The HMAT Boonah was the last Australian troop ship to leave Fremantle, Western Australia

Fremantle, Western Australia

Fremantle is a city in Western Australia, located at the mouth of the Swan River. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle was the first area settled by the Swan River colonists in 1829...

 bound for the Middle East

Middle East

The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

 in October 1918, near the end of the World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. Carrying about 1200 AIF

Australian Imperial Force

The Australian Imperial Force was the name given to all-volunteer Australian Army forces dispatched to fight overseas during World War I and World War II.* First Australian Imperial Force * Second Australian Imperial Force...

 soldiers, she arrived in Durban

Durban

Durban is the largest city in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal and the third largest city in South Africa. It forms part of the eThekwini metropolitan municipality. Durban is famous for being the busiest port in South Africa. It is also seen as one of the major centres of tourism...

, South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

 just three days after the armistice

Armistice with Germany (Compiègne)

The armistice between the Allies and Germany was an agreement that ended the fighting in the First World War. It was signed in a railway carriage in Compiègne Forest on 11 November 1918 and marked a victory for the Allies and a complete defeat for Germany, although not technically a surrender...

 was signed and on hearing the news, made arrangements to return home promptly. Before her departure however, local stevedore

Stevedore

Stevedore, dockworker, docker, dock labourer, wharfie and longshoreman can have various waterfront-related meanings concerning loading and unloading ships, according to place and country....

s from the Spanish Flu

Spanish flu

The 1918 flu pandemic was an influenza pandemic, and the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus . It was an unusually severe and deadly pandemic that spread across the world. Historical and epidemiological data are inadequate to identify the geographic origin...

 stricken city were used to load and unload supplies from the ship and in the course of doing so infected soldiers who were billeted in crowded conditions throughout the ship.

Return

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

Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...

. 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."

By the time the ship had arrived back at Fremantle on 12 December, more than 300 cases had been reported and Commonwealth immigration authorities initially 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

Gage Roads

Gage Roads, is the sea channel in the Indian Ocean offshore from Perth, Western Australia. It was the location of the America's Cup defence in 1986/7, and serves as a shipping lane and anchorage for most sea traffic heading towards the seaport of Fremantle....

 and after some delay before approval was granted, 300 of the most unwell soldiers were ferried ashore to the Quarantine Station at Woodman Point south of Fremantle. Three men died on the first day at the station. The condition of some deteriorated further with more dying as well as more than 20 nursing and medical staff becoming infected.

Meanwhile, on board ship where most of the men remained, conditions were said to be deplorable. A seven-day incubation period with no new cases was required to prove that the disease had burnt itself out, but new infections and deaths continued, caused by the cramped and close living conditions. Public outrage grew against the refusal of the immigration authorities to allow all of the soldiers ashore with casualties growing each day. "How many cases of sickness and death are required to make the authorities do a commonsense thing?" (The Daily News, 14 December 1918). "Enough of this inhuman incarceration of soldiers in the disease-stricken cubby-hole of a floating hell." (The Sunday Times

The Sunday Times (Western Australia)

The Sunday Times, owned by News Limited, is a tabloid Sunday newspaper printed in Perth and distributed throughout Western Australia.-History:...

editorial, 15 December 1918).

Wrangling between the State Minister for Health, Sir Hal Colebatch

Hal Colebatch

Sir Harry Pateshall Colebatch CMG , better known as Sir Hal Colebatch, was a long-serving and occasionally controversial figure in Western Australian politics...

 and the federal immigration authorities continued and tensions increased to the point that the Returned Servicemen's association

Returned and Services League of Australia

The Returned and Services League of Australia is a support organisation for men and women who have served or are serving in the Australian Defence Force ....

 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 was ordered to depart presumably to defuse the situation. Another 17 cases were discovered between Albany

Albany, Western Australia

Albany is a port city in the Great Southern region of Western Australia, some 418 km SE of Perth, the state capital. As of 2009, Albany's population was estimated at 33,600, making it the 6th-largest city in the state....

 and Adelaide

Adelaide

Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...

 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.

External links

• Australian Light Horse Studies Centre His Majesty's Australian Transports HMAT Ships, Transporting the 1st AIF.
• The Boonah Tragedy Page