HMAT A36 Boonah

HMAT A36 Boonah

HMAT A36 Boonah, courtesy wodmanpointquarantinestation.com
History
Name	HMAT A36 Boonah
Builder	Flensburger Schiffsbau Ges., Flensburgh
Launched	1911
General characteristics
Type	Steamship cargo (refrigerated single screw)
Tonnage	5,926 tons
Speed	12.5 knots

Remarks

Built for the Deutsche - Australische Line and named Melbourne. Seized by the Australian Government at Sydney in 1914, and renamed Boonah. Manned by Australian Officers and crew, she completed four journeys carrying military passengers, and one cargo only. The Boonah was transferred to the Commonwealth Government Line post hostilities as a war prize. HMAT Boonah was the last Australian troop ship to leave Australia for the war in Europe. She departed Adelaide on 22 Oct 1918 and Fremantle on 29 Oct 1918 bound for the UK via South Africa.

Carrying over 900 troops, the Boonah arrived in Durban, South Africa just days after the armistice was signed. As a result, the ship was immediately prepared for the return to Australia. While tied up in Durban, local stevedores loaded supplies onto the ship and were billeted on the ship with the troops. Unbeknownst to those on the Boonah, the stevedores were infected with the Spanish Flu. The flu was transmitted to the Australian troops and in the close quarters of the overcrowded Boonah on the trip back to Australia, the perfect environment existed for the flu to spread. Five days after the Boonah departed Durban, rough seas and cold weather ensured that the troops remained in close confinement and the first flu-like symptoms began to appear.

The first casualty was Sergeant Arthur Charles Thwaites (serial number 21044) who jumped overboard on the night of 9 December 1918. A later investigation by a Court of Enquiry found that he committed suicide by jumping overboard, most likely as a result of being delirious from the fever of the flu.

By the time the ship had arrived back at Fremantle on 12 December, more than 300 cases had been reported and Commonwealth immigration authorities refused to allow the soldiers to disembark, knowing of the global pandemic which was underway but which had until then spared Western Australia.

The ship anchored in Gage Roads of Fremantle and after some delays, approval was granted for nearly 300 of the sickest soldiers to be moved ashore to the Quarantine Station at Woodman Point, south of Fremantle. Three of the men died on the first day at the station and it took three days for 337 men to be brought ashore. The situation continued to deteriorate further with more dying and more than 20 nursing and medical staff becoming infected. By 20 December, Woodman Point was housing over 600 soldiers.

For those left on board the ship, conditions were believed to be deplorable. Authorities insisted on a seven-day incubation period with no new cases being cited to prove that the disease had burnt itself out. Unfortunately, new infections and deaths continued in the cramped and close living conditions, which proved to be the perfect environment for the flu to spread.

Public outrage grew against the refusal of the immigration authorities to allow all of the soldiers ashore with casualties growing each day. Wrangling between the State Minister for Health, Sir Hal Colebatch and the federal immigration authorities continued and tensions increased to the point that the Returned Servicemen's association made threats to storm the ship to return the sick men to shore.

After nine days of acrimony, and despite breaking quarantine regulations, the ship sailed east on 20 December, presumably to defuse the situation. Another 17 cases were discovered between Albany and Adelaide and the remaining men were disembarked at Torrens Island Quarantine Station, a similar facility to Woodman Point and just north of Adelaide. No further deaths occurred and after being given the all-clear, the remaining men returned to their homes.

A total of twenty-seven soldiers and four nurses at Woodman Point died of influenza during the crisis and are buried at the Woodman Point quarantine station, later to be interred at Karrakatta Cemetery

Another troop ship, the Wyreema had departed South Africa ahead of the Boonah and remained in radio contact throughout the eastward return journey across the Indian Ocean. The Wyreema's troop commanding officer, P.M. McFarlane wrote "the troopship Boonah was two days behind us and we picked up her wireless messages nightly, detailing the daily increasing number of men suffering from pneumonia influenza. The Western Australian Commandant asked me to land twenty nursing sisters at the Quarantine Station. Volunteers were called for and there was not only a ready response but so many offered that it was necessary to place the names in a hat and draw the twenty required. They knew perfectly well the enormous risk they were taking. Yet they were eager to undertake the work and those whose names were not drawn were disappointed."

In 1925 Boonah was renamed Witram by her new owners the North German Lloyd Line, of Bremen. In 1937 she was renamed Buenos Aires and at the outbreak of WW2 she was taken over by the German Navy. She was torpedoed in 1940 and sunk by HMS Narwhal between Denmark and Sweden.

Soldiers carried

England to Fremantle 21 July - 11 September 1918

• Frederick Ernest Capstick
• John Wilfred Gargett
• Edward Hobson
• Roy Walden King
• Vernon Claude Witney
• Cyril Arthur Woodland

Fremantle to Woodman's Point via Durban 29 October - 12 December 1918

The Boonah was turned around in Durban, South Africa due to the end of hostilities. Passengers returned to origin after serving a quarantine period at Woodman's Point. One of the volunteer nurses from SS Wyreema treating the men (Sister Rosa O'Kane) died after catching Pneumonic Influenza from the men she treated. A monument to her marks her grave at Woodmans Point.

• Thomas Buckland
• William Henry Gauthern
• Henry Herbert Markham

https://www.darwinmilitarymuseum.com.au/dmm-blog/vernon-lionel-marsh-and-the-hmat-a36-boonah

Peter Plowman (2003). Across the Sea to War: Australian and New Zealand Troop Convoys. p. 73.