Notes
Note N1782
Index
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http://www.ww2roll.gov.au/Veteran.aspx?ServiceId=A&VeteranId=144944
Service Record
Name BAYLY, AUBREY NICHOLAS
Service Australian Army
Service Number NX26410
Date of Birth 11 Apr 1915
Place of Birth COOLAH, NSW
Date of Enlistment 24 Jun 1940
Locality on Enlistment COONABARABRAN, NSW
Place of Enlistment PADDINGTON, NSW
Next of Kin BAYLY, ISABEL
Date of Death 14 May 1943
Rank Private
Posting on Death 2/12 Field Ambulance
WW2 Honours and Gallantry None for display
Prisoner of War No
Roll of Honour COONABARABRAN
==========
Sinking of the Centaur
The Centaur, 2/3rd Australian Hospital Ship, was a motor passenger ship converted in early 1943 for use as a hospital ship. In November 1941 it had rescued survivors of the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran after it had sunk and been sunk by HMAS Sydney.
On 12 May 1943 the Centaur sailed unescorted from Sydney at 0945 hours carrying her crew and normal staff, as well as stores and equipment of the 2/12th Field Ambulance but no patients. It was sunk without warning by a torpedo from a Japanese submarine on 14 May 1943 at approximately 0400 hours, its position being approximately 27°17' S, 153°58' E about 50 miles east north-east of Brisbane.
Of the 332 persons on board, only 64 survived. These survivors spent 35 hours on rafts before being rescued. Sister Ellen Savage, the only one of twelve nursing sisters on board to survive, though injured herself, gave great help to the other survivors and was awarded the George Medal for this work.
“Work, save, fight and so avenge the nurses ”
The ship had been appropriately lit and marked to indicate that it was a hospital ship and its sinking was regarded as an atrocity. The Australian Government delivered an official protest to Japan over the incident. The Japanese did not acknowledge responsibility for the incident for many years and the War Crimes Tribunal could not identify the responsible submarine. However, the Japanese official war history makes clear that it was submarine 1-177, under the command of Lt Commander Nakagawa who had sunk the Centaur. Lt Commander Nakagawa was convicted as a war criminal for firing on survivors of the British Chivalry which his ship had sunk in the Indian Ocean.
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Notes
Note N1783
Index
Thomas, Earl of Leicester and Lancaster (c. 1278 - 22 March 1322) was one of the leaders of the baronial opposition to Edward II of England.
[edit]Lineage
Thomas was the eldest son of Edmund Crouchback, 1st Earl of Lancaster and Blanche of Artois, Queen Dowager of Navarre. Crouchback was the son of King Henry III of England.
[edit]Titles and lands
From his father Thomas inherited the Earldoms of Lancaster, Leicester, and a Ferrers earldom of Derby.
By his marriage to Alice de Lacy, Countess of Lincoln, daughter of Henry de Lacy, 3rd Earl of Lincoln, he became Earl of Lincoln, Earl of Salisbury, 11th Baron of Halton and 7th Lord of Bowland upon the death of his father-in-law in 1311. Master of five earldoms, he was one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in England.
Thomas of Lancaster's main possessions (Maddicott).
Thomas was in possession of many key fortresses, particularly in northern England. He was responsible for the extension of Pontefract Castle and in 1313 he began the construction of Dunstanburgh Castle a massive fortress in Northumberland.
[edit]Marriage
His marriage to Alice de Lacy was not successful. They had no children, though he had two illegitimate sons. In 1317 she was abducted from her manor at Canford, Dorset by Richard de St Martin, a knight in the service of John de Warenne, 7th Earl of Surrey. This incident caused a feud between Lancaster and Surrey; Lancaster divorced his wife and seized two of Surrey's castles in retaliation. King Edward then intervened, and the two Earls came to an uneasy truce.
Although divorced from his wife, he continued to hold the powerful Earldoms of Lincoln and Salisbury. This was due to the marriage contract the two families had agreed, in effect upon the death of his father-in-law, Earl Thomas held these earldoms in his own right, not in right of his wife.
[edit]Conflict with Edward II and death
On reaching full age he became hereditary Sheriff of Lancashire, but spent most of the next ten years fighting for Edward I in Scotland, leaving the shrievalty in the care of deputies.
He served in the coronation of his cousin, King Edward II of England, on 25 February 1308, carrying Curtana, the sword of St Edward the Confessor. At the beginning of the King's reign, Lancaster openly supported Edward, but as the conflict between the king and the nobles wore on, Lancaster's allegiances changed. He despised the royal favourite, Piers Gaveston, who mocked him as "the Fiddler", and swore revenge when Gaveston demanded that the King dismiss one of Lancaster's retainers.
Lancaster was one of the Lords Ordainers who demanded the banishment of Gaveston and the establishment of a Baronial oligarchy. His private army helped separate the King and Gaveston, and Lancaster was one of the "judges" who convicted Gaveston and saw him executed.
After the disaster at Bannockburn in 1314, Edward submitted to Lancaster, who in effect became ruler of England. He attempted to govern for the next four years, but was unable to keep order or prevent the Scots from raiding and retaking territory in the North. In 1318 a new faction of barons arose, and Lancaster was deposed from office.
Coats of Arms of Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster, and his successors.
The new leadership, eventually headed by Hugh le Despenser, 1st Earl of Winchester and his son Hugh the younger Despenser, proved no more popular with the Baronage, and in 1321 Lancaster was again at the head of a rebellion. This time, however, he was defeated at the Battle of Boroughbridge, and taken prisoner.
Lancaster was tried by a tribunal consisting of, among others, the two Despensers, Edmund FitzAlan, 9th Earl of Arundel, and King Edward. Lancaster was not allowed to speak in his own defence, nor was he allowed to have anyone to speak for him. Because of their kinship and Lancaster's royal blood, the King commuted the sentence to mere beheading (as opposed to being drawn, quartered, and beheaded) and Lancaster was convicted of treason and executed near Pontefract Castle.
Upon his death his titles and estates were forfeited, but in 1323 his younger brother Henry successfully petitioned to take possession of the Earldom of Leicester, and in 1326 or 1327 Parliament posthumously reversed Thomas's conviction, and Henry was further permitted to take possession of the Earldoms of Lancaster, Derby, Salisbury and Lincoln.
Thomas became venerated as a martyr and saint within a few months of his death. Hagiographies were written about him, and Edward III wrote three times to the Pope requesting his canonisation. He was never canonised, though rumours to that effect arose in the 1390s, when his cult experienced something of a revival.
In 1942 it was reported by E J Rudsdale that some of Thomas's bones had been found in a box at Paskell's auctioneers in Colchester, Essex, having been removed from Pomfret Castle in 1885.[1]
[edit]Titles, styles, honours and arms
[edit]Arms
Inherited from his father, Thomas bore the arms of the kingdom, differenced by a label France of three points (that is to say azure three fleur-de-lys or, each).[2]
[edit]Ancestry
[show]Ancestors of Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster
[edit]References
^ 31st January 1942: The Earl of Lancaster's Bones
^ Marks of Cadency in the British Royal Family
Given-Wilson, C. (June 1994). "Richard II, Edward II, and the Lancastrian Inheritance". The English Historical Review 109 (432): 553-571. doi:10.1093/ehr/CIX.432.553.
Maddicott, J. R. (1970). Thomas of Lancaster, 1307-1322: A study in the reign of Edward II. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-821837-1.
Mortimer, Ian (2003). The Greatest Traitor. ISBN 978-0-224-06249-7.