Manunda
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TSMV ''Manunda'' was an ''Australian'' registered and crewed
passenger ship A passenger ship is a merchant ship whose primary function is to carry passengers on the sea. The category does not include cargo vessels which have accommodations for limited numbers of passengers, such as the ubiquitous twelve-passenger freig ...
which was converted to a
hospital ship A hospital ship is a ship designated for primary function as a floating medical treatment facility or hospital. Most are operated by the military forces (mostly navies) of various countries, as they are intended to be used in or near war zones. ...
in 1940. During the war ''Manunda'' saw service in both the Middle East and Pacific Campaigns, specifically New Guinea. She resumed her passenger duties after the war, before being sold to a Japanese company and finally broken up in 1957.


Design and construction

In 1927 the
Adelaide Steamship Company The Adelaide Steamship Company was an Australian shipping company and later a diversified industrial and logistics conglomerate. It was formed by a group of South Australian businessmen in 1875. Their aim was to control the transport of goods b ...
in Australia ordered a new liner to provide full-time Australian coastal passenger services, which had previously only been offered by the company on a limited scale. The Twin Screw Motor Vessel ''Manunda'' was built by
William Beardmore and Company William Beardmore and Company was a British engineering and shipbuilding conglomerate based in Glasgow and the surrounding Clydeside area. It was active from 1886 to the mid-1930s and at its peak employed about 40,000 people. It was founded and ...
at
Dalmuir Dalmuir (; gd, Dail Mhoire) is an area northwest of Glasgow, Scotland, on the western side of Clydebank, and part of West Dunbartonshire Council Area. The name is a lowland Scots derivation of the Gaelic meaning Big Field. The area was ori ...
in
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
.Bremer, ''Home and Back'', p. 45 The vessel was in length, with a beam of . Diesel motors provided power to the two propeller shafts, with a top speed of . Passenger capacity was 176 first class and 136 second class. The ship was launched on 27 November 1928, and completed on 16 April 1929. It was a company policy for all its motor vessels to have a name starting with "M" and the ship was named after an Aboriginal word meaning "place near water". She was the largest ship operated by the Adelaide Steamship Company at the time, and as a result of her success the company commissioned a larger, faster sister ship, , which was completed in 1935.


Operational history


Early career

She arrived in Australia in June 1929 to begin her duties on the Australian coastal trade, running passengers and cargo between
Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
,
Fremantle Fremantle () () is a port city in Western Australia, located at the mouth of the Swan River in the metropolitan area of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth. The Western Australian vernacular diminutive for ...
,
Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
and
Cairns Cairns (, ) is a city in Queensland, Australia, on the tropical north east coast of Far North Queensland. The population in June 2019 was 153,952, having grown on average 1.02% annually over the preceding five years. The city is the 5th-most-p ...
. In late 1929, ''Manunda'' rammed Birkenhead Wharf in Adelaide.


