Merchant ship deployment in the Second World War: Motor vessels Centaur, Gorgon and Charon in Australian and East Indies waters

• Alston Kennerley ^[1]
  1. [1] University of Plymouth
• Localización: International journal of maritime history, ISSN 0843-8714, Vol. 32, Nº. 1, 2020, págs. 61-87
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo
• Resumen

  • This study draws attention to the very large number of British merchant vessels, and their crews, which traded or acted as supply vessels through to the end of the Second World War, in contrast to those which succumbed to enemy action. Normal commercial trading between Western Australia and Java/Malaya until the fall of Singapore is contrasted with military supply ship operation between Eastern Australia and New Guinea. This is set in the context of trading before the war, and the developing political scene in south east Asia. The ships’ crews, the dangers faced, protective measures, and cargoes, including human cargoes, are considered. With one vessel surviving the war unscathed, another continuing service after war damage and repair, and one torpedoed and sunk, the article concludes that the examples fully represent the experiences of the mass of merchant shipping which ended the war in the western Pacific military supply chain.