A.H.S Centaur

Centaur Park

This memorial monument has been placed to commemorate the sinking of the hospital ship Centaur during World War Two.

It was opened in 1968 by the Premier, Sir Francis Nicklin, and dedicated by Reverend Alcorn, Naval Chaplain.

New plaques were added on 14 May 1993, the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the Centaur.

On 14 May 1943 at approximately 0400 hours the Australian Hospital Ship "Centaur" was torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese submarine 10 miles east of Cape Moreton. There were no patients on board luckily, but 229 crew and medical personnel lost their lives, while 64 survivors were rescued after 36 hours in the sea.

May they rest in peace.

Sister Ellen Savage

Australian Army Nursing Service; NFX76584 Sister Ellen Savage, GM, AANS

Sister Ellen Savage was the only nurse to survive the sinking of the hospital ship Centaur when it was torpedoed by the Japanese off Stradbroke Island. Although badly hurt, Savage concealed her injuries and helped the other survivors. When morale flagged as sharks circled, and ships and planes passed by without seeing the survivors' raft, Savage organised a sing-a-long.

Seaman Martin Pash recalled that Centaur "just went straight down. There was no noise or anything - a lot of people calling out, the nurses and all and the deck boy brought Sister Savage on. She had a fractured jaw. You wouldn't think there was anything wrong with her but she suffered very badly. She had broken ribs and was bruised and one of the fellas gave her his overcoat to put over her." Sister Savage was awarded the George Medal for her courage during this ordeal.

The Memorial Walkway

On Remembrance Day 1995 Mrs Leneen Forde, Governor of Queensland, opened a walkway leading from Centaur Park to the main war memorial. Personal tributes are embedded along the edge of the walkway and also plaques to service personnel who served from World War One to Vietnam.

Do yourself a favour and take a short stroll along the walkway to the War Memorial in Anzac Park.

To claim this virtual cache:

To be eligible to claim this cache as found, you need to email me, or message me via the Geocaching app the answers to the questions below, then log your find. Any logged "finds" without the answers sent to me, will be deleted!

If your answers are wrong, I will notify you.

You must also post a photo of yourself or GPSr at the memorial along with your online log.

The cache:

You will need to visit this site and answer a few questions and send me the answers:

1: Standing in front of the memorial so you can clearly read the brass plaque and answer the following questions.

To your left is a memorial plaque set into the pebbled pathway, the last plaque before the memorial!

Q1: What is the Surname on that plaque?

Q2: What was the crewman’s occupation?

Q3: What year was he born?

**Virtual Rewards 2.0 - 2019/2020. This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between June 4, 2019 and June 4, 2020. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. 

Happy Geocaching