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In Remembrance

Australian-owned ships and their crews - deck, engine-room, catering and pursering departments - helped win the Second World War, particularly, but not only or exclusively, in the Asia-Pacific theatre of operations.

This website details the ships involved and the corporations that owned them. It will provide for some recollections and diary records of experiences of the people who crewed them and it acknowledges the allies alongside whom they served.

It is dedicated to mercantile mariners who, across the ages, have carried the world's goods from producer to user, but in particular it is intended as a tribute to all the Merchant Seamen who served in the 1939-1945 conflict, and indeed universally and especially to those who did not return, those who have no known grave but the depths of the oceans.

"They that go down to the sea in ships, and occupy their business in great waters"

Centaur (Blue Funnel/Ocean on Loan)

The conversion of Centaur to the hospital ship role took place during 1940. Following the sinking of HMAS “Sydney” on 19 November 1941, she assisted in the rescue of the crew of the German raider Kormoran.

At 4.10 a.m. on 14 May 1943, while fully illuminated and painted in Red Cross colours, she was torpedoed by the Japanese submarine I.74 off Brisbane while en route Sydney-Papua New Guinea. The ship sank in three minutes, precluding sending a distress call and launching lifeboats. Most on board were asleep and had little chance of escape. From a total of 332 souls on board, only 64 survived, to be picked up after thirty-four hours in the water by USS “Mugford” . Those lost included 45 of the ship’s crew and 223 medical and military personnel of whom 11 were nurses.

THE FLEETS

In Remembrance

Centaur (Blue Funnel/Ocean on Loan)