IN PICTURES: WA turns out to honour beloved Arthur Leggett

Perth Now10-05-2025

West Australians turned out on Saturday morning to farewell their final World War II prisoner of war, Arthur Leggett OAM. Picture: Jackson Flindell and Matt Jelonek
West Australians turned out on Saturday morning to farewell their final World War II prisoner of war, Arthur Leggett OAM.
A military-led procession began the State funeral for the veteran and survivor of the Lamsdorf Death March, who died on April 6, aged 106.
The procession consisted of two guards of soldiers from the Royal Western Australia Regiment, a Bearer Party, and the WA Army Band.
People, young and old, lined St Georges Terrace to pay their respects to Mr Leggett.
One couple held up a 'Lest We Forget' sign, while veterans paying their respects held their hats to their hearts as Mr Leggett's casket went by.
Read the full story on thewest.com.au.

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Salvaging stories from the region's watery graveyards

The Advertiser

6 hours ago

The Advertiser

Salvaging stories from the region's watery graveyards

MANY years ago, on today's Kooragang Island, I saw an unusual event. It was the noisy demolition with explosives of old, abandoned wrecks in what was then called 'Rotten Row'. There were a series of loud bangs, swirling smoke and an acrid smell as mud and twisted chunks of metal flew everywhere in this soon-to-be-forgotten maritime graveyard. This tidal channel, an old creek really, was where worn-out old tugs, barges and small punts had been rusting away for decades. With their working days over, the vessels had been floated in there at high tide and abandoned long ago. This was probably in the late 1960s. There may have been up to a dozen obsolete craft in the inlet, probably on Moscheto Island, on an elbow of the Hunter River's south channel to the north-east of the then Newcastle Steelworks. The islands' reclamation scheme was then well under way to create more industrial land on what soon became today's Kooragang. With the derelict port vessels now flattened, the site was soon smothered in sand dredged up and pumped ashore from harbour dredging. These days, this port land is just part of our hidden history, with no traces left to remember where this once familiar ship dumping ground once was. It's a far cry from today's Myall River around Tea Gardens, where the remains of some old vessels of a different sort, surprisingly, still survive. Around Witts Island, for example, eight beached wrecks rotting away have been identified. They include three 'retired' Engel store boats and two droghers (paddlewheel-powered timber cargo punts). But there may have been once 11 boats abandoned locally in river mangroves. But there is a second Port Stephens' watery graveyard nearby, which is often largely overlooked. The site's at the entrance to the Myall River in the shallows of Pindimar (Duckhole) Bay. Here, there were once perhaps six abandoned ship hulks, including the biggest paddle steamer to ever ferry commuters between Sydney and Manly. But more about that shortly. Hulks were towed off Pindimar in the 1940s to serve as timber storage hubs, or floating wharves, awaiting ocean-going ships. This provided a quick turnaround to load timber cargoes and depart Port Stephens, as these larger craft would have had great difficulty entering the Myall River. A launch would then carry waterside workers from Tea Gardens and Hawks Nest out to load the timber from the offshore hulks directly onto the waiting vessels. Timber harvesting in Port Stephens continued for about 130 years, having begun in the 1820s. The peak of the massive timber business seems to have been in the 1920s and 1930s. River transport, however, then gradually declined after the introduction of more inland roads and timber lorries. This Myall River cargo trade though was briefly revived in World War II when petrol rationing forced timber-jinkers off the road from Bulahdelah and elsewhere. Meanwhile, when the days of the timber transfer from hulks to waiting vessels were over, the vessels were abandoned or scuttled. Five Pindimar hulks were finally identified by authors Brian A. Engel, Janis Winn (nee Motum) and John Wark in a local book printed in 2000. They were the steel hulk of the ship Sydney, plus a big, old double-ended Manly ferry called Brighton, a former lighthouse tender called the Governor Musgrave, a wooden steamer named Durobie or Deroby and East Star, a converted trawler. A local district identity, Horace Motum, operated a registered oyster lease on one of the hulks after the former timber trade vessel fell into disuse. When two NSW Heritage marine archaeologists, Tim Smith and David Nutley, officially surveyed the area in 1999, they identified at least three hulks, earlier beached for being hazardous, standing out in the shallows. They could positively identify only the double-ended steamer, Brighton, but also mentioned a sixth vessel, Bingara. Most of the hulks were severely stripped for scrap metal in the 1970s, leaving only rusting shells. The former iron steamer Brighton was once the largest and most luxurious Sydney ferry operating from Circular Quay. It's hard to imagine now, but she was the pride of the Manly ferries. She was 