About 1,060 WWII prisoners died when the ship, which has now been found in the South China Sea, was sunk by an American missile in 1942

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The wreck of a ship caught up in Australia’s worst ever maritime disaster has been found 4,000 metres under the sea, 80 years after it was torpedoed by an American submarine.

The Montevideo Maru, discovered off the coast of the Philippines, sank with about 980 Australian troops and civilians on board – almost twice as many Australians killed than during the Vietnam war.

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