Henry Pike (Bowman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

This Sunday marks the 80th anniversary of the sinking of the AHS Centaur, just 30 nautical miles off North Stradbroke Island in my electorate of Bowman. The Centaur remains one of our nation's greatest national tragedies. While sailing to New Guinea and clearly marked and illuminated as a hospital ship, the Centaur was sunk without warning by a Japanese submarine at 4 am on 14 May 1943. Of the 233 people on board only 64 survived. These survivors spent 35 hours on rafts before being rescued. Sister Ellen Savage was one of only 12 nursing sisters on board. She was the only one to survive. Though injured herself, she gave great help to other survivors and was awarded the George Medal for her bravery.

I had the pleasure of meeting a constituent of mine, Pamela Gilbert, and her family this week. Pamela lost both her father and her uncle, Frederick and Alan Fortier, in the Centaur tragedy. Eight decades on, the very human tragedy of a little girl who lost her dad still cuts deeply. Pamela's great-granddaughter Lola recently won my Centaur essay competition with a powerful tribute to her forebears.

This war crime didn't take place in some foreign sea or old-world battlefield but in our own waters, just out of view of the quiet suburbs where many of these heroic Australians were raised and nurtured.

I thank the House for its indulgence in remembering the Centaur and all of those Australians who were killed on that early morning eight decades ago.

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