The following story of survival as told to me by Bruce Wharton a survivor of WW2.
Bruce and I were Deck Apprentices on the BP MV Merkur prior to his transfer to
MV Rabaul of W R Carpenter I can attest to the authenticity.

Rabaul was a twin screw motor vessel of 6,809 tons, built in Copenhagen Denmark, for the Fred Olsen Line and was named "George Washington"
Joining Rabaul as an apprentice in Melbourne on the 25th October 1940 after her arrival from Trois Rivieres in Canada, we departed Melbourne, calling at Adelaide, and Fremantle, loading wheat, and railway sleepers, thence en-route to England via Capetown.
Two days prior to arriving Capetown, Rabaul was challenged at night and floodlit by searchlight from a naval cruiser , demanding we establish our identity. Having satisfied this challenge, the Cruiser identified itself as HMNZS Leander, and bade us "Bon Voyage" it was a terrific relief to learn the cruiser was not an enemy ship.
Rabaul berthed at Capetown on 24th December 1940 alongside the Danish ship Elanora Maersk and we were invited on board for Xmas dinner the next day.
We departed Capetown late December 1940, with instructions to proceed to Freetown Sierra Leone to join a convoy for Liverpool. The Burns Philp ship HMS Bulolo was part of the Freetown convoy system out of Freetown. We arrived at Liverpool on the 15/2/41 without being involved in any enemy action.
An interesting occurrence happened whilst steaming up the Irish Sea in thick fog, the port and starboard lights of a sailing ship were seen dead ahead and each time we altered course to avoid these lights, they kept on showing up dead ahead of us. There is the story of the sailing ship "Marie Celeste" an unsolved mystery. She was found drifting at sea under full sail with nobody on board the crew never accounted for and that any vessel sighting these lights, would be doomed. This certainly had a bearing on the future of Rabaul at a later date.

