It’s 50 years this Christmas since Cyclone Tracy flattened Darwin, killing 66 people and destroying 90% of the city’s houses.
In this extract from his new book Cyclone Warriors – the Armed Forces and Cyclone Tracy author Tom Lewis outlines the sinking of the patrol boat HMAS Arrow.
The cyclone that neared Darwin in the week before Christmas 1974 was small but gathering intensity as it approached. The diameter of its gale force winds was only about 100 kilometres, in contrast to some north Pacific typhoons, which have had diameters of 1,500 km.[1]
The capital of the Northern Territory was a big sprawling town with a very strange layout. It was centred around its huge airport, with Australia’s then-longest runway taking up a 3,354m/11,004 length. The suburbs had started off on a small peninsula in the south – much bombed in WWII – and by 1974 had advanced up the left hand side of the airport complex and were creeping across the top side. In January of that year the Darwin population had been counted as 46,656. [2]
Darwin was no stranger to destruction: it had been heavily damaged in cyclones in 1897 and 1937, and World War II had impacted the city heavily. To make the oncoming storm impact worse, the city buildings were not ready for destructive winds. This was not a topic of discussion for the population on Christmas Eve, but it was very much on their minds over the next weeks and months. While government centres were built strongly – the schools designated as cyclone shelters stood up to Tracy very well – the housing building codes were by no means adequate. Following the cessation of military rule post-war, the emphasis had been on building quickly. Even the government-built houses – all aligned to the same angle in rows in the newer suburbs – were by no means strongly built. As a result the damage to housing would be extremely destructive.
Cyclone Tracy had been named on 21 December, but there was little notice of it taken as the local residents busied themselves with Christmas preparations. The Top End was a hard-drinking and partying society, and this along with Easter was one of the two biggest holiday periods of the year. It was now the hottest and most humid time of year too, and cold beer was the antidote. Last minute shopping and an atmosphere of celebration was usual, and any thoughts of danger were not present in most minds. To make matters worse there had been destructive wind warnings the previous weeks, but Cyclone Selma had hardly impacted Darwin in early December.[3]
The first warning that Darwin itself was threatened came at 12.30 pm on 24 December, approximately 12 hours before the onset of destructive winds. [4] By the early evening it was apparent the cyclone would impact the city, although whether it would pass directly over the built-up areas was not that clear. In the event it did, with a recorded surface wind speed of 217 km/h. [5]
Darwin at the time was not a large city, perhaps about 20 kilometres across. As a result of the expansion there was little of the built-up areas that was not in the path of the cyclone, which took a track from north-west to south-east across the houses and shopping areas.
The experience for armed forces members and their families was little different to those of the civilians of Darwin, that is, unforgettable and terrifying, often with injuries and sometimes death. Many families had gone on leave, either locally or “down south”, taking off in previous days to see family and friends. However there were operational structures still in place. For the Air Force, for example, Commanding Group Captain D Hitchins was on leave some 130 miles away; but in his absence Wing Commander WJ Monaghan was in charge.[6] This is always the organisation of the Forces – a clear and defined command structure is in place.
The RAAF did the best it could to safeguard its aircraft. One DC3 transport machine was flown out, but there was no pilot for another, and the only helicopter pilot who could fly an Iroquois at the base was medically unfit to fly.[7] By 943 pm a bus had transported families from “igloo type quarters, the safety of which, under extreme weather conditions, was suspect, to the airmen’s block which was a reasonably substantial structure. By 1025 the RAAF guard dogs had been moved to the detention cells”; and “Father Grannall, a RAAF padre [priest] was advised to cancel midnight mass.” [8]
Around 10pm the RAAF requested the presence of an Army medical officer at their base. A Captain Strickland was despatched from Larrakeyah Barracks, and arrived at the Air Force around 11pm. Later, around 230am, a Corporal Purcell made his way on the reverse journey, from the RAAF to Larrakeyah Barracks, to obtain a radio to keep communications going between the two Forces. [9]
Then-Flight Sergeant Ken Stone and his wife Margaret remember going to a Christmas party before returning to their married quarters on the RAAF base. As the winds increased they had their youngest child, then one month old, in a papoose arrangement in front of mum; and “tied the other two kids around our waist – one around mine and the other around Margaret’s.” Then the roof of the house blew off, and in one of those later-comic moments, Margaret tried to save the new and expensive stereogram. Down below the collapsing house they took shelter under a fallen tree, and then threw items out the garden shed before sheltering inside. When the eye of the storm passed over the two parents went into the house and recovered useful items – Ken recalled “Margaret emptied out the washing basket and put Christmas presents in it.”[10]
Lorraine Dixon, an Army wife, had been in town from July 1973. Her husband Greg was in Signals, based at Larrakeyah Barracks, where they also both lived in a Service house at 66 Clowes St.[11]
Lorraine was working as a Registered Nurse in the NT Government’s Home Nursing Service in Parap. She was three months pregnant when the cyclone arrived. On Christmas Eve she was at work, at Fannie Bay Gaol, as the Nursing Service supplied a nurse to work there. She remembers seeing prison officer “Happy” Hampton” who was to be one of the 66 fatalities, as the day progressed.