220ft long (67 metres), weighed 417 gross tons and could carry 1200 passengers at a time. Her plush interior was striking. This included velvet seats, polished woodwork and cages of singing canaries. Built in Scotland in 1883 as the Port Jackson, then renamed as Brighton, she's probably one of the best-known hulks in the Tea Gardens area, although now unrecognisable. She was abandoned in the Pindimar Bay scuttling area in 1916. Noted author and Sydney ferry expert, the late Graeme Andrews, said the Brighton made a hazardous 89-day ocean voyage out to Australia in 1883, including running aground three times. Andrews also said the vessel suffered storm damage off Columbo and ran out of fuel as she finally approached Sydney Heads, "obliging her crew to burn her protective wooden ocean cladding - or was that to avoid a timber import tax?" And now comes possibly the oddest story of all the timber storeships - and she's not at Pindimar. She's the former Aussie warship HMAS Psyche, sunk and now broken up on the muddy bottom of Salamander Bay across the waterway. Commissioned in 1899 as the light cruiser HMAS Psyche, she saw service in World War I operating to capture Germany's Pacific colonies. Later, she joined our RAN but was finally sold in 1922. Our once proud, now almost forgotten, cruiser was then dismantled over two years, converted into a mere floating hulk, a timber lighter, used to temporarily store long power poles up at Port Stephens. She'd been there only a few months when a sudden gale caused her to turn turtle and sink at her moorings in December 1924. What followed was later described as the region's biggest and most successful salvage operation for years in what was then 56 feet (16.9 metres) of water off present Corlette. Surprisingly, this one vessel's cargo alone comprised 2044 hardwood poles about 30 to 40 feet (9 to 12 metres) long and about 18 inches in diameter, plus wooden girders, all bound for New Zealand The Newcastle Herald of June 2, 1925, reported that the salvaging of timber was finished, with 1900 poles recovered, with the rest lost forever, buried in deep silt beneath the submerged former warship. MANY years ago, on today's Kooragang Island, I saw an unusual event. It was the noisy demolition with explosives of old, abandoned wrecks in what was then called 'Rotten Row'. There were a series of loud bangs, swirling smoke and an acrid smell as mud and twisted chunks of metal flew everywhere in this soon-to-be-forgotten maritime graveyard. This tidal channel, an old creek really, was where worn-out old tugs, barges and small punts had been rusting away for decades. With their working days over, the vessels had been floated in there at high tide and abandoned long ago. This was probably in the late 1960s. There may have been up to a dozen obsolete craft in the inlet, probably on Moscheto Island, on an elbow of the Hunter River's south channel to the north-east of the then Newcastle Steelworks. The islands' reclamation scheme was then well under way to create more industrial land on what soon became today's Kooragang. With the derelict port vessels now flattened, the site was soon smothered in sand dredged up and pumped ashore from harbour dredging. These days, this port land is just part of our hidden history, with no traces left to remember where this once familiar ship dumping ground once was. It's a far cry from today's Myall River around Tea Gardens, where the remains of some old vessels of a different sort, surprisingly, still survive. Around Witts Island, for example, eight beached wrecks rotting away have been identified. They include three 'retired' Engel store boats and two droghers (paddlewheel-powered timber cargo punts). But there may have been once 11 boats abandoned locally in river mangroves. But there is a second Port Stephens' watery graveyard nearby, which is often largely overlooked. The site's at the entrance to the Myall River in the shallows of Pindimar (Duckhole) Bay. Here, there were once perhaps six abandoned ship hulks, including the biggest paddle steamer to ever ferry commuters between Sydney and Manly. But more about that shortly. Hulks were towed off Pindimar in the 1940s to serve as timber storage hubs, or floating wharves, awaiting ocean-going ships. This provided a quick turnaround to load timber cargoes and depart Port Stephens, as these larger craft would have had great difficulty entering the Myall River. A launch would then carry waterside workers from Tea Gardens and Hawks Nest out to load the timber from the offshore hulks directly onto the waiting vessels. Timber harvesting in Port Stephens continued for about 130 years, having begun in the 1820s. The peak of the massive timber business seems to have been in the 1920s and 1930s. River transport, however, then gradually declined after the introduction of more inland roads and timber lorries. This Myall River cargo trade though was briefly revived in World War II when petrol rationing forced timber-jinkers off the road from Bulahdelah and elsewhere. Meanwhile, when the days of the timber transfer from hulks to waiting vessels were over, the vessels were abandoned or scuttled. Five Pindimar hulks were finally identified by authors Brian A. Engel, Janis Winn (nee Motum) and John Wark in