Anzac Day 2020: Centaur victims among those remembered

Nurses are doing us proud on the coronavirus frontline, and on Friday the nation’s wartime nurses will be remembered – particularly the victims of an infamous day in Australia’s history.

AUSTRALIA’S heroic nurses are on the frontline of the fight against coronavirus, just as they have been saving lives in every Australian battle since the Boer War over a century ago.

This Friday, 350 people were due to gather in Anzac Square for the annual candlelight vigil commemorating the sacrifice of wartime nurses, and especially the 11 who lost their lives in the sinking of the Australian Hospital Ship Centaur off the coast of Caloundra in 1943.

AHS Centaur sinking marks 75th anniversary

First photos of hospital ship Centaur

Coronavirus has curtailed that public commemoration, but the sweet sound of Amazing Grace will still reach ears and touch the hearts in a Zoom teleconference for supporters of the Centaur Memorial Fund For Nurses.

This week, more than ever, at the going down of the sun and in the morning, all those brave nurses who risked their lives, and sometimes lost them, to help Australia in times of need, will be remembered and honoured.

It was 4.10am on May 14, 1943, off the serene Caloundra headland that 268 lives were lost in a war crime that shocked the world.

The Centaur, brightly illuminated and with a Red Cross vivid on its white hull, was transporting members of the 2/12th Field Ambulance to New Guinea.

A Japanese submarine launched two torpedoes and in an instant the defenceless Centaur exploded in flames.

Sister Ellen Savage, from Quirindi, NSW, was sucked down into a whirlpool of thrashing wood and metal.

Her ribs, nose and palate were shattered, her ear drums perforated.

Colonel Julie Finucane poses at Brisbane’s Anzac Square. Picture: Richard Walker/AAP

Battered and bruised, she surfaced in the middle of an oil slick and somehow found her way to a raft.

She was the only one of the 12 nurses aboard to survive.

Over the next 34 hours, she helped other personnel cling to a life raft as they waited for help. Together they sang Waltzing Matilda to keep their spirits afloat as sharks circled.

Of 322 people on the ship, only 64 survived, and when the Centaur’s wreckage was ­finally located in 2009 it was 2km beneath the surface.

Sister Savage was awarded the George Medal for her courage in helping others.

In 1948, the Centaur Memorial Fund was established.

Director of the fund is Julie Finucane, a nursing director of QEII Hospital, and a colonel with the Army Reserve where she has served for 40 years.

“We support the development of the nursing ­profession by awarding an annual Centaur scholarship for nurses undertaking research for higher degrees,’’ she said.

“Each year on Anzac Eve, we partner with the Defence Force Nurses Association to hold our vigil.

“While this year the public vigil will not be going ahead, those nurses will certainly still be honoured and remembered.

“Nurses have served Australia with tremendous ­commitment and courage throughout our history and this is our way to pay tribute.’’

The ill-fated hospital ship Centaur

Originally published as Anzac Day 2020: Centaur victims among those remembered