Lorraine went home and together with her husband closed down things as much as they could for the cyclone, and then went to the neighbours next door for some Christmas cheer. She remembers:
When the winds got up we were inside, and then the alarm went off for the base and my husband and my neighbour’s husband went off to their Army place of duty. I remember looking outside and could see a power line tripping and sparking in the wind, and then the power got turned off. My husband was later allowed to come home. There was someone assigned in each street to have a telephone and a flashlight. We went to bed but I didn’t go to sleep – the whole house was creaking and groaning. I went to the loo a lot more out of nervousness than being pregnant. I remember the water in the toilet bowl was draining away and then coming back with a big gurgle.
The walls were going in and out, and the louvres gave way – my husband was cut by the glass but not seriously. We took shelter in the bathroom as they told you to do. My husband Greg shone our torch out and you could see the ceiling lifting off the walls. He said we’ve got to get out of here. We had a little dog. We went to the neighbours but they did not hear us, and then we saw our house being swept away as if by a giant hand. We managed to get into the neighbours Besser brick storage unit where they had two mattresses. We lay on one and put the other on top of us until daybreak.
Lorraine assisted at the Army Medical Centre and stayed during the next two nights with her husband at the Army Signals centre. An offer was made for her evacuation, and as she was pregnant made the decision to leave. She left for Sydney on a C-130 evacuation flight, supervising the two boys from their neighbours, and she was allowed to bring along their dog too.
At the Navy base the then-Executive Officer, Lieutenant Frank Densten, had one of the more notable stories from the night of the cyclone: he had seen an aluminium 15-foot boat blown through the air above him when outside.[12] Yvonne Lowe, a senior WRAN, remembers that “we were sheltering onboard wherever we could find a safe area. The majority of the ships company ended up in the Junior Sailors Mess. Just prior to sunrise, women and children sheltered under tables when the roof threatened to collapse on us.”[13]
Navy members far and wide, inside the base and out, found their houses disintegrating. A young boy who would later become a Chief of the Defence Force was one of them. David Johnston, who in 2024 as a Vice-Admiral assumed the highest post of all, spent four years in Darwin as a child and went through Cyclone Tracy before his family was evacuated. His father led the Northern Territory Tourist Bureau, which became untenable after Tracy, and so the family headed south.
Meanwhile the Navy Headquarters in Darwin’s CBD were disintegrating under the winds. The RAN maintained a duty radio watch there, in contact with their ships and with bases in the south of the country. The Naval Officer Commanding Northern Australia, Captain Eric Johnstone RAN, later said:
At twenty-five minutes past midnight I made my final telephone call to Navy Office, Canberra, advising the duty staff officer of Tracy’s imminent presence in the city and giving my prediction that severe damage would occur right throughout the city. At this time heavy rain was falling, the trees opposite Naval Headquarters, which are now my[14] Administrator’s offices, had all been uprooted, a car passed down the Esplanade some twenty feet in the air and the end of the building in which I was located began to disintegrate. I well recall the final words from the Naval duty staff officer in Canberra which seemed somewhat fatuous although well meaning, wishing happy Christmas to myself and my staff.
