Saturday, January 9, 2010

Journalist Remembers Centaur Disaster

Jan. 9, 2010, Courier Mail "Journalist Merv Warren recalls grim story of the Centaur" by Tuck Thompson.

Merv Wilson, 95, currently living along the Gold Coast was working for the Brisbane Telegraph back in 1943 and was assigned to cover the sinking of the Centaur.

He had been working at the Allied headquarters and knew that shipping convoys from Brisbane and north Queensland had become dangerous because of the military buildup. he later learned a ship had been torpedoed, but it was kept secret.

Headquarters and General Douglas MacArthur wanted "maximum publicity" after the Centaur was sunk because hospital ships were protected under international law. He was assigned the story and went to the hospital where the survivors were taken along with a photographer.

"Their accounts of life-and-death disaster made big headlines and were given columns of space in the thin papers of war time--(telling of) a huge explosion that startled them out of their slumber, burning oil gushing everywhere, the sudden knowledge that water was rushing in and in no time the ship was gone."

He has written a book on his war time experiences and describes the courage of the 64 survivors waiting in the water for rescue 35 hours, terrorized by circling sharks and a resurfacing submarine. They hoped for a quick rescue, but planes flew overhead without seeing them. "They comforted each other, swapped yarns, prayed and sang hymns."

The first stories of the sinking were not in the press until May 18th, four days afterwards because of censorship.

The Greatest Generation.

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