HMT (Hired Military Transport)[1] [2] Dunera was a British passenger ship which, in 1940, became involved in a controversial transportation of thousands of "enemy aliens" to Australia. The British India Steam Navigation Company had operated a previous, which served as a troopship during the Second Boer War.[3] [4]
After sea trial in 1937, she was handed over to the British India Steam Navigation Company and served as a passenger liner and an educational cruise ship before seeing extensive service as a troopship throughout World War II. She was taken over by the Royal Navy as a troopship before hostilities started, and was taking troops to the Far East when her crew heard the news of war at Malta on 3 September 1939.[5] Dunera carried New Zealand troops to Egypt in January 1940.
After Britain declared war on Germany, the government set up aliens tribunals to distinguish Nazi sympathisers from refugees who had fled from Nazism. As a result, 568 were classified as unreliable, 6,800 were left at liberty but subject to restrictions, and 65,000 were regarded as "friendly". However, after the fall of France, the loss of the Low Countries and Italy's declaration of war, Britain stood alone against the Axis and anxieties became acute. In what Winston Churchill later regretted as "a deplorable and regrettable mistake",March 2023. all Austrians and Germans, and many Italians, were suspected of being enemy agents, potentially helping to plan the invasion of Britain, and a decision was made to deport them. Canada agreed to take some of them and Australia others, though, "not since the middle of the nineteenth century had Australia received the unwanted of Britain transported across the world for the purposes of incarceration".[6]
On 10 July 1940, 2,542 detainees, all classified as "enemy aliens", were embarked aboard Dunera at Liverpool. While the detainees included 200 Italian and 251 German prisoners of war, as well as several dozen Nazi sympathizers, the majority were 2,036 Italian and German civilians who were anti-Nazi, most of them Jewish refugees.[7] [8] Some had already been to sea but their ship, the [9] had been torpedoed en route to Canada, with great loss of life. In addition to the passengers were 309 poorly trained guards, mostly from the Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps, as well as seven officers and the ship's crew, creating a total complement of almost twice the Duneras capacity as a troop carrier of 1,600.[10]
Using the tune of "My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean" learned from their British warders, internees composed and sang "regularly on board the ship", "My luggage went into the ocean, My luggage went into the sea, My luggage was thrown in the ocean, Oh, bring back my luggage to me!"[11] Most internees were kept below decks throughout the voyage, except for daily 10-minute exercise periods, during which internees would walk around the deck under heavy guard; during one such period, a guard smashed beer bottles on the deck so that the internees would have to walk on the shards. In contrast to the Army personnel, the ship's crew and officers showed kindness to the internees, and some later testified at the soldiers' courts-martial.
While passing through the Irish Sea, the Dunera was struck by a torpedo that failed to detonate; a second torpedo passed underneath the vessel, which was lifted out of its path by the rough seas.[12] After the war it was discovered, partly from a German submarine captain's diary,[13] that, on another occasion, the Dunera was saved from being destroyed because of the German-language items tossed overboard, "and picked up ... to inspect" by that captain's divers who concluded that the ship was carrying prisoners of war.[11] [14]
On arrival in Sydney on 6 September 1940, the first Australian on board was medical army officer Alan Frost. He was appalled and his subsequent report led to a court martial at Chelsea Barracks, London, in May 1941.[15] The officer in charge, Major William Patrick Scott was "severely reprimanded" as was Sergeant Arthur Helliwell; RSM Charles Albert Bowles was reduced to the ranks and given a twelve-month prison sentence and then discharged from the British Army. Lieutenant John O'Neill VC was an officer of the Pioneers.[16]
After leaving the Dunera the pale and emaciated refugees were transported through the night by train west of Sydney to the rural town of Hay in southern New South Wales.
Back in Britain relatives had not at first been told what had happened to the internees, but as letters arrived from Australia there was a clamour to have them released and heated exchanges in the House of Commons. Colonel Victor Cazalet, a Conservative MP said, on 22 August 1940:
Churchill reportedly regretted the hasty deportations, especially of those who had been seeking Britain's aid. A fund of £35,000 (equivalent to £ million in) was set up to compensate the Dunera passengers for the loss of their belongings.[17]
While interned in Australia, the internees set up and administered their own township with Hay currency (which is now a valuable collectors' item) and an unofficial "university." When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, the prisoners were reclassified as "friendly aliens" and released by the Australian Government. About a thousand volunteered to join the Australian Military Forces and, having shown themselves to be "dinkum", were offered residency at the end of the war. Almost all the rest made their way back to Britain, many of them joining the armed forces there. Others were recruited as interpreters or into the intelligence services.In 1941, as honorary secretary of the Zionist Federation of Australia and New Zealand, Benzion Patkin organised the migration from Tatura internment camp to Israel of 150 of the refugees; he subsequently published "Dunera Internees" (1979).[18]
Among the transportees on the Dunera were:
The 1985 Australian mini series The Dunera Boys depicts the events.
The 2001 Oscar-winning documentary, , features an interview with Dunera and Kindertransport survivor, Alexander Gordon.
Nothing remains of Hay internment camp except a road called Dunera Way and a memorial stone which reads:
HMT Duneras next notable services were the Madagascar operations in September 1942, the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943, and in September 1944 she carried the headquarters staff for the US 7th Army for the invasion of southern France. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, Dunera transported occupation forces to Japan.
In 1950/1951, Dunera was refitted by Barclay, Curle to improve her to postwar troopship specifications: her capacity was now 123 First Class, 95 Second Class, 100 Third Class and 831 troops; tonnages now 12,615 gross, 7,563 net and 3,675 tons deadweight.
The Ministry of Defence terminated Duneras trooping charter in 1960 and she was refitted by Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company at Hebburn-on-Tyne in early 1961 for her new role as an educational cruise ship.[30] New facilities (classrooms, swimming pool, games rooms, library and assembly rooms) were introduced. Her capacity became 187 cabin passengers and 834 children;[31], . Tam Dalyell, who later went on to become member of parliament for West Lothian, was director of studies on the ship between 1961 and 1962.
The Dunera was subsequently a cruise ship[32] until November 1967, when it was sold to Revalorizacion de Materiales SA, and scrapped at Bilbao.