Five minutes later all phone and radio contact was lost and by 4.30 the building had been destroyed and my three staff and I were buried. Three of us managed to dig ourselves out and take refuge in the centre cell which also acted as the Naval Headquarters bar. To my intense delight, not only did I have a packet of cigarettes which were not touched by water, but the cell bar fridge, although without power, contained some still cold beer. I say without equivocation that the cigarettes and two beers I consumed are the best I have tasted in my life.[15]
But of all of the Armed Forces the Navy had the most problems. They had four vessels in port, and in a practise followed by most mariners who could man their vessels, they put to sea in an effort to get away from the large immoveable structures which would certainly smash them – wharves, jetties and the like. But the tactic was not to work completely.
The official chain of events concerning the Navy’s ships was:
- Patrol boat commanders met with NOCNA at 2pm; ordered to sail at 4pm
- Arrow, Assail and Attack secured to buoys; Advance “anchored nearby”
- Around 1225am (0025) on Christmas morning NOCNA lost contact with Canberra when “his Operations Room disintegrated” [16]
- Assail cable parted at 0158; left harbour; returned 110pm on Christmas Day
- Advance weighed anchor at 0130; left harbour; secured 120pm
- Attack could not slip; cable parted 0125 and went aground Doctor’s Gully
- Arrow broke her mooring at 245am; CO decided to beach in Frances Bay on mud; radar failed; struck Stokes Hill wharf bow first just before 0400. Abandon Ship ordered.
The loss of a small warship
HMAS Arrow had been in service since July 1968. One of 20 Attack Class patrol boats ordered for the RAN in November 1965, the ships’ primary role was to conduct patrol work in Australian territorial waters. She had been home ported in Melbourne where her primary role was to conduct Reserve training. On 30 July 1974, Arrow’s time as a RANR training vessel came to an end and she resumed duties with the RAN fleet based at HMAS Waterhen in Sydney. Following a period of work-up and trials, she departed Sydney on 21 August for her new home port of Darwin where she joined the Third Australian Patrol Boat Squadron. She arrived in Darwin on 2 September.
The following is taken from the Navy’s Official History, which has used extracts from the Board of Inquiry later held into Arrow’s loss:
Her first operational tasking was to conduct a hydrographic survey of Cone Bay and Collier Bay in north eastern Western Australia. She arrived back in Darwin on 9 October. She sailed again for her first Fishery Surveillance Patrol off the Western Australian coast on 23 October and maintained a regular patrol and maintenance program up until what would prove to be a fateful Christmas period.
As Tracy approached Darwin on the 24th the sailors of the patrol boat force were recalled from leave. Married members were instructed to assist their families prepare for the cyclone and then return on board in time to sail. The intention was for the four patrol boats to ride out the cyclone either at the moorings or at anchor in the harbour, and Arrow indeed had secured to furthermost south-east buoy by 1830 that evening. By dusk, all of the patrol boats had been secured to their respective Commanding Officers’ satisfaction.
As the clock passed midnight into the morning of Christmas Day, Arrow’s Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Robert Dagworthy, RAN, felt his ship was riding the storm well. Some 20 vessels were shown on radar astern of Arrow in the harbour at midnight. Over the following hour to 0100, the weather deteriorated and Lieutenant Dagworthy felt that the cyclone was closer than had been predicted. The weather continued to deteriorate to 0200 and the number of vessels visible on radar had noticeably decreased. By this time the rain and sea spray were driving horizontally and the visibility was virtually nil. The wave height could not be estimated due to the poor visibility.
In spite of the conditions, Arrow was riding the storm fairly well but there was some concern that the shackle used to secure to the buoy might part. Meanwhile it was noticed that the other three patrol boats had all disappeared and it was thought that they had gotten underway having dragged. By 0230 it was hoped that conditions were starting to improve; however, at 0245, Lieutenant Dagworthy was informed that the gypsy on the mooring winch had failed and the ship was no longer secured to the buoy. [Ed: the gypsy is a toothed essential component of an anchoring system, responsible for controlling the chain or rope that connects the anchor to the vessel]
Arrow’s main engines were started with the intention of riding out the rest of the cyclone where she was. She was turned into the wind with satisfactory results but occasional wind gusts caused the ship to roll violently. It was only with outstanding ship handling that Arrow was able to maintain her heading.
