There is a part of Australian history happening off the Queensland coast at the moment.

Something that is never far from the mind of a responsible Radio Transcription Collector is the content of the discs he/she has on their shelves. The members of the Australian Old Time Radio group have openly made recordings available from their collections to descendants and interested parties. We have supported Radio Stations, Television Productions and many individuals with a need to access particular items. We also support the copyright owners of the recordings and seek permissions and work with them.

In view of the publicity surrounding the new search for the Australian Hospital Ship Centaur and the expected find before Christmas, I thought I would share with you a recording from my collection. This recording may not be as popular to some as an episode of Carter Brown Mysteries but it is rather special. It is episode 58 of Lest We Forget from 1943. Lest We Forget was a Red Cross program that combined music of the day, and current news of the Red Cross. Yes, it is a thinly disguised call for donations but this is in the days where ads were often a part of the program and not an interruption.

In this episode, the program features the sinking of the Centaur. The episode will be of interest to many people for the music and songs by William Laird, Tenor William Herbert, Orpheon Choristers and the Heidelburg City Choir. Listening with today's ears it will seem old fashioned and it is. Descendants of those singers and members of the choirs however will have extra reason to listen. During the performance, you will hear details of the sinking of the Centaur just as it was discussed 66 years ago.

At 4.10am 14th May, 1943, Australian Hospital Ship Centaur travelling from Sydney to Port Moresby, New Guinea, was sunk by torpedoe from a Japanese submarine. Controversy evolved around the fact that visibility was clear, the ship was clearly marked as a hospital ship and well lit. There were 363 crew, medical staff and nurses, only 64 were rescued.

The Transcription Disc is very worn with several bad scratches and skips a bit. I have overcome that as best as I could. The Compare for the show is the famous Norman Banks and the program was Directed by Hector Crawford.

The 2nd recording is These were their yesterdays ep42 HMAS Sydney AWA, 1951. The reason I have included this is because I didn't get the opportunity to make it available when HMAS Sydney was found. This recording has significance to me as my Father was on HMAS Sydney and was transferred off as it left on its final voyage. He had passed an exam and was promoted and was exchanged for a rating on a smaller ship who suffered seasickness. That rating was then transferred to HMAS Sydney being larger and they felt he was less likely to feel the effects of sea sickness. Ironic. I felt that since the same group who found HMAS Sydney was handling the search for Centaur, that the two recordings would compliment each other.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Peter Anderson for permission to use Lest We Forget from my collection. NFSA & Chris Maitland for permission to use These Were Their Yesterdays and Craig Nugent for supplying the episode. Centaur image courtesy of the Australian War Memorial.