Australian 5 spoke carrier wheels

[Jared Archibald]

G'day Tony,
I think you will find that the image of the coral-encrusted carrier is one that is on the wreck of the Thistlegorm - it is definitely not in Darwin Harbour. We have an 8 metre tidal range and mangroves around most of the coastline which equates to murk, mud, and filthy water almost all year round. I have never seen a good underwater photo taken in the harbour at any real depth.

When the Japanese salvors came in 1959-60, they were not allowed onshore and worked off a large floating work platform. They dove in full diving suits (like the pearlers) and cut the ships up with torches. The first ship worked on was the fuel tanker 'British Motorist'. The bow and stern were cut off and the tanks pumped full of air and she was refloated as a hulk. This was then made seaworthy (sort of a giant unpowered floating box) and this was used as the receptacle for all of the steel removed from the other ships. It was towed back to Japan full of scrap.
The other ships were not salvaged totally - they were cut off about 6 feet above the mud they were resting in. This means we still have 'wrecks' in the harbour but they are really just the very bottoms of them, not the ship as such. Along with the sunken ships went most of the 80 previous years of NT industrial heritage as the locals went out and pillaged whatever could be moved and dragged back to town and sold to the salvors. All the worn out steam locomotives from the war, the two 9.2 inch counter-bombardment guns from East Point, etc, etc, etc. (but back then it was junk which you could make a little money out of, not heritage....). As a result there is very little left of anything up here, despite persistent rumours to the contrary.
As a goodwill gesture the salvage company had crosses and other religious objects made from some of the bronze salvaged and this was presented to one of the new cathedrals that had just been built in Darwin.
The wrecks were all salvaged with government permission, including the USS Peary - a four stack destroyer - that was sunk with the loss of 80 American lives. What little is left is now considered a War Grave - but this was not a major concern at the time.
I would love to ID the carriers in the harbour, but it is not an easy task.
Jared