Several weeks ago, my sister, Alexandra came upon a small prayer book that had once belonged to our father, Mr. Justice H.A.D. Oliver. Q.C. Inside was a small, handwritten inscription​.

“What and where is Tatura?” It only took Alexandra five minutes to discover the story our father had kept secret for more than 70 years.​

The Voyage of the Dunera

The following entry is from Wikipedia:

“On 10 July 1940, 2,542 detainees, all classified as “enemy aliens”, were embarked aboard the ship HMT Dunera. 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. Some had already been to sea but their ship, the SS Arandora Star, 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 Dunera’s capacity as a troop carrier of 1,600.

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.

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. It was discovered, from a German submarine captain’s diary, that the Dunera was only saved from being destroyed because of the German-language items tossed overboard, and then discovered by a passing U-boat”.

For more information on the plight of our father’s fellow “Dunera” survivors, please visit the National Museum of Australia: https://www.nma.gov.au/defining…/resources/dunera-boys