Conditions worsened yet again after 0300 and sometime between 0330 and 0345, the starboard engine alarm sounded and it was ordered to neutral. The engine had lost circulating water suction and its temperature was reading 215°C. It could be used if it was essential, but only for short periods. Lieutenant Dagworthy was aware that both engine circulating pumps took their suction from the same manifold and felt that it was only a matter of time before the port engine would suffer the same problem. He favoured the port engine thereafter by necessity, but he assessed that the ship could not survive indefinitely on one engine.
The ship was being pushed westward and Lieutenant Dagworthy decided to beach Arrow in Frances Bay where there was plenty of mud, no rocks and some measure of protection. His only concern by this stage was the safety of his crew and, if possible, to minimise the damage to his ship. All spare hands were ordered to the Flying Bridge with lifejackets partially inflated.
With the starboard engine overheating it was decided to use the port engine to turn the ship to starboard but it was not long before the port engine alarm also sounded. It too was overheating but with the safety of the ship and her crew now in peril, the throttle was not altered. With the ship turning to starboard, Stokes Hill Wharf unexpectedly became visible ahead and a collision was unavoidable. Just before 0400, Arrow struck Stokes Hill Wharf bow first and ‘abandon ship’ was ordered.
Apart from the few crew members closed up in the wheelhouse, the ship’s company had mustered on the Flying Bridge. The Executive Officer, Sub-Lieutenant John Jacobi, searched along the ship’s port side for the safest escape route but, in attempting to reach the wharf, fell into the sea. He was washed ashore below the wharf gatekeeper’s hut.
An article later published by the Department of Veteran’s Affairs article added: “Some of the men were injured and in a very bad condition. Kevin Rainbow, the electrician, had serious lacerations and Navigating Officer, Sub Lieutenant Andrew Birtchnell, was also found suffering from hypothermia, and hospitalised.” [17]
Most of the rest of the crew scrambled on to the wharf by climbing onto the funnel casing, then on to the portside guardrail and on to the wharf safety rail. In addition to Sub-lieutenant Jacobi, three others, including Lieutenant Dagworthy, ended up in the sea either by choice or misfortune but were eventually washed ashore. Those that escaped onto the wharf became separated in the poor conditions but were later reunited ashore where they sought shelter after getting off the wharf. Several suffered various injuries from flying debris.
Tragically two crew members, Petty Officer Leslie Catton and Able Seaman Ian Rennie, lost their lives as Arrow was wrecked under the wharf. In the confusion their movements following the order to abandon ship are unclear but at some stage, both fell into the water and drowned. It appears that at least Petty Officer Catton made it onto the wharf but was either blown off by the strong wind or was knocked off by flying debris.[18]
In a memorable phrase later one of the Arrow survivors said that giant steel shipping containers were being blown about “like children’s blocks”.[19]
A Board of Inquiry was convened to investigate the loss of HMAS Arrow and the damage to the other patrol boats. In Arrow’s case, the Board stated in its report; “The orderly action of the ship’s company and the mutual assistance given in the prevailing conditions, firstly to reach the wharf and subsequently to leave the wharf area, can only be regarded as most commendable. Having regard to the position of the ship and the conditions this was obviously a major factor in the majority of the ship’s company reaching safety.” Able Seaman Robert McLeod was awarded the Australian Bravery Medal on 16 September 1977 for assisting injured shipmates.
Petty Officer Catton and Able Seaman Rennie are commemorated at HMAS Coonawarra with a plaque and the inclusion of their names in a stained glass window at the base’s chapel, and the Arrow Bar at the base is named in the vessel’s honour. Arrow Drive, Catton Court and Rennie Road are all also named in their honour.[20]
In the Navy News of 17 January, 1975, it was described how, in an effort to counteract the storm, the naval crews paid out massive amounts of steel cable to the naval cyclone buoys, which were specially designed to be used to combat cyclonic winds. The vessel used their engines to remain head on to the storm. The tactic was quite successful, although Lieutenant Paul de Graaf said HMAS Attack was “dragging the buoy after us” as his ship was thrown around the harbour in mountainous seas. As gyro compasses and radar sets failed, stray fishing trawlers and smaller boats had to be avoided by visual means. [21]
The patrol boats had been built to tough specifications. Lieutenant Chris Cleveland, Commanding Officer of Assail, commented wryly to Navy News that: “we proved the main engines don’t fall off the mounts past 72 degrees of roll, even if the battery charger does.” Assail actually managed to reach 80 degrees of roll and at one stage immersed her side navigation lights in the water.
