The Mercury, Hobart, Tuesday 26 March, 1912.
INTER-STATE STEAMER
OVERDUE.
ANXIETY FOR THE KOOMBANA.
PERTH, March 24.
The Premier received a telegram from
the Resident Magistrate of Broome tonight,
stating that the Adelaide Steamship Company's
steamer Koombana, 3,668 tons, is 72 hours'
overdue at Broome from Port Hedland.
The oldest inhabitants of Broome consider
that an accident has befallen the steamer,
and think it absolutely necessary to despatch
a search steamer at once.
This contradicts, the earlier information that the
Koombana was safe at Derby.
And so news broke in the press of the missing Koombana, the first inkling of a disaster that was to shake the Nor'west to the core. Note, as in most of these cases, initial confusion, false reports and always but always a delay before steamers were sent out to search. 72 hours suggested that Koombana had gone missing 21 March, 1912, when it was more likely to have been late, 20 March.
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| SS Koombana (courtesy wikipedia) |
courtesy Trove
Why did they wait so long before sending out search ships after a vessel went missing? I am with 'the oldest inhabitants of Broome' on this point.
ReplyDeleteGood question Mole. I believe it was due to the initial assumption that the steamer in question could have suffered some form of mechanical breakdown and/or was either sheltered in a bay en-route or hove to, until the storm conditions passed. Bullarra, Koombana's sister ship, arrived in a battered state at Cossack 3 full days after departing Port Hedland, some 100 n miles distant. But waiting a full week to confirm the non-arrival of a steamer such as the case with Koombana, lost valuable time in establishing where the steamer was likely to have foundered and if any survivors had managed to cling onto a boat or flotsam. It was the same with Waratah, valuable time wasted before dispatching search vessels.
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