We remained berthed at Canada Dock in Liverpool for one month, loading war supplies and were subjected to continuous bombing raids for all that time but fortunately avoided being hit, this was the time known to us as the "Liverpool Blitz"
On completion of loading Rabaul was taken over by the British Ministry of War Transport MOWT and was ordered to proceed to Newport to be fitted with Anti Magnetic Mine Equipment known as "De Gaussing Gear" There after the ship was ordered to proceed independent and without escort to Capetown, Alexandria, and Haifa.
During loading at Liverpool large glass bottles of sulphuric acid were stowed as deck cargo on the after deck. The crew complained bitterly about this, as being highly dangerous as the bottles could be burst open, should we meet with enemy action causing severe danger to all personnel on board. Unfortunately we were totally ignored by the ruling authorities.
Rabaul departed from Newport independent and unescorted.
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On April 13/5/41 a large cargo ship was sighted with Portuguese identification of neutrality and passed close across our stern, and streamed down our starboard side.
Rabaul was closely observed during this operation by a number of uniformed officers on the bridge, far in excess of the number required to be navigating a Portuguese cargo ship, she then made a 180 turn to starboard and sped off over the horizon.
This vessel was obviously a German submarine U-boat and Surface Raider supply ship operating in the area, and was making contact with a u-boat or the nearest Surface Raider, giving the position for Rabaul to be attacked and destroyed.
Our suspicions were soon proven correct, when at 0100 hours on 14th May 1941 MV Rabaul was shelled and sunk by the infamous German Raider "Atlantis" under the command of Commandant Bernhardt Rogge.
Rabaul attempted evasive acion during this confrontation, but was no match against the speed and armament of a top sophisticated and equipped German Surface Raider.
Ninety six-inch shells ripped into the ship before being sunk, after refusing to stop for a boarding party to take over the ship as directed by Atlantis.
During the shelling of Rabaul all the bottles of suphuric acid were smashed and the after deck was awash with acid. I slipped in the acid and was badly burnt over my arms and body.
Rabaul commenced to sink by the head but we managed to get the starboard lifeboat on the poop deck launched before the ship finally disappeared into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.
Victor Eyres one of our DEMS Naval gunners who hailed from Hobart Tasmania had a large piece of shrapnel lodged in the centre of his back. Victor was my best mate on the ship and he sadly died in my arms in the lifeboat.
There were many sharks in the water and the Germans machine gunned the water to keep the sharks at bay. A machine gun bullet went right through my left shoulder but it was obviously not deliberate.
Upon boarding the raider Atlantis everybody was treated with respect, those suffering no harm being locked away down below in a specially prepared hold and those requiring immediate medical attention were placed into the ship's hospital, situated amidships on the main deck.
Sixteen days after Rabaul was sunk, Atlantis came into contact with one of its supply ships, and all prisoners in a fit state were transfered to this vessel for transit to Germany. All of the prisoners on this ship were later rescued by six British destroyers off the Spanish Coast and taken ashore at Gibraltar. The German supply ship was scuttled and sunk, Atlantis continued on its marauding voyage sinking ships at regular intervals taking on board prisoners and transferring them from time to time aboard supply ships for on carriage to Germany.
Due to my severe acid burns, the German doctor retained me in the ships hospital for five months, and giving me wonderful attention and finally repairing my damage with a skin graft.
Atlantis proceeded south around Cape of Good Hope into the Indian and Pacific Oceans, she met up with five Japanese supply ships. Captain Rogge offered me the opportunity of being transferred to one of these ships to be taken to Japan, seeing as I had by this stage been six months at sea. Having given me the choice of remaining with him, I thanked him for the suggestion but decided I would live longer by remaining in the Raider. Probably, I would have been the only person given this opportunity of being a prisoner of the Japanese or Germans.
The Raider Atlantis continued southward, around Cape Horn into the South Atlantic Ocean, where she was sunk on the 22/11/41 by the British Cruiser "Devonshire"
Prisoners were transferred to a captured Dutch freighter and were landed in Bordeaux, where they were taken to a concentration camp and spent 2 weeks with hardly anything to eat, keeping alive by eating grass.
Thereafter, all prisoners of war were placed on a train and taken to Wilhelmshafen in the north of Germany, where their interrogation took place for six weeks in a Naval Cadet School under the Gestapo.
The final journey was by train to Farmstest, and then by truck to Westertimke some 25 miles east of Bremen, where a Naval camp and a Merchant Navy Camp were builtabout one kilometre apart.

We were housed in barracks which contained 14 rooms, and each room fitted with 14 bunks with straw mattresses and one only blanket.
Food parcels (one per week per person) were obtained through the Red Cross, but during the Winter when heavy snow was around hampering transport from Switzerland food parcels became scarce, and one had to survive on two slices of bread and a bowl of soup from the Germans each day.
Towards the end of the war, we found ourselves on the front line and were obliged to dig trenches outside the barracks, as we were situated between German troops in the east , and allied troops to the west, both firing over the top of us at each other.
Dead Germans were strewn all around the camp and as the situation became unbearable four of us decided to escape from the camp and try to make ourway into Bremen, which we knew was already in the hands of the Allies.
Cutting our way through the barbed wire fences one night, we were fortunate to find an empty Mercedes car not far away with the ignition key still in place. We took this car and eventually made it to Bremen, where a British Commander took care of us all, and arranged for us to be driven to Emmsdetten Airport, where we were placed on board a Lancaster Bomber and flown to England.
I remained in England for 4 months to avoid risking being killed by the Japanese on the way to Australia, but decided to take the risk after this time, and joined the ship "Empire Rawlinson" in Glasgow as a passengerwhich sailed to Brisbane with only one stop at Aden.
I was then reunited with my Family, whom I had not seen for Five Years.
WW2 was the "Maturing of Australia"
The words in this treatise are but one epic struggle of wartime seafaring suvivors , hanging onto old values and customs. These epic stories of survival will remain one of the tablets of time in the History of our Nation Regards Ron(S)