Tambellup Times, 21 October, 1922.
Koombana Wreck Located
A message from Darwin states that,
when steaming quietly along in the
smooth sea between the mainland and
Bedout Island in 66 fathoms of water,
Western Australian State steamer
Bambra, which arrived at Port Darwin
on October 3, suddenly struck an
obstacle. Her bow rose up and the
vessel slid along with a grating sound,
and then fell again. The stern dropped
with a plunge so heavy that water splashed
right up into the scuppers. When she
first struck the Bambra rolled so heavily
that it was feared she would roll right
over. An examination of the hull afterwards,
when high and dry, revealed no damage,
and it became evident that she had not
struck an uncharted rock. The incident
caused considerable comment, and a
diver on a pearl lugger volunteered the
information that at the exact spot some
time ago he was diving for pearl and
came upon the hull of a steamer.
There can be little doubt that the wreckage
is that of the Koombana, which is the only
large vessel lost on this coast, the position
of which has not been located. The warship
Geranium is to make a search in the locality.
One may safely assume that nothing came of the search by the warship Geranium. 66 fathoms is 120 m which is certainly beyond the reach of a pearl diver and causing damage to even the deepest vessel afloat.
It was more likely to have been 66 ft. which is 20 m, a depth seen between Bedout Island and Amphinome Shoals. Submerged steamer wreckage was notorious for causing major damage. However, a patch of sandy shoal was the mostly likely candidate for this encounter of the 'startling' kind.
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| Amphinome Shoals - courtesy State Library of Western Australia |
An extract from the following excellent link provides further clues. It appears that HMAS Geranium did NOT go to investigate the 'obstruction' as reported. Why? Not justified?
With this task complete the ship headed back to Darwin arriving on 1 October.
While in Darwin her men were required to assist with disembarking coal, into bunkers ashore, from the fleet auxiliary collier Biloela on the 5th. Biloela's civilian crew had gone on strike and refused to work with members of the Northern Territory Workers Union who conducted wharf operations. Geraniumprovided men as guards on the wharf and her stokers operated the colliers boilers to provide steam to power Biloela's winches; and this allowed the unloading of coal to go ahead. Biloela's crew did not interfere with the unloading and stated they had no grievance with naval men taking their places as "it was the King's coal and the crew of Geranium were the King's men" (Brisbane Courier 6 October 1922).
The matter however did not rest there as 30 of Biloela's seamen and stokers (known as fireman) were dismissed from the ship and Commander MacKenzie was required to supply some of his men to take the collier back to Sydney. Biloela's deck and engineer officers remained on board but the colliers cooks refused to feed the Geranium sailors forcing MacKenzie to provide cooks as well as seamen and stokers to the hapless ship. Biloela departed Darwin on 9 October and arrived back in Sydney on the 20th. Geranium sailed from Darwin on 15 October and steamed south via Thursday Island, Cairns and Lady Elliott Island arriving in home port on 21 November 1922.
Barrier Miner, 3 April, 1912.
BEDOUT ISLAND.
Bedout Island, where the wreckage
was found, is almost on the direct
route of steamers travelling between
Port Hedland and Broome, being a
few miles to the west of the regular
"track." Vessels steer wide of the
presence of "foul ground" there. The
Amphinome Shoals lie between
Bedout Island and the Mainland. The
fact that the wreckage was not discovered
earlier might have been on account of
the steamer having foundered in deep
water, and did not break up sufficiently
to release much wreckage until the
last few days.
Entirely in keeping with my belief that Koombana will be found in the vicinity of the 27.5 mile mark, within the steamer track between Hedland and Broome, in deep water.
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For Koombana to have escaped detection in relatively shallow waters for over a century seems extremely unlikely.
Courtesy Trove and Google Earth.
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