The later-Lieutenant Commander Paul Blanch, then the XO of Attack, remembers how his ship survived the storm but ended up beached on the rocks near Larrakeyah Barracks. But while the ship was high above the waterline as Christmas Day dawned she was certainly not dry. “The amount of water pouring off the cliffs and down onto the patrol boat was phenomenal”, he recalls. Attack was later refloated by Navy divers and spent some considerable time being repaired. Paul Blanch, meanwhile, was also being repaired: he had been injured with a broken foot during the ship’s rough ride.
Interstate newspapers reported initially that ammunition on board the Arrow blew up, but this was found later to be incorrect. Captain Johnston was reported in the January 1975 edition of the Navy News as saying that “…Arrow did not explode, it hit the wharf and sank”. [22]
Another strange story concerned the captain, Lieutenant Dagworthy. He was reported in a book in 2014 as “found alive, floating in his life raft, some thirteen hours after he took to sea in it.”[23] When consulted later about this, Bob Dagworthy said:
…that caused me great upset. At the time she was writing her book my name and I were easily accessible. Also if she had bothered to read the Board of Inquiry report she might have got the facts right. Our life rafts with the hydrostatic releases were washed away early in the night. I like all of my crew was wearing a life jacket and that is what saved my life.[24]
In fact, Lieutenant Dagworthy’s leaving his ship was in the finest traditions of naval Services, in that he was the last man off the vessel, as the Board of Inquiry noted:
He then went below to the lifejacket locker in the wardroom flat and found it empty, returned to the Flying Bridge and went aft to find that everyone had apparently left the ship.[25]
The captain then left the ship himself. By now the quarterdeck was awash and believing that he could not get directly ashore he jumped into the sea over the starboard side and was swept through the [wharf] piles receiving lacerations en route. He was finally washed onto the foot of the sea-wall adjacent to the wharf gatekeepers hut. [26]
Bob Dagworthy was later to be fully cleared of any fault by a Board of Inquiry. In fact the Board was specific, saying that: “…his display of seamanship during the underway period be commended”, and further:
That the ship’s company be commended for their devotion to duty throughout the sea phase in the extraordinary conditions prevailing, and also for their fine display of mutual help to gain safety after the ship had struck Stokes Hill Wharf. [27]
and
PO [petty officer] Grose and PO Spencer be commended for their efforts in organising the hands to safety from the ship and from the wharf area.
Bob Dagworthy returned to his career, and the next 40 years would see him serving in a variety of posts and steadily promoted. In 1993 he was decorated with the Order of Australia in recognition of service to the RAN and the Australian Defence Force as Defence Adviser, New Delhi.[28]
Captain Johnston noted a further special and tragic loss of life impacting the RAN:
To add to the Navy’s losses, four dependents, two wives and two children were also killed in their married quarters while their husbands were at their place of duty, and thus the Navy in Darwin with some 1.5 per cent of the population suffered 12 per cent of the total fatal casualties and indeed was the only service to so suffer. [29]
The sailor who lost a wife and two children was Able Seaman Geoffrey Stevenson. He later flew to see his wife’s parents in Sydney, and then worked briefly on relief operations at HMAS Kuttabul before returning to Darwin. [30]
The eye of the storm crossed in the early hours of Christmas Day. Two reliable reports of the actual period of the calm were obtained from Fannie Bay and the RAAF log at Darwin airport. The period of ‘complete calm’ at Fannie Bay was from 0320 CST until 0355 CST, while at the airport it extended from 0350 CST until 0425 CST. [31]
RAAF sergeant photographer Ken Markwell had survived the night with his family of four children and his wife. He remembers that the roof of the house went; and they all sheltered in the bathroom. He recalls when the cyclone finished he went outside, and later said: “There were “no leaves on any tree; you could see right through Darwin. The silence of the place was terrible; there were no birds – nothing.” His family was evacuated two days later to Brisbane and then to Mackay to Ken’s parents. [32]
By the time the residents of Darwin emerged from their places of shelter it was apparent massive damage had been done. The damage on the harbour was extensive. According to the harbourmaster’s report: “At least 29 vessels were sunk or wrecked”. These included several of the large prawn trawlers that were based in the port, a passenger ferry, the Darwin Princess, and the largest vessel in port, the steel three-masted schooner Booya. Neither of the latter two were seen again for decades: Booya, who took five people with her, was found in 2003, and Darwin Princess, who went down with her skipper Ray Curtain, was located in 2004.[33]
