dependents in Papua New Guinea were evacuated to Australia. Within seven months the Japanese navy had pushed back the Australian army and taken over the town of Rabaul on the island of New Britain and established a base from which the invasion of the Solomon Islands and mainland Papua New Guinea could be launched.
Malcolm remained in Papua New Guinea at a location where he was in easy reach of the invading Japanese forces, and he was soon captured by the occupying Japanese forces.
He and 1,052 other men were packed onto the Montevideo Maru for transportation to Hainan Island, leaving Rabaul on June 22, 1942. Aboard this prison ship were some 845 servicemen and 208 civilians. The webpage of the National Archives of Australia includes the account of the fate of Australian personnel in East New Britain before the Japanese attack:
“Of the 1396 Australian military personnel at Rabaul before the attack, 160 were killed south of the town at Tol, about 400 eventually escaped to Australia, and the remainder became prisoners of war (POWs). After the invasion, most civilians gathered around Rabaul, where the Japanese forces set up a camp for civilian and military prisoners.
“In June and July 1942 the Japanese naval authorities made two attempts to transfer these prisoners to Japan. The first group of about 60 Australian officers and 18 women, including Army nurses, arrived safely. The second, historically thought to include 845 POWs and 208 civilian internees, left 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. The loss of life on the Montevideo Maru is described as the worst maritime disaster, in peace or war, in Australian history.”3
For many months the families of these men knew nothing of their fate. After the end of the war, when Japanese records, including the names of the prisoners who had been on board the Montevideo Maru, were translated, the Commonwealth of Australia’s minister for external affairs was able to let the families know the men who had been on board the Montevideo Maru when it was torpedoed. Abbott is listed as internee 145.
During a memorial service held in the Wahroonga church on November 10, 1946, to honor those Adventists who lost their lives while prisoners of war, a fitting tribute was paid to Malcolm and his faithfulness:
“His fidelity to duty, his love for his fellow workers, his concern for the indigenous people of New Guinea, placed him within easy reach of the invasion forces, at whose hands he fell a victim with eleven hundred fellow Australians, whose loss we so deeply deplore.”4
On July 1, 2012, a memorial was erected in Canberra to those who had lost their lives in this tragedy. It was dedicated by the governor-general of Australia with more than 800 in attendance, representing the families who had experienced this tragic loss.
Fran’s career and later life
After Fran’s evacuation from Papua New Guinea, leaving behind the husband she never saw again, she worked at the Sydney Adventist Hospital until her retirement in 1971. In her later years she was the dean of the women’s dormitory. Because she had no children of her own, the nursing students were her family. She enjoyed visits with the students, often sharing with them her experiences. Fran died in 1993.
1 Retrieved from https://documents.adventistarchives.org/Periodicals/AAR/AAR19460107-V50-01.pdf#search=Malcolm%20Edwin%20Abbott.
2 Ibid.
3 Retrieved from https://montevideomaru.naa.gov.au/timeline/.
4 Retrieved from https://documents.adventistarchives.org/Periodicals/AAR/AAR19460107-V50-01.pdf#search=Malcolm%20Edwin%20Abbott.
