Vindicatrix Boy

Alex Leask lost three uncles when HMAS Centaur was sunk in World War II. (Photo: ABC Local Radio: Nicole Lee)

Alice Springs local Alex Leask, who lost three uncles on the Centaur 66 years ago, has grown up with the story as part of his family folklore.

Not long before that fateful calm night in May, Alex’s father was working on the Centaur only to return home to look after his pregnant wife. At this stage Alex’s uncles weren’t working on the ship.

“My mother was pregnant with me at the time. She was ill and Dad’s brothers, Harold, Alexander and Henry implored for dad to go home and look after my mother on compassionate leave.

“Dad didn’t know that they were on the ship… the attack broke the Geneva convention about targeting hospital ships,” said Alex.

The effects of the sinking of the Centaur, which went down in three minutes, have continued to this day.

“The effect was huge on my parents. They could never talk about it, none of dad’s brothers were married and they used to treat mum as a princess; the grief was overwhelming.”

“The tragedy meant it was the end of the family on Dad’s side.”

Alex Leask’s mother, father and uncles before the sinking of the Centaur. (Photo: ABC Local Radio: Nicole Lee)

66th Anniversary of sinking of AHS Centaur
 
This week marks the 66th anniversary of one of Australia’s darkest moments in World War II when the hospital ship Centaur was sunk by a Japanese submarine off the coast of Stradbroke Island near Brisbane in what was denounced as a despicable war crime.
 
Following the finding of HMAS Sydney, twelve months ago a story on ABC’s The 7.30 Report urged the Federal Government to begin a new search for the Centaur.
 
Victims’ families said the time had come to put the Centaur’s ghost to rest and find the wreckage of the vessel.
 
And the shipwreck hunter who discovered HMAS Sydney said he would love the challenge.
 
Now, with funding from the Federal and Queensland Governments, he is about to face that challenge.
 
“I think it’s like the HMAS Sydney, a loss that has touched people and maybe scarred people for generations,” David Mearns said.
 
In the early hours of Friday May 14,1943, Centaur was steaming to Port Moresby to pick up casualties.
 
But lurking nearby off the coast of southern Queensland was Japanese submarine I177, which fired a torpedo.
 
It took only three minutes for the hospital ship to slip beneath the surface, taking 268 souls with it.
 
Sixty-three men and a nursing sister spent the next 35 hours drifting on rafts before being rescued.

 
Australia’s greatest wartime disaster in the Pacific, the sinking was a tragedy condemned by then Prime Minister John Curtin as a deliberate and blasphemous war crime.
 
“It’s unspeakable, because the ship was lit up to glory.
 
“It was a hospital ship, it was accredited. The Japanese Government had recognised her immunity,” maritime historian Captain John Foley said.
 
Sir Keith Jones could have been one of those on board the Centaur.
 
At 97 with a distinguished medical career behind him, Sir Keith and his brother Gordon were in the Army Medical Corps during World War II.
 
Posted to Cairns, then medical officer Jones was offered a berth alongside his brother on board the Centaur as it was about to set off from Sydney.
 
“I thought it over and said no, I’d prefer not to, I don’t think brothers should be together in the same unit, and so he went off on the ship and I went up by train,” he said.
 
“Halfway up the Queensland coast, a rumour went around the train that a hospital ship had been sunk.”
 
Ted Leask’s family suffered more losses on the Centaur than any other. His father and his three brothers were members of the second 12th Field Ambulance unit.
 
While his three uncles boarded the Centaur and perished, his father escaped.
 
“Yeah, it was Mum’s ill health, actually [that saved him],” he said.
 
“Mum was six months pregnant with my eldest brother. So Dad’s brothers implored the colonel of the unit to have Dad sent to Sydney on compassionate leave. That separated the brothers.”
 
Jan Thomas has never left the memory of her father Captain Bernie Hindmarsh fade. She set up the Centaur Association so other family members could tell their story.
 
“My father was one of the three doctors on the ship’s medical staff who all lost their lives. I was six when it happened, and I remembered that I bellowed like a bull and I ran away,” she said.
 
“It’s important to know where their loved ones lie. But the Centaur also needs to be found for her own protection.
 
“She lies in fishing lanes off the most densely populated coastline in Australia.
 
“There was no need in the past. They were safe in Davey Jones’s locker. That’s not the case any more.”
 
The Centaur Association is in touch with Mr Mearns about launching an expedition.
 
Two months ago Mr Mearns solved Australia’s greatest maritime mystery, finding HMAS Sydney and the German raider Kormoran.
 
Both ships went to the bottom after a savage battle 66 years ago off the Western Australian coast.
 
The shipwreck hunter, who also discovered British battleship HMS Hood and the German battleship Bismarck, is churning through archives in the search for the Centaur.
 
“We know that the second officer on board, also reported the position as well. So on the face of it, it does look like there is enough information to be used to mount the search,” he said.
 
Captain Foley says he thinks Centaur is lying in about 1,800 metres of water — half the depth at which HMAS Sydney was found.
 
He has tracked the ship’s last known location based on interviews with the navigator.
 
But he understands there are some who think Centaur should be allowed to rest in peace.
 
“In the Centaur Association, there are people who have said we’d rather it was just left alone, but if they can at least find the wreck and identify exactly where she is, then it can be given a measure of protection that it doesn’t have at the moment,” he said.
 
It cost $4.5 million to find HMAS Sydney and Kormoran, but Mr Mearns believes it shouldn’t cost quite that much to locate the Centaur.
 
But he has a warning for those who believe that finding the hospital ship will be easy.
 
“Anybody who says I guarantee it will be found is either a liar or a fool — and I’m neither of those,” he said.
 
Adapted from a piece by Mark Willacy for The 7.30 Report in May 2008