Just before Anzac Day in Canberra, Les Drew received news he had waited 81 years to hear.
On Saturday, the remains of the Japanese transport ship, Montevideo Maru, had been been found in about 4000 metres of water off the coast of the Philippines.
The ship had been torpedoed and sunk by the US submarine, the USS Sturgeon, the Americans unaware that on board were some 1060 prisoners of war - including 850 Australian servicemen and women and 210 civilians from 14 nations - taken after the fall of Rabaul on the island of New Britain, off the coast of Papua New Guinea.
In January 1942, the invading Japanese army had quickly overwhelmed the small Australian garrison, known as Lark Force, at Rabaul.
Some 160 servicemen were massacred in a rubber plantation while the rest were taken prisoner and ordered on board the Montevideo Maru for transport to Japan.
One of those captured Australians was Les Drew's much-loved brother Kenneth, who was just 20 years old.
All the prisoners were locked below deck when the transport ship went down.
It remained Australia's largest loss of life at sea, in peace or wartime, and the ship's location in the South China Sea had been a mystery for decades.
"It was a bit overwhelming to hear the news after all this time," Mr Drew said.
"For so many years the family thought Ken had been taken as a prisoner of war, but then we heard he was lost in the sinking.
"But of course, the ship had never been found. So it left all of us in the family with this awful hollow feeling."
As Les Drew later wrote: "After the war finished and terrible truth [of the sinking] came out, my parents were too consumed with their grief and their feelings of betrayal; by successive governments, to be able to direct their minds to ensuring the memory lived on."
During World War II, the Drew family had three flagpoles in their front yard, one for each of their serving sons. When the flags were raised, everyone knew the Drew "boys" were safe.
But after the fall of Rabaul, Kenneth's flag was never raised again.
The finding of the wreckage came out of the blue, literally, after a not-for-profit organisation, the Silentworld Foundation, dedicated to maritime archaeology and history, found it using an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV).
Silentworld had planned the expedition for five years, after a 20-year campaign by the Montevideo Maru Society. The expedition team was assembled by the former Telstra chairman and maritime history buff John Mullen.
"We knew they had been searching but I guess it [the search] had been going for so long that we didn't really expect anything," Les Drew's grand-daughter, Rebecca Mills, said.
"It was in such deep water."
Ms Mills had taken on the role of family historian after archival material, including photos, letters and official correspondence relating to Kenneth's service, was found in a box under a family home.
Kenneth Drew was part of the 2/22 Battalion Band and a euphonium player.
He and his fellow Salvation Army band members had been recruited to form the battalion band and all had signed up together. Only one member of the band was to survive the war.
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