Premonitions…
Some people in situations of extreme distress have experiences that have no natural or physical explanation. The loss of the Centaur is not without its premonitions.
Doris Wells, sister of Pte John Hoare, was married with two young children and living in Mittagong, where her mother Eva lived with Doris’ younger siblings. Doris’ husband, George, was in the RAAF, and Doris was one of the myriad of women who ‘kept the homefires burning’.
In mid-May 1943 Doris decided to take her children on a holiday to visit Aunt Fan in Junee. There were many relatives in Junee including Doris’ younger brother Cyril who had recently left school and had gone to Junee to work in his uncle’s menswear shop. It was a long and uncomfortable trip lurching along in a wartime steam train with many stops, not only those scheduled at stations, but being shunted off to sidings to wait for troop- and freight-trains to pass.
She hadn’t long arrived in Junee when she became quite distressed and cried: “Something’s happened to Johnny.” Cyril said she was inconsolable. She wouldn’t stay, and went back to Mittagong on the first available train. By the time Eva received the telegram on 18th and phoned the news to Aunt Fan, Doris had already left.