a local book printed in 2000. They were the steel hulk of the ship Sydney, plus a big, old double-ended Manly ferry called Brighton, a former lighthouse tender called the Governor Musgrave, a wooden steamer named Durobie or Deroby and East Star, a converted trawler. A local district identity, Horace Motum, operated a registered oyster lease on one of the hulks after the former timber trade vessel fell into disuse. When two NSW Heritage marine archaeologists, Tim Smith and David Nutley, officially surveyed the area in 1999, they identified at least three hulks, earlier beached for being hazardous, standing out in the shallows. They could positively identify only the double-ended steamer, Brighton, but also mentioned a sixth vessel, Bingara. Most of the hulks were severely stripped for scrap metal in the 1970s, leaving only rusting shells. The former iron steamer Brighton was once the largest and most luxurious Sydney ferry operating from Circular Quay. It's hard to imagine now, but she was the pride of the Manly ferries. She was 220ft long (67 metres), weighed 417 gross tons and could carry 1200 passengers at a time. Her plush interior was striking. This included velvet seats, polished woodwork and cages of singing canaries. Built in Scotland in 1883 as the Port Jackson, then renamed as Brighton, she's probably one of the best-known hulks in the Tea Gardens area, although now unrecognisable. She was abandoned in the Pindimar Bay scuttling area in 1916. Noted author and Sydney ferry expert, the late Graeme Andrews, said the Brighton made a hazardous 89-day ocean voyage out to Australia in 1883, including running aground three times. Andrews also said the vessel suffered storm damage off Columbo and ran out of fuel as she finally approached Sydney Heads, "obliging her crew to burn her protective wooden ocean cladding - or was that to avoid a timber import tax?" And now comes possibly the oddest story of all the timber storeships - and she's not at Pindimar. She's the former Aussie warship HMAS Psyche, sunk and now broken up on the muddy bottom of Salamander Bay across the waterway. Commissioned in 1899 as the light cruiser HMAS Psyche, she saw service in World War I operating to capture Germany's Pacific colonies. Later, she joined our RAN but was finally sold in 1922. Our once proud, now almost forgotten, cruiser was then dismantled over two years, converted into a mere floating hulk, a timber lighter, used to temporarily store long power poles up at Port Stephens. She'd been there only a few months when a sudden gale caused her to turn turtle and sink at her moorings in December 1924. What followed was later described as the region's biggest and most successful salvage operation for years in what was then 56 feet (16.9 metres) of water off present Corlette. Surprisingly, this one vessel's cargo alone comprised 2044 hardwood poles about 30 to 40 feet (9 to 12 metres) long and about 18 inches in diameter, plus wooden girders, all bound for New Zealand The Newcastle Herald of June 2, 1925, reported that the salvaging of timber was finished, with 1900 poles recovered, with the rest lost forever, buried in deep silt beneath the submerged former warship. MANY years ago, on today's Kooragang Island, I saw an unusual event. It was the noisy demolition with explosives of old, abandoned wrecks in what was then called 'Rotten Row'. There were a series of loud bangs, swirling smoke and an acrid smell as mud and twisted chunks of metal flew everywhere in this soon-to-be-forgotten maritime graveyard. This tidal channel, an old creek really, was where worn-out old tugs, barges and small punts had been rusting away for decades. With their working days over, the vessels had been floated in there at high tide and abandoned long ago. This was probably in the late 1960s. There may have been up to a dozen obsolete craft in the inlet, probably on Moscheto Island, on an elbow of the Hunter River's south channel to the north-east of the then Newcastle Steelworks. The islands' reclamation scheme was then well under way to create more industrial land on what soon became today's Kooragang. With the derelict port vessels now flattened, the site was soon smothered in sand dredged up and pumped ashore from harbour dredging. These days, this port land is just part of our hidden history, with no traces left to remember where this once familiar ship dumping ground once was. It's a far cry from today's Myall River around Tea Gardens, where the remains of some old vessels of a different sort, surprisingly, still survive. Around Witts Island, for example, eight beached wrecks rotting away have been identified. They include three 'retired' Engel store boats and two droghers (paddlewheel-powered timber cargo punts). But there may have been once 11 boats abandoned locally in river mangroves. But there is a second Port Stephens' watery graveyard nearby, which is often largely overlooked. The site's at the entrance to the Myall River in the shallows of Pindimar (Duckhole) Bay. Here, there were once perhaps six abandoned ship hulks, including the biggest paddle steamer to ever ferry commuters between Sydney and Manly. But more about that shortly. Hulks were towed off Pindimar in the 1940s to serve as timber storage hubs, or floating