Marine Life Society of
South Australia Inc.
Newsletter
March 2008 No. 352
“understanding,
enjoying & caring for our oceans”
Next Meeting
The next General Meeting
will be held in March on Tuesday the 18th. PLEASE NOTE THE NEW DAY FOR
MARCH.
This will be held at
the Adventure
Blue clubrooms
on the Patawalonga frontage at 7.30pm.
PLEASE
NOTE THE NEW PLACE.
Our speaker will be Vic Neverauskas, Manager Marine
Biosecurity Program with PIRSA, who will be speaking on
Caulerpa Taxifolia.
CONTENTS
“Chappy”
Charlesworth (Steve Reynolds)
Diving in Truk
Lagoon (E, (Chappy) Charlesworth)
MLSSA Calendars
Memberships
March is of course the final month of the MLSSA
financial year. On the 1st of
April subscriptions become due. To assist the treasurer and to avoid the
necessity of continual reminders could you please pay asap
after the 1st
April. (You may pay at our March meeting if you wish.)
If you are not intending to renew your
subscription then we would appreciate an indication of this then you can be
removed from our email and posting lists and we will not need to send you
continual reminders.
Phill McPeake (Treasurer)
“Chappy” Charlesworth
by Steve Reynolds
In early
February, a death notice in The Advertiser caught my eye. The notice concerned
the passing of EW “Chappy” Charlesworth on 4th
February. Although I never knew “Chappy”, I was familiar with his name. There
were actually several notices regarding “Chappy” that day. Several of them
indicated that “Chappy” was a ‘man of the sea”. I instantly recalled where I
knew the name from and I soon found the source. E “Chappy” Charlesworth had
been the author of a two-part article in our March and April 1979 newsletters,
almost 29 years ago. The article in question was titled “Diving in Truk
Lagoon”. So “Chappy” was a diver, and he had originally written about his
experiences diving in Truk Lagoon for the Royal South Australian Yacht Squadron
newsletter (No.76). The article had then been reprinted (with permission) in
two of our own newsletters (MARIA Newsletters Nos. 27 & 28).
Elliott “Chappy”
Charlesworth was born on 18th
May 1926. He was the son of Herbert and Ada Charlesworth, the founders of
Charlesworth Nuts. “Chappy” joined the Royal Australian Navy in 1942 at the age
of 16. He served with distinction during World War II and stayed in the navy
for 3 years after the war ended. He left the navy to take over the family
business when his father suffered ill health. “Chappy” married Joyce Robinson
in 1957and they had two sons, Mark and Brett. Both sons later joined
Charlesworth Nuts.
“Chappy” was
accompanied by three other men, including Dave Burchell, when he visited Truk
Lagoon (in August 1978 or earlier). Dave had founded the Adelaide Skin Diving
Centre in 1960. He is the current Patron of the Underwater Explorers Club of
SA.
Truk Lagoon is in
the East Carolines in the western Pacific. There are over sixty Japanese ships
on the bottom there. According to the web page found at http://www.pacificwrecks.com/provinces/truk.html,
“On the morning of February 17, 1944 a surprise United States Navy air attack
code named "operation hailstone" caught a fleet of Japanese Merchant
vessels and warships by surprise in Truk Lagoon. 400 tons of bombs and torpedo
rained down on the lightly defended base. After a day of attacks, forty ships
and thousands of men went to the bottom. Ten weeks later, a second successful
raid added a score more ship to the bottom. For more than two years after the
war, oil from the sunken ships covered the beaches and reefs.”
It appears from
the many death notices in The Advertiser that “Chappy” loved sailing yachts,
had sailed on the 815-ton HMAS Strahan
whilst in the navy, and was a member of the RAN Corvettes Association.
According to the
web page found at
http://www.navy.gov.au/spc/history/ships/strahan.html
“HMAS STRAHAN
was one of 60 Australian Minesweepers (commonly known as corvettes) built
during World War II in Australian shipyards as part of the Commonwealth
Government's wartime shipbuilding programme. Twenty were built on Admiralty
order but manned and commissioned by the Royal Australian Navy. Thirty-six
(including STRAHAN) were built for the Royal Australian Navy and four for the
Royal Indian Navy.”
She was
commissioned at Newcastle on 14th
March 1944. She was employed in the New Guinea area on escort and
anti-submarine patrol duties. In May 1945, she came to Adelaide for a refit. On
completion of her refit, she returned to the New Guinea area and resumed escort
and patrol duties in the Morotai and Biak areas. After the war, she was engaged in minesweeping
and anti piracy patrols as a unit of the 21st
Minesweeping Flotilla. She struck a mine on 26th
September 1945 whilst on patrol and had to be towed into Hong Kong Harbour for
repairs. She was paid off into Reserve at Sydney on 25th
January 1946, bringing her seagoing career to a close. She was sold on 6th
January 1961 to Kinoshita (Australia) Pty Ltd.