Another loss, which was strangely related to the Navy, was the Fairmile Ataluma, which was one of 35 such vessels of the RAN from WWII. She had worked as a whale-chaser post-war, and was then repurposed as a survey ship, but had just been bought by Steve Pastrikos of the Aspa City Hotel.[34] Torn from her moorings, she had been swept unmanned down the harbour to East Point where she was driven ashore. The wreck of this once proud wooden ship – likely Fairmile ML 808 of the Navy – can be seen scattered in pieces near Dudley Point to this day.[35]
On land it was not immediately apparent the worst was over. At Navy base Coonawarra Yvonne Lowe remembers that morning: “…drying any bedding we could find and dragging any wayward roofing iron into the tennis courts to prevent it from doing further damage should another blow occur. There were strong rumours another blow was on the way.”[36]
The extent of the damage is best expressed in raw statistics:
- Darwin Naval Headquarters was destroyed, as was 80 per cent of the patrol boat base and 90 per cent of the naval married quarters[37]
- The oil fuel installation and the naval communications station HMAS Coonawarra were extensively damaged[38]
Further afield, the scale of the damage statistics shows that life would be almost impossible for many of the city’s residents:
- Approximately 20,000 families had their houses impacted in a way that meant they were not able to be lived in. That meant that 90% of housing was unliveable. Grant Tambling, then a member of the Legislative Assembly and later a Senator for the NT, who went through the cyclone with his family, later said: “I believe we were among the 10% of the population to retain their house.”[39]
- 650 people were injured and treated in Darwin (many more were attended to interstate)
- Initially all external and internal communications were destroyed. In 1975 there were no mobile phones, email or the internet. Houses with telephones connected to an Exchange – if the Exchange was damaged then there was no telephone service.
- Water, sewerage, and power services etc had been contaminated, cut or severed.
However little comprehension for those imagining Tracy’s impact can be gleaned from words. Instead the photographs taken at the time – most of them by Defence – show the true reality of the shattered capital city of the north.
Arrow and the Clearance Divers
The Armed Forces arrived en masse over the next days and weeks but space does not permit here their full story. Regarding Arrow, one of the main problems that faced Darwin was the sinking of vessels near the main wharves. This was where most of the heavy equipment – bridge girders, heavy vehicles, mass pallets of materials and so on – would arrive. Therefore such sunken shipping was a danger: the hulls and masts could snag or penetrate hulls; cables and ropes could entangle propellers, and leaking fuel could contaminate – just to name a few possible hazards. Ironically and rather sadly the Navy’s own incoming expert dive teams found themselves working on one of their own Service’s ships, the sunken Arrow.
With the arrival of the Task Group therefore, the primary focus for Clearance Dive Team 1 turned to the extraction of Arrow from near Stokes Hill Wharf, a task achieved on 13 January after much work. Captain Johnston went down to see what was happening, and encountered a journalist being a nuisance: [40]
The diving team had worked tirelessly. They had undertaken general harbour search and surveys, they had cleared the wharves and immediate approach areas and they had salvaged and raised the wreck of HMAS Arrow. I believe that the only time I lost my temper during the whole clear-up operation was when a well-known television commentator, encountering the clearance divers during one of their rest periods, asked them why they were bludging. This man does not know how close he came to joining the other debris in the harbour. [41]
Writing later in his autobiography Bubbles, Booze, Bombs and Bastards, A Clearance Diver’s Story, diver Larry Digney said Captain Johnston shouldn’t have called the TV personality “a man” as he was a “low life weasel.” All up, Digney said, the divers worked for 23 days straight, 12 hours on and 12 hours off. Diving, the author can attest to from his own experiences as a divemaster, is an extremely strenuous sport, but non-stop work in low visibility conditions it is much more psychologically demanding and physically draining. Only the extremely fit, brave, and capable Navy divers could have carried out the tasks they did.