wharves, awaiting ocean-going ships. This provided a quick turnaround to load timber cargoes and depart Port Stephens, as these larger craft would have had great difficulty entering the Myall River. A launch would then carry waterside workers from Tea Gardens and Hawks Nest out to load the timber from the offshore hulks directly onto the waiting vessels. Timber harvesting in Port Stephens continued for about 130 years, having begun in the 1820s. The peak of the massive timber business seems to have been in the 1920s and 1930s. River transport, however, then gradually declined after the introduction of more inland roads and timber lorries. This Myall River cargo trade though was briefly revived in World War II when petrol rationing forced timber-jinkers off the road from Bulahdelah and elsewhere. Meanwhile, when the days of the timber transfer from hulks to waiting vessels were over, the vessels were abandoned or scuttled. Five Pindimar hulks were finally identified by authors Brian A. Engel, Janis Winn (nee Motum) and John Wark in a local book printed in 2000. They were the steel hulk of the ship Sydney, plus a big, old double-ended Manly ferry called Brighton, a former lighthouse tender called the Governor Musgrave, a wooden steamer named Durobie or Deroby and East Star, a converted trawler. A local district identity, Horace Motum, operated a registered oyster lease on one of the hulks after the former timber trade vessel fell into disuse. When two NSW Heritage marine archaeologists, Tim Smith and David Nutley, officially surveyed the area in 1999, they identified at least three hulks, earlier beached for being hazardous, standing out in the shallows. They could positively identify only the double-ended steamer, Brighton, but also mentioned a sixth vessel, Bingara. Most of the hulks were severely stripped for scrap metal in the 1970s, leaving only rusting shells. The former iron steamer Brighton was once the largest and most luxurious Sydney ferry operating from Circular Quay. It's hard to imagine now, but she was the pride of the Manly ferries. She was 220ft long (67 metres), weighed 417 gross tons and could carry 1200 passengers at a time. Her plush interior was striking. This included velvet seats, polished woodwork and cages of singing canaries. Built in Scotland in 1883 as the Port Jackson, then renamed as Brighton, she's probably one of the best-known hulks in the Tea Gardens area, although now unrecognisable. She was abandoned in the Pindimar Bay scuttling area in 1916. Noted author and Sydney ferry expert, the late Graeme Andrews, said the Brighton made a hazardous 89-day ocean voyage out to Australia in 1883, including running aground three times. Andrews also said the vessel suffered storm damage off Columbo and ran out of fuel as she finally approached Sydney Heads, "obliging her crew to burn her protective wooden ocean cladding - or was that to avoid a timber import tax?" And now comes possibly the oddest story of all the timber storeships - and she's not at Pindimar. She's the former Aussie warship HMAS Psyche, sunk and now broken up on the muddy bottom of Salamander Bay across the waterway. Commissioned in 1899 as the light cruiser HMAS Psyche, she saw service in World War I operating to capture Germany's Pacific colonies. Later, she joined our RAN but was finally sold in 1922. Our once proud, now almost forgotten, cruiser was then dismantled over two years, converted into a mere floating hulk, a timber lighter, used to temporarily store long power poles up at Port Stephens. She'd been there only a few months when a sudden gale caused her to turn turtle and sink at her moorings in December 1924. What followed was later described as the region's biggest and most successful salvage operation for years in what was then 56 feet (16.9 metres) of water off present Corlette. Surprisingly, this one vessel's cargo alone comprised 2044 hardwood poles about 30 to 40 feet (9 to 12 metres) long and about 18 inches in diameter, plus wooden girders, all bound for New Zealand The Newcastle Herald of June 2, 1925, reported that the salvaging of timber was finished, with 1900 poles recovered, with the rest lost forever, buried in deep silt beneath the submerged former warship. MANY years ago, on today's Kooragang Island, I saw an unusual event. It was the noisy demolition with explosives of old, abandoned wrecks in what was then called 'Rotten Row'. There were a series of loud bangs, swirling smoke and an acrid smell as mud and twisted chunks of metal flew everywhere in this soon-to-be-forgotten maritime graveyard. This tidal channel, an old creek really, was where worn-out old tugs, barges and small punts had been rusting away for decades. With their working days over, the vessels had been floated in there at high tide and abandoned long ago. This was probably in the late 1960s. There may have been up to a dozen obsolete craft in the inlet, probably on Moscheto Island, on an elbow of the Hunter River's south channel to the north-east of the then Newcastle Steelworks. The islands' reclamation scheme was then well under way to create more industrial land on what soon became today's Kooragang. With the derelict port vessels now flattened, the site was soon smothered in sand dredged up and pumped ashore