AHS Centaur
Australian Hospital Ship Centaur was sunk during World War II at 4.10am on 14 May 1943 off Point Lookout, North Stradbroke Island, Queensland, by a torpedo from the Japanese Navy submarine I-177 (Type KD7). The ship sank within 3 minutes. The ship was well illuminated and marked as a hospital ship, and the act of sinking a ship so marked was considered to be a war crime.
Centaur (3,066 tons) had been built for the Ocean Steamship Company (Blue Funnel Line) in Greenock, Scotland, in 1924. In early 1943 it was converted to a hospital ship.
Of the 332 persons onboard during the fateful second voyage from Sydney to New Guinea, there were: 75 Merchant Navy crew, 65 ship's Australian Army medical staff including 12 nurses, 192 members of the Army's 2/12th Field Ambulance that was to establish various medical units. 64 survived after clinging to debris and life rafts for 34 hours until rescued by United States Navy ship USS Mugford.
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Memorial
The Centaur memorial is at Point Danger, Coolangatta, Queensland. It consists of a monumental stone topped with a cairn, surrounded by a tiled moat with memorial plaques explaining the commemoration. The memorial is in turn surrounded by a park with a boardwalk, overlooking the sea, that has plaques for other ships lost during World War II, including both Merchant and Royal Australian Navy ships. (34 ships were attacked off the east coast of Australia; of these 13 were torpedoed but did not sink; of the 4 struck by mines, 1 sank.)
The memorial was unveiled on the 50th anniversary of the sinking, 14 May 1993, by Minister for Veteran's Affairs, Senator the Honourable John Faulkner. Apart from Australian survivors and local dignitaries, a contingent of the USS Mugford crew traveled from the United States for the event.
See also
- Australian Merchant Navy Memorial, Canberra
- Australian Service Nurses National Memorial, Canberra
- List of disasters in Australia by death toll
- Axis naval activity in Australian waters
External links
Categories
Australian Army | Monuments and memorials in Australia | Hospital ships | Merchant navy | Visitor attractions in Queensland | United States Navy | World War II submarines of Japan | Shipwrecks in the Coral Sea | Royal Australian Navy ships | 1993 works