World War II

The declaration of war saw ''Manunda'' fitted out as DEMS ship (
Defensively Equipped Merchant Ship Defensively equipped merchant ship (DEMS) was an Admiralty Trade Division programme established in June 1939, to arm 5,500 British merchant ships with an adequate defence against enemy submarines and aircraft. The acronym DEMS was used to descri ...
), under the control of the Australian Shipping Control Board. During the process of converting it into a hospital ship, the No. 1 Hold was deemed to be dangerous and never rectified. One death was recorded (that of Second Officer Rupert Mafeking Blunt) and several officers were injured due to the complications with the design. She was converted into a hospital ship at Sydney in compliance with the Geneva Convention Regulations and was taken over by the authorities on 25 May 1940, and entered service as AHS ''Manunda'' on 22 July 1940, under Captain James Garden, previously the captain of the Adelaide Steamship Company ''Manoora'' and Commodore of the Adelaide Steamship Fleet. The general hospital based on board was commanded by Lt. Col. John Beith, and members of the
Australian Army Nursing Service The Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) was an Australian Army Reserve unit which provided a pool of trained civilian nurses who had volunteered for military service during wartime. The AANS was formed in 1902 by amalgamating the nursing servic ...
(AANS) on board were led by Matron Clara Jane Shumack (1899–1974). ''Manunda'' sailed on a
shakedown cruise Shakedown cruise is a nautical term in which the performance of a ship is tested. Generally, shakedown cruises are performed before a ship enters service or after major changes such as a crew change, repair or overhaul. The shakedown cruise s ...
to Darwin,
Port Moresby (; Tok Pisin: ''Pot Mosbi''), also referred to as Pom City or simply Moresby, is the capital and largest city of Papua New Guinea. It is one of the largest cities in the southwestern Pacific (along with Jayapura) outside of Australia and New Z ...
and returned to Sydney, before heading for Suez in the Middle East (she made four trips to the Middle East and Mediterranean between November 1940 and September 1941). She was then despatched to Darwin. On the morning of 19 February 1942, ''Manunda'' was damaged during the Japanese air raids on Darwin, despite her highly prominent red cross markings on a white background. 12 members of the ship's crew and hospital staff were killed, 19 others were seriously wounded and another 40 or so received minor wounds. ''Manunda'' was able to act as a casualty clearing station for injured personnel from other ships involved in the attack. She sailed to Fremantle the next day. Captain James Garden was later awarded the OBE, in 1945, for his bravery and skill, both during the attacks, in leading a fire extinguishing team on the ship and in later navigating it by the stars to Fremantle with no navigation equipment and a jury-rigged steering system. In 1943 Thomas Minto, First Mate on Manunda, was awarded the M.B.E. for gallantry and devotion to duty on the Manunda during air raids at Darwin in February 1942. In June 1945 Matron Clara Shumack was awarded the Royal Red Cross. Her Citation included "...On one occasion when the ship was in Darwin it was badly damaged...It was especially during this period that MATRON SHUMACK displayed very great calmness and exceptional devotion to duty, and her quiet and confident manner was an inspiration to all her fellow workers". After a refit in Adelaide, she went to
Milne Bay Milne Bay is a large bay in Milne Bay Province, south-eastern Papua New Guinea. More than long and over wide, Milne Bay is a sheltered deep-water harbor accessible via Ward Hunt Strait. It is surrounded by the heavily wooded Stirling Range to t ...
in
Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...
, where she acted as a floating hospital for the Allied forces who were stationed there. She spent several nights in Milne Bay, during attacks by Japanese warships, but her status as a hospital ship was, on this occasion honored by Japanese naval units, which raked her with searchlights on three nights running. She made a total of 27 voyages from Milne Bay to Brisbane and Sydney transporting wounded troops. As the war continued, she was relocated as required and she followed the Allied forces the various islands around the Pacific. Six days after the sinking of AHS ''Centaur'', a request was made by the Australian Department of Defence that the identification markings and lights be removed from AHS ''Manunda'', weapons be installed, and that she begin to sail blacked out and under escort.Milligan and Foley, ''Australian Hospital Ship Centaur'', pp. 189–92 The conversion was performed, although efforts by the Department of the Navy, the Admiralty, and authorities in New Zealand and the United States of America caused the completed conversion to be undone. The cost of the roundabout work came to £12,500, and kept ''Manunda'' out of service for three months.Milligan and Foley, ''Australian Hospital Ship Centaur'', p. 192 On 9 June 1943, communications between the
Combined Chiefs of Staff The Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS) was the supreme military staff for the United States and Britain during World War II. It set all the major policy decisions for the two nations, subject to the approvals of British Prime Minister Winston Churchil ...
on the subject of hospital ships contained a section referring to the ''Manunda'' incident as a response to the attack on ''Centaur'', with the conclusion that the attack was the work of an irresponsible Japanese commander, and that it would be better to wait until further attacks had been made before considering the removal of hospital ship markings. ''Manunda''s final wartime voyage was to
New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
transporting civilian passengers. During the war she carried approximately 30,000 casualties to safety. After the Japanese surrender, ''Manunda'' was despatched to Singapore to repatriate ex-POWs and civilian interneesBremer, ''Home and Back'', p. 43 who had been imprisoned in
Changi Prison Changi Prison Complex, often known simply as Changi Prison, is a prison in Changi in the eastern part of Singapore. History First prison Before Changi Prison was constructed, the only penal facility in Singapore was at Pearl's Hill, beside t ...
. She also sailed to Labuan in Borneo to pick up ex-POWs and civilian internees from
Batu Lintang camp Batu Lintang camp (also known as Lintang Barracks and Kuching POW camp) at Kuching, Sarawak on the island of Borneo was a Japanese internment camp during the Second World War. It was unusual in that it housed both Allied prisoners of war (POWs) ...
.


Postwar career

''Manunda'' was decommissioned in September 1946 and refitted. She returned to service on 2 April 1948, transporting passengers around the Australian coast. In September 1956 she was withdrawn from service and sold to the Japanese Okadagumi Line, who renamed the vessel ''Hakone Maru''. The company's plans for the ship did not eventuate, and she was broken up the next year in Japan, arriving in
Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of 2. ...
for scrapping on 18 June 1957.


Legacy

In 1973 the suburb of
Manunda TSMV ''Manunda'' was an ''Australian'' registered and crewed passenger ship which was converted to a hospital ship in 1940. During the war ''Manunda'' saw service in both the Middle East and Pacific Campaigns, specifically New Guinea. She resum ...
in Cairns was named after the ship. In 1975 the neighbouring suburb of Manoora was named after its sister ship.


References


Further reading

* John L Forrest "Clara Shumack, AHS Manunda, and other times and places" limited edition 2013 * * *{{cite book , last=Goodman , first=Rupert , title=Hospital Ships - Manunda, Wanganella, Centaur, Oranje


External links


AHS Manunda
Australian Merchant Navy website

Peter Dunn's "Australia @ War" website

far-eastern-heroes.org.uk
Wartime wedding aboard Manunda
far-eastern-heroes.org.uk *Manunda's ship's menu from Thursday 16 July 1953

State Library of South Australia
Silver dinner bell from MV Manunda
Australian War Memorial 1928 ships Ships built on the River Clyde Maritime history of Australia Hospital ships of the Australian Army