The Navy’s Official History of Arrow later concluded:
Clearance Diving Team One successfully refloated Arrow on 13 January 1975 by attaching pontoons to her hull and using tugs to pull her clear of the wharf at high tide. She was towed underwater to shallow water at Frances Bay where she was surveyed, written off and later sold to a local businessman [Ed: Stan Kennon] whose intention was to rebuild her as a museum piece. The restoration process proved too expensive and Arrow was eventually broken up where she lay. [42]
Again rather sadly, the pieces of the ship were buried as landfill. Nearby a shipping yard for the maritime contractor Perkins was being constructed out from the shoreline. Fill for the yard was needed, and that was where the pieces from the patrol boat were buried. It was an odd end for a proud little ship.
Dr Tom Lewis.
-o-o-O-o-o-
Cyclone Warriors explains fully the huge efforts put in by the Armed Forces following Tracy – they basically saved the city. It is available from Avonmore Books online, or through book shops.
[1] Australian Government. Department of Science. Bureau of Meteorology. Report on Cyclone Tracy 1974. Australian Government Publishing Service, 1977. (p. 1)
[2] Department of Defence. The Defence Force in the Relief of Darwin after Cyclone Tracy. Australian Government Printing Service, 1980. (p.9)
[3] Post-Courier. “Storm Warning.” Papua New Guinea. 4 Dec 1974. (p. 7)
[4] Australian Government. Department of Science. Bureau of Meteorology. Report on Cyclone Tracy 1974. Australian Government Publishing Service, 1977. (p. 1)
[5] Australian Government. Department of Science. Bureau of Meteorology. Report on Cyclone Tracy 1974. Australian Government Publishing Service, 1977. (p. 2)
[6] Department of Defence. The Defence Force in the Relief of Darwin after Cyclone Tracy. Australian Government Printing Service, 1980. (p.5)
[7] Odgers, GJ. “The Defence Force in the Relief of Darwin after Cyclone Tracy.” Australian Government Publishing Service: Canberra, 1980. (p. 3)
[8] Odgers, GJ. “The Defence Force in the Relief of Darwin after Cyclone Tracy.” Australian Government Publishing Service: Canberra, 1980. (p. 4)
[9] Odgers, GJ. “The Defence Force in the Relief of Darwin after Cyclone Tracy.” Australian Government Publishing Service: Canberra, 1980. (p. 12)
[10] Stone, Ken OAM, and Margaret Stone. Interview with the author, October 2023.
[11] Dixon, Dr Lorraine. Interview, March 2024.
[12] Royal Australian Navy. Navy News. 17 January 1975. (p.6) (in the possession of the author)
[13] Lowe, Yvonne, senior WRAN, (later Yvonne Corby). interview, July 1995.
[14] Johnston was commenting some years later when he had been made Administrator of the Northern Territory, the vice-regal position equivalent to a state’s governor. His Honour Eric Eugene Johnston AO OBE was Administrator from 1 January 1981 to 1 July 1989. See Government House Northern Territory. Website. https://govhouse.nt.gov.au/
[15] Johnston, Eric Eugene. “Operation Navy Help: disaster operations by the Royal Australian Navy, post Cyclone Tracy”. Northern Territory Library Service, Darwin. 07 Jul. 1986 Web. 24 Feb. 2022. https://hdl.handle.net/10070/718204.
