Finding the Centaur
Published: 9 February 2010
On 20 December 2009, on day seven of the search, David Mearns, Search Coordinator for the Finding the Centaur Project announced that the wreck of the AHS Centaur had been located by sonar. Visual confirmation of the find occurred on 10 January, when amazing images from a depth of over 2,000 metres were beamed around Australia. Finally, after 66 years of not knowing the final resting place of the Centaur, there can be some sense of conclusion for those who lost loved ones in this war time tragedy.
The clearly identified non-combatant hospital ship Centaur was bound for Papua New Guinea when it was sunk without warning by a torpedo from a Japanese submarine on 14 May 1943, about 30 miles due east of the southern tip of Moreton Island. Such an attack on a hospital ship was a breach of the Hague Convention of 1907 and therefore a war crime.
Of the 332 persons on board, only 64 survived. Of the 12 nurses on board, only one survived—Sister Ellen savage who was subsequently awarded the George Medal for her "conspicuous gallantry" during the 36 hours that survivors awaited rescue.
The ship had sunk so quickly that there was no time to issue an SOS signal. The American Destroyer USS Mugford eventually picked up the survivors that were clinging to life rafts.
According to official Australian War memorial records the nurses who lost their lives on the Centaur were:
Sister H.F.J.C. Haultain; Sister E. King; Sister M. Moston (Ellen Savage refers to her as Morton); Sister E.A. Shaw; Sister D.J. Wyllie; Sister M.L. Adams; Matron S.A. Jewell; Sister A.M. O’Donnell; Sister E. M. Rutherford; Sister W. Walker; and Sister M.H. McFarlane.
Special permission was granted by the Australian government for the search team to attach to the wreck of the Centaur a commemorative plaque produced by The Centaur Association, which contains a CD with the names of everyone who served on the ship along with personal notes from family.
A memorial service is being planned by the Centaur Commemoration Taskforce, details of which are yet to be released.
The sinking made front page news in newspapers around the world, such was the magnitude of the atrocity. The Australian government at the time called upon Australians to "Avenge the Nurses" by increasing war related production and the buying of war bonds.
Their memory was kept alive after the end of World War Two and in 1948, Queensland nurses established the Centaur Memorial Fund for Nurses, which raised fifty thousand pounds, an enormous sum of money for that time, to fund activities in memory of the nurses who went down with the ship. The funds were invested and this money was used to establish Centaur House (a facility which provided inexpensive accommodation for out-of-town nurses) as well providing scholarships for nurses that continue to this day.
The finding of the Centaur provides us with an important opportunity to reflect on the important contribution that nurses make in times of war. Those nurses who have paid the ultimate price, including the eleven nurses on the Centaur, are remembered in the Australian Service Nurses National Memorial in Canberra.
To think that this particular tragedy occurred so near to Brisbane also makes us realise just how close to home the fighting came during World War Two. Like so many others I grew up hearing stories about the sinking of the Centaur. My mum was a student nurse at the then Brisbane General Hospital at the time of the sinking, along with her sister Dorothy. Their older sister Ruth was a registered nurse working at the Greenslopes Repatriation Hospital where survivors from the Centaur, including Ellen Savage, were taken to recuperate.
There were many aspects of the sinking of the Centaur that made a lasting impression on people who were alive at the time—the horror of the attack on a hospital ship, the number who died, the shattered lives of the survivors and families of those who died, the close proximity of the attack to Brisbane. The memories of this significant sacrifice were handed down to future generations.
Lest We Forget.
Sister Ellen Savage being interviewed at Greenslopes Army Hospital about 7 or 10 days after her rescue from the Centaur. Photo courtesy of the Australian War Memorial.
Contact:
Phone:
