14 DAY TRIAL // The Australian government announced on Sunday that it discovered the location where one of the country's hospital ships had been torpedoed and sunken by the Japanese military, during World War II. The ship was known to have been lost at sea, but its exact location remained a mystery until recently. It was lost with 268 hands on deck, in waters off the coast of Queensland, a northern state, the Australian authorities added, quoted by Reuters.
Historians in the country say that the loss of the ship Centaur was one of the worst disasters to have hit the nation during the largest war in human history. Survivors from the terrible tragedy and their relatives have been pushing for the Australian government to mount a search operation for the wreck, but their calls remained unanswered for a long time. Their greatest fears were that salvager teams would reach the boat first, and that they would dismantle it and sell it for scrap metal. Eventually, the authorities conceded, and their effort apparently paid off.
“The discovery of AHS Centaur will ensure all Australians know of and commemorate the 268 brave nurses and crew who died in the service of their nation,” Julia Gillard, Australia's deputy prime minister, said in an official statement. The ship's destruction is still considered to be a crime of war, although no one has been trialed for the treacherous act as of yet. The ship was sailing without an escort, as demanded by international conventions for a hospital vessel, and was also clearly marked with the symbols associated with its function.
In charge of the team that discovered the vessel was David Mearns, a marine search expert from the United States. He was also in charge of the group that found the ship HMAS Sydney, which was also destroyed during the war. The Centaur was different, because it was not a war ship. “It had to travel alone. She could not travel with an escort. All these things made her a sitting duck to an unscrupulous person,” 73-year-old Jan Thomas, whose father was a doctor on Centaur, and also one of the victims that were killed when the ship sunk, added. She has been involved with the search effort for many years.
Back in 1979, Japan acknowledged that one of its submarines sunk the Centaur, but failed to assume responsibility that it had been by its own orders. The craft that indeed torpedoed the Australian hospital boat was commanded by Hajime Nakagawa, who has already been convicted of other war crimes. He served four years at the Sugamo Prison, in Japan, as a Class B war criminal.