With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Survivor calls for closure on Centaur shipwreck (Australia)

TWO or three times a month, Martin Pash relives the horror of the worst atrocity in Australian waters during World War II.

The 85-year-old retired truck driver tosses and turns in bed at his home in the Melbourne suburb of Ivanhoe and endures frightful nightmares recalling the sinking of the Australian hospital ship Centaur, which was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine off the southern Queensland coast on May 14, 1943.

Mr Pash, who was a 20-year-old steward on the Centaur when a torpedo slammed into the bow of the ship about 75km east of Brisbane, told The Weekend Australian: "I see the flames again, and I see the ship going down."
Read entire article at Australian