[16] Department of Defence. The Defence Force in the Relief of Darwin after Cyclone Tracy. Australian Government Printing Service, 1980. (p.10)
[17] Keogh Jayne. “HMAS Arrow in the eye of the storm.” Naval Association of Australia. 9 December 2021.
https://www.dva.gov.au/newsroom/latest-news-veterans/hmas-arrow-eye-storm
[18] Royal Australian Navy. “HMAS Arrow.” https://www.navy.gov.au/hmas-Arrow
[19] Royal Australian Navy. Navy News. 17 January 1975. (p. 1; p. 7) (In the possession of the author)
[20] Royal Australian Navy. “HMAS Arrow.” https://www.navy.gov.au/hmas-Arrow
[21] Royal Australian Navy. Navy News. 17 January 1975. (p.8) (in the possession of the author)
[22] Royal Australian Navy. Navy News. Volume 18, No. 1. 17 January, 1975. (p. 7)
[23] Cunningham, Sophie. Warning: the story of Cyclone Tracy. Victoria: Text Publishing, 2014. (p. 79)
[24] Dagworthy, Captain Robert, AM RAN (Rtd). Emails and conversations with the author, 2022-2023.
[25] Royal Australian Navy. Report of the Board of Enquiry into the Circumstances Attending the loss of or Damage to HMA Ships Arrow, Attack, Assail and Advance and the casualties resulting therefrom. (Copy courtesy Sea Power Centre, Canberra), 1975. (p. 46)
[26] Royal Australian Navy. Report of the Board of Enquiry into the Circumstances Attending the loss of or Damage to HMA Ships Arrow, Attack, Assail and Advance and the casualties resulting therefrom. (Copy courtesy Sea Power Centre, Canberra), 1975. (p. 47)
[27] Royal Australian Navy. Report of the Board of Enquiry into the Circumstances Attending the loss of or Damage to HMA Ships Arrow, Attack, Assail and Advance and the casualties resulting therefrom. (Copy courtesy Sea Power Centre, Canberra), 1975. (p. 54)
[28] Australian Government. Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. https://honours.pmc.gov.au/honours/awards/878685
[29] Johnston, Eric Eugene. “Operation Navy Help: disaster operations by the Royal Australian Navy, post Cyclone Tracy”. Northern Territory Library Service, Darwin. 07 Jul. 1986 Web. 24 Feb. 2022. https://hdl.handle.net/10070/718204.
[30] Royal Australian Navy. Navy News. 17 January 1975. (p. 1) (In the possession of the author)
[31] Australian Government. Department of Science. Bureau of Meteorology. Report on Cyclone Tracy 1974. Australian Government Publishing Service, 1977. (p. 35)
[32] Markwell, Ken. Interview with the author, February 2022.
[33] Northern Territory Government. “Maritime Heritage”. https://nt.gov.au/leisure/arts-culture-heritage/visit-a-cultural-or-heritage-site/maritime-heritage
[34] Discussion in the “Old Darwin” Facebook group between the author and son Michael Pastrikos, September 2023.
[35] The author wrote “What Fairmile is that?”, an article which has been released in several publication, analysing which of the Fairmile fleet the Ataluma was. The nearest conclusion arrived at so far narrows it down to ML 808 but it remains uncertain due to lack of records.
[36] Lowe, Yvonne, senior WRAN, (later Yvonne Corby). interview, July 1995.
[37] Royal Australian Navy. Mitchell, Brett. “Disaster Relief – Cyclone Tracy and Tasman Bridge”. https://www.navy.gov.au/history/feature-histories/disaster-relief-cyclone-tracy-and-tasman-bridge
[38] Royal Australian Navy. Mitchell, Brett. “Disaster Relief – Cyclone Tracy and Tasman Bridge”. https://www.navy.gov.au/history/feature-histories/disaster-relief-cyclone-tracy-and-tasman-bridge
[39] Tambling, the Honourable Grant, AM. Rebuilding Darwin post Cyclone Tracy”. Address to the National Young Planners Conference, Darwin. 28 March 2009. (Copy supplied by Senator Tambling to the author)
[40] Royal Australian Navy. Semaphore. Semaphore: Disaster Relief – Cyclone Tracy and Tasman Bridge. Issue 14, 2004.
[41] Johnston, Eric Eugene. “Operation Navy Help: disaster operations by the Royal Australian Navy, post Cyclone Tracy”. Northern Territory Library Service, Darwin. 07 Jul. 1986 Web. 24 Feb. 2022. https://hdl.handle.net/10070/718204.
[42] Royal Australian Navy. “HMAS Arrow.” https://www.navy.gov.au/hmas-arrow
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