Coolangatta Centaur Memorial and Walk of Remembrance
A steel pyramid supported by a 15 tonne pink granite stone from Turallin near Millmerran on the Darling Downs.
The bolder symbolises the ecology, the pyramid represents the spirit of those who died in the Centaur sinking and the whole effect is of flotation. The tip of the pyramid can be removed to expose an oil fuelled lamp which burns on the night of the anniversary of the sinking.
Scrolls containing the names of those on board are also contained in the pyramid.
A Walk of Remembrance leads from the memorial to the cliff top.
- Inscription
Plaques per ship (1):
CENTAUR
AUSTRALIAN
HOSPITAL SHIP 3222 TONS
BUILT GREENLOCK SCOTLAND 1924
TORPEDOED BY
JAPANESE SUBMARINE OFF
SOUTHERN QUEENSLAND COAST
ON THE
14th MAY 1943.
CASUALTIES 268 LOST
(Names of Merchant Navy, Australian Army ship's Medical Corp Staff, 2/12 Field Ambulance, 2/12 Attached Personnel who perished or survived are listed. Please refer to additional images for list of names)
Plaque (2):
HMAS SYDNEY
AUSTRALIAN 7105 TONS
BUILT NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE 1935
SUNK BY GUNFIRE FROM
GERMAN RAIDER
KORMORON WEST OF CARNARVON.
W.A. ON THE
19th NOVEMBER 1942
CASUALTIES 645 LOST
Plaque (3):
USS PERRY
USA 1190 TONS
BUILT USA 1920
BOMBED AND SUNK BY
JAPANESE AIRCRAFT
IN THE DARWIN RAID ON THE
19th FEBRUARY 1942
CASUALTIES 80 LOST
- Conflicts commemorated
- Second World War, 1939–1945
- Memorial type
- Structure
- Additional information
The Centaur Memorial along with theUnited States Destroyer, USS Mugford Memorial were unveiled on 14 May 1993, the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the Australian Hospital Ship.
The Walk of Remembrance is dedicated to the memorial of the men and women who lost their lives in the forty-one Allied and Australian Naval and Merchant ships sunk along Australia's coastline during World War Two.
It is planned to place a marker in the ground adjacent to the pyramid; this marker and the point of the pyramid will align with the site of the sinking.
- Recorded by
- Shirley and Trevor McIvor; Queensland War Memorial Register
- Date recorded
- 16 March 2009