“Chappy” died on 4th
February 2008 at the age of 81. His funeral was held at Centennial Park on 9th
February. Our condolences go to his family and friends.
The article first published in the Royal South
Australian Yacht Squadron Newsletter No. 76 and then in the MARIA Newsletters
Nos. 27 & 28 is reproduced here as it was printed then. It makes
fascinating reading of diving in times gone by.
In August last
year a group of South Australian, divers comprising Dave
Burchell, Dennis Freeman, Rex Thompson and yours truly, made the trip
to Truk Lagoon in the Caroline
Islands.
Unless you are a diver there would
be few reasons to go to Truk as it has
little to offer the modern jet set traveller. Conditions are primitive, all
sorts of things bite and sting you, and the dirt roads winding their way
through the jungle are a pot holed legacy left by the Japanese. Being tropical
it is very hot but it still manages to average over an inch of rain a day, and
consequently everything is damp, that is with exception of the booze supply
which is dry. Truk is at the end of a long chancey flight from Australia. Long
because it goes via Noumea, Nauru, and Ponape, and chancey because the airline
that services Truk has only three planes, and when one of these crashes whilst
gamely trying to land on the slippery island air strips, it throws their whole
schedule out for days.
However the problems of getting
ourselves and our mountain of gear to Truk were as nothing, for the place is
considered a veritable Mecca by the underwater brigade, and like Pilgrims
trekking to the Promised Land we were prepared to face any trial to get there.
The reason for this is that the forty mile diameter lagoon contains the
greatest collection of sunken ships in the world, the water is clear and
relatively shallow (200'), and because it is Trust Territory the wrecks are
virtually untouched.
Our first dive on the way to Truk
was off Ponape Island, a lonely volcanic peak in the North Pacific and all that
is left visible of a long since submerged mountain range. Circling the island
like a lace collar is a gently sloping coral shelf, extending out to perhaps a
mile in width. At it’s perimeter where the depth is
40', and just before the shelf drops vertically away to the distant ocean floor
below, are acres of spectacular table coral. Up to 10' in diameter; and
supported on their delicate single stems, they are scattered over the myriad
split surfaces of the shelf like so many huge flat-topped mushrooms. Knowing that we had deep diving ahead of us
at Truk, we decided that the outside of the reef at Ponape offered a good
opportunity to do a deep familiarisation dive,
especially for some of the less experienced members. So gathering in a group at
the edge of the drop-off we went down to
the 200' mark. It was there that the trouble with the reef
sharks started.
Coming in at us they made sporadic
passes at anyone who was on his own. In a flash we were like sardines in a tin.
They were not large by our standards, about 10', but they were quick and
aggressive, and we were pleased enough when Dave Burchell, who was Dive Master,
decided the situation was too dangerous and we would leave.
Our accomodation
on Ponape was interesting in that the four of us shared a one roomed native
hut, built on top of a hill behind the settlement. The hut’s base was a network
of logs lashed together with vines, it was open at the sides, and had a palm
frond thatched roof which although it leaked under torrential rains was still
relatively dry inside. This shelter not only provided a haven for us, but also
for most of the things that flew, crept or crawled on the island as well, and
it was a brave man who jumped straight into his bed at night without first
inspecting it for the presence of lizards, spiders, or frogs.
Finally after a week of interesting
travel we arrived at the volcanic island of Moen, one of the dozen or so
islands that when circled by the impressive outer reef forming Truk Lagoon.
Known to many as the Gibraltar of the Pacific, Truk was occupied by the
Japanese during World War II and it was here that they established the
strategic naval and air force bases that were to prove such a problem to the
Allies. In 1944 when the American advance pushed up northward towards Japan, it
was decided to bypass Truk and to land troops on Palau and Guam in the
Marianas, as these islands were within striking distance of the Japanese
mainland. However as the enemy installations at Truk could not be left
operable, the shore bases, airstrips and the ships at anchor in the lagoon were
destroyed by the Americans in massive air attacks. Operation “Hailstone” as it
was called began shortly before sunrise on Feb. 17th 1944. The aircraft
carriers “Bunker Hill”,
“Enterprise”,
“Yorktown”,
“Essex”
and “Intrepid”,
under the command of Vice-Admiral R.A. Spruance and
Rear Admiral M.A.Mitscher, were stationed about 90
miles north-east of Dublon Island, the main centre of
operations for the Japanese in Truk. Seventy-two ~ Hellcat fighters were
launched against the Japanese forces inside the lagoon. The first wave of
planes was assigned to destroy enemy aircraft and assume control of the airways
over the lagoon. Over thirty of the Japanese planes attempting to repulