The Motor Vessel CENTAUR was converted from a passenger/cargo
liner into a hospital ship over a two month period. The conversion
took place at Williamstown, at the mouth of Melbourne's Yarra River,
under the supervision of the United Ship Services. Upon completion
Centaur's silhouette had changed little. Only an expert would
have picked out the cot lift on the after end of the midships.
However, her appearance on the water looked totally different, thanks
to a vibrant new colour scheme and
hospital
ship (85k) markings.
Her sombre, all-over passenger/cargo liner battleship grey had
been replaced by a kaleidoscope of vivid white, green, red, black and
dark yellow. The hull and upperworks were pure white. A green band
1.2 metres wide stretched from
stem
(68k) to
stern
(60k) on both sides, interspersed in three places by red crosses two
metres high and wide. On each bow, above the green band, was a black
square with the Centaur's hospital ship identification number
-
47
- stencilled in white. The once-blue, once-grey funnel was now dark
yellow with a 1.2 metre red cross high up on each side. Another red
cross, this time six metres, glared up from the deck of the monkey
island above the wheelhouse, plus another, 7.3 metres, from the deck
of the docking bridge aft. One more stood vertically down from the
docking bridge,
facing
aft. The lifeboats were painted white, with a green band to
identify them as belonging to a hospital. To complete her identity,
the Centaur flew the Red Cross flag on the foremast and the
Blue Ensign at the stern.
Internal red neon lights lit up the crosses on the funnel and the
one facing aft from the docking bridge. Floodlighting illuminated the
red crosses on the ship's side; a row of green lights the green band.
When AHS Centaur later put to sea, the deck officers
complained that the starboard forward floodlights interfered with
their night vision, so were left off. Regardless of this minor
infringement, it mattered not from which angle or under what
conditions (bad visibility excepted) an observer viewed the
Centaur - from sea level or in the sky, day or night - her red
crosses were blatantly visible. She could not fail to be recognised
as anything other than a non-combatant hospital ship - or so one
would have thought.
In mid January 1943 the
Director
of Sea Transport (DST), London (26k), assigned the Centaur
identification number 47, this being the next number on the British
Series of Military Hospital Ships list. Interestingly, identification
number 46 was assigned, at the same time, to the Canadian Hospital
Ship Lady Nelson.
A little over one month prior to her deadly encounter with I-177
the CENTAUR crossed paths with another submarine, however, this was a
more friendly meeting. At 12:45 pm on 3 April 1943, somewhere near
the Whitsunday Group of islands, Dental Assistant Pte Fred Chidgey
was photographing various members of the staff on deck. Suddenly,
someone cried out "Submarine!" They had spotted a periscope scanning
them off the port side, some distance away. It rose slowly, and soon
the conning tower broke the surface. Figures appeared on the tiny
bridge. One moved aft. Then the "Stars and Stripes" broke free on the
flagstaff. Fred
Chidgey(26k)
happily snapped some
photographs
(51k) of this friendly ally.
the watch had changed in the control room of the
USSGreenling (SS-213). The Greenling, a Gato class
submarine, had been submerged for the previous six and a half hours,
executing a zig-zag pattern on a base course of 090oT. The following
are extracts from her Deck Log...
No contacts had been made during the morning watch. The new OOW
had almost completed his initial periscope sweep of the horizon when
he spotted a wisp of smoke almost dead ahead.
The Greenling's encounter with AHS Centaur was brief, the
passing courtesy made, and then the US submarine moved away to
submerge and resume her patrol.
Construction of MUGFORD
commanded by Lt. Cmdr Hajime Nakagawa
Construction of I-177(26k)