from harbour dredging. These days, this port land is just part of our hidden history, with no traces left to remember where this once familiar ship dumping ground once was. It's a far cry from today's Myall River around Tea Gardens, where the remains of some old vessels of a different sort, surprisingly, still survive. Around Witts Island, for example, eight beached wrecks rotting away have been identified. They include three 'retired' Engel store boats and two droghers (paddlewheel-powered timber cargo punts). But there may have been once 11 boats abandoned locally in river mangroves. But there is a second Port Stephens' watery graveyard nearby, which is often largely overlooked. The site's at the entrance to the Myall River in the shallows of Pindimar (Duckhole) Bay. Here, there were once perhaps six abandoned ship hulks, including the biggest paddle steamer to ever ferry commuters between Sydney and Manly. But more about that shortly. Hulks were towed off Pindimar in the 1940s to serve as timber storage hubs, or floating wharves, awaiting ocean-going ships. This provided a quick turnaround to load timber cargoes and depart Port Stephens, as these larger craft would have had great difficulty entering the Myall River. A launch would then carry waterside workers from Tea Gardens and Hawks Nest out to load the timber from the offshore hulks directly onto the waiting vessels. Timber harvesting in Port Stephens continued for about 130 years, having begun in the 1820s. The peak of the massive timber business seems to have been in the 1920s and 1930s. River transport, however, then gradually declined after the introduction of more inland roads and timber lorries. This Myall River cargo trade though was briefly revived in World War II when petrol rationing forced timber-jinkers off the road from Bulahdelah and elsewhere. Meanwhile, when the days of the timber transfer from hulks to waiting vessels were over, the vessels were abandoned or scuttled. Five Pindimar hulks were finally identified by authors Brian A. Engel, Janis Winn (nee Motum) and John Wark in a local book printed in 2000. They were the steel hulk of the ship Sydney, plus a big, old double-ended Manly ferry called Brighton, a former lighthouse tender called the Governor Musgrave, a wooden steamer named Durobie or Deroby and East Star, a converted trawler. A local district identity, Horace Motum, operated a registered oyster lease on one of the hulks after the former timber trade vessel fell into disuse. When two NSW Heritage marine archaeologists, Tim Smith and David Nutley, officially surveyed the area in 1999, they identified at least three hulks, earlier beached for being hazardous, standing out in the shallows. They could positively identify only the double-ended steamer, Brighton, but also mentioned a sixth vessel, Bingara. Most of the hulks were severely stripped for scrap metal in the 1970s, leaving only rusting shells. The former iron steamer Brighton was once the largest and most luxurious Sydney ferry operating from Circular Quay. It's hard to imagine now, but she was the pride of the Manly ferries. She was 220ft long (67 metres), weighed 417 gross tons and could carry 1200 passengers at a time. Her plush interior was striking. This included velvet seats, polished woodwork and cages of singing canaries. Built in Scotland in 1883 as the Port Jackson, then renamed as Brighton, she's probably one of the best-known hulks in the Tea Gardens area, although now unrecognisable. She was abandoned in the Pindimar Bay scuttling area in 1916. Noted author and Sydney ferry expert, the late Graeme Andrews, said the Brighton made a hazardous 89-day ocean voyage out to Australia in 1883, including running aground three times. Andrews also said the vessel suffered storm damage off Columbo and ran out of fuel as she finally approached Sydney Heads, "obliging her crew to burn her protective wooden ocean cladding - or was that to avoid a timber import tax?" And now comes possibly the oddest story of all the timber storeships - and she's not at Pindimar. She's the former Aussie warship HMAS Psyche, sunk and now broken up on the muddy bottom of Salamander Bay across the waterway. Commissioned in 1899 as the light cruiser HMAS Psyche, she saw service in World War I operating to capture Germany's Pacific colonies. Later, she joined our RAN but was finally sold in 1922. Our once proud, now almost forgotten, cruiser was then dismantled over two years, converted into a mere floating hulk, a timber lighter, used to temporarily store long power poles up at Port Stephens. She'd been there only a few months when a sudden gale caused her to turn turtle and sink at her moorings in December 1924. What followed was later described as the region's biggest and most successful salvage operation for years in what was then 56 feet (16.9 metres) of water off present Corlette. Surprisingly, this one vessel's cargo alone comprised 2044 hardwood poles about 30 to 40 feet (9 to 12 metres) long and about 18 inches in diameter, plus wooden girders, all bound for New Zealand The Newcastle Herald of June 2, 1925, reported that the salvaging of timber was finished, with 1900 poles recovered, with the rest lost forever, buried in deep silt beneath the submerged former warship.