page_title: AHS Centaur
section_title: Identifying attacker
hierarchical_section_title: AHS Centaur / Sinking / Identifying attacker
caption_attribution_description: English: The
context_page_description: Australian Hospital Ship Centaur was a hospital ship which was attacked and sunk by a Japanese submarine off the coast of Queensland, Australia, on 14 May 1943. Of the 332 medical personnel and civilian crew aboard, 268 died, including 63 of the 65 army personnel.
  The Scottish-built vessel was launched in 1924 as a combination passenger liner and refrigerated cargo ship and operated a trade route between Western Australia and Singapore via the Dutch East Indies, carrying passengers, cargo, and livestock. At the start of World War II, Centaur was placed under British Admiralty control, but after being fitted with defensive equipment, was allowed to continue normal operations. In November 1941, the ship rescued German survivors of the engagement between Kormoran and HMAS Sydney. Centaur was relocated to Australia's east coast in October 1942, and used to transport materiel to New Guinea.
  In January 1943, Centaur was handed over to the Australian military for conversion into a hospital ship, as the ship's small size made her suitable for operating in Maritime Southeast Asia.
context_section_description: At the time of the attack, none aboard Centaur witnessed what had attacked the ship. Due to the ship's position, the distance from shore, and the depth, it was concluded that she was torpedoed by one of the Japanese submarines known to be operating off the Australian east coast. Several survivors later claimed to have heard the attacking submarine moving on the surface while they were adrift, and the submarine was seen by the ship's cook, Francis Martin, who was floating alone on a hatch cover, out of sight from the main cluster of survivors. Martin described the submarine to Naval Intelligence following the survivors' return to land; his description matched the profile of a KD7 type Kaidai-class submarine of the Imperial Japanese Navy.
  At the time of the attack, three KD7 Kaidai were operating off Australia's east coast: I-177 under the command of Hajime Nakagawa, I-178 under Hidejiro Utsuki, and I-180 under Toshio Kusaka. None of these submarines survived the war; I-177 was sunk by USS Samuel S. Miles on 3 October 1944, I-178 by USS Patterson on 25 August 1943, and I-180 by USS Gilmore on 26 April 1944. Kusaka and Nakagawa were transferred to other submarines before the loss of I-180 and I-177 respectively, but Utsuki and I-178 were sunk while returning from the patrol off the coast of Australia.
  In December 1943, following official protests, the Japanese government issued a statement formally denying responsibility for the sinking of Centaur. Records provided by the Japanese following the war also did not acknowledge responsibility. Although Centaur's sinking was a war crime, no one was tried for sinking the hospital ship. Investigations into the attack were conducted between 1944 and 1948, and included the interrogation of the commanders of the submarines operating in Australian waters at the time, their superiors, plus junior officers and crewmen from the submarines who had survived the war. Several of the investigators suspected that Nakagawa and I-177 were most likely responsible, but they were unable to establish this beyond reasonable doubt, and the Centaur case file was closed on 14 December 1948 without any charges laid.
  Historians were divided on which submarine was responsible. In Royal Australian Navy, 1942–1945, published in 1968 as part of the series detailing the Australian official history of World War II, George Hermon Gill concluded that either I-178 or I-180 was responsible; the former was more likely as she had served in Australian waters the longest of any Japanese submarine at the time, but had claimed no kills in the three-month period surrounding Centaur's sinking. In 1972, German military historian Jürgen Rohwer claimed in Chronology of the war at sea that I-177 torpedoed Centaur, based on a Japanese report stating that I-177 had attacked a ship on 14 May 1943 in the area the hospital ship had sunk. Japanese Rear Admiral Kaneyoshi Sakamoto, who had shown Rohwer the report, stated that Nakagawa and I-177 were responsible for the attack on Centaur in his 1979 book History of Submarine Warfare.
  As an official history of the Japanese Navy, Sakamoto's work was considered to be official admission of the attacking submarine's identity. Subsequently, most sources assumed as fact Nakagawa's and I-177's role in the loss of Centaur. Nakagawa, who died in 1991, refused to speak about the attack on Centaur following the war crimes investigation at the end of World War II or even to defend himself or deny the claims made by Rohwer and Sakamoto.
caption: I-176, a KD7 type Kaidai-class submarine. The three suspected attackers were all of this type.
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