Initial discussions on a memorial to the victims of the sinking of the Lisbon Maru began in late 2018 between Christopher Allanson and Major Brian Finch.

Christopher was a relative of Kenneth Allanson, Royal Artillery, who died in the sinking. He had also, in recent years developed a number of high level military contacts who would be useful in getting the appropriate service associations to support the idea of a memorial.

Brian was a former member of The Middlesex Regiment (DCO), one of the units on board the Lisbon Maru. His interest in the subject had been sparked when he joined the Regiment and had grown after he met members of The Lisbon Maru Association of Hong Kong. He had also translated into English a Chinese account of the sinking.

A small planning group was formed consisting of Christopher and Brian, with the valuable help of Brigadier Edward de Broe-Fergueson, who had recently helped in the building of a memorial to the Black Watch. Major Alasdair Goulden, Secretary of The Queen's Regimental Association provided important administrative and logistic support. This increased to form a committee with the inclusion of Steve Denton. Steve was the grandson of Joe Denton, Royal Artillery, who had survived the sinking and had spent years researching the fate of the POWs on the Lisbon Maru in memory of his Grandfather; specifically he had gathered the Japanese POW cards for all the POWs and used them in conjunction with other material to compile accurate data.

The first task was to persuade the NMA to accept a bid to build a memorial as they had stopped accepting new applications pending a major reorganisation of their site. The second obstacle was the discovery that when an application was made, this included a non-refundable deposit of £1,000, which would be lost should the application fail. Fortunately Alastair recruited the help of master stonemason Nick Johnson who not only had built a number of memorials at the NMA, including one for the Queen's Regiment, but was also familiar with the workings of the NMA ensuring that any submitted application was unlikely to be rejected.

The committee turned its attention to funding. The Queen's Regimental Association agreed to handle the finances. Since this was an established charity this absolved the committee of the need to set up a new charity and appoint trustees, safe in the knowledge that any funds collected would be properly accountable. All the service associations concerned were asked for donations and a fund-raising webpage was set up to collect donations from others. These others were in the main relatives of the POWs on the ship. Brian was by now in contact with several hundred of these relatives and many generously stepped forward to donate towards the cost of the memorial. This was an expensive undertaking. The costs included the granite stone, its transportation to the UK, the work involved in engraving and placing it in situ and the not inconsiderable charges levied by the NMA. As well as significant administrative fees, these charges included one-off payments for both maintenance and insurance in perpetuity.

The design of the memorial developed dynamically in discussion between members of the committee. The main feature on the front of the stone was an engraving of the sketch of the Lisbon Maru sinking, drawn in Kobe POW camp by Lieutenant W C Carroll, US Navy, based on eye witness accounts of the survivors. The other main features on the front of the stone are the badges of all the units involved. Whilst the basic setting of these was clear, all laid out in the correct military order of precedence, the details took a great deal of research as designs of cap badges had changed since 1942 plus some of the units had changed names or been amalgamated into others.

The reverse of the memorial contains a brief outline of the events of the sinking as well as the numbers of those from the various units who were on board and those who died. Different researchers had reached slightly different conclusions about the numbers and this is where Steve Denton's contribution was invaluable. He rechecked his own figures from the Japanese POW cards and had many exchanges with Tony Banham, author of "The Sinking of The Lisbon Maru".

On Sunday 3 October 2021 (The NMA was unavailable on 2 October due to another major event) a crowd of more than 650 attended the unveiling of the memorial by Vice Admiral John Henry Stuart McAnally, CB LVO. This was followed by a dedication service. Most of those attending were relatives of prisoners of war who had suffered on the Lisbon Maru.

More details relating to the construction of the memorial can be found by visiting the Queen's Regimental Association website.
https://www.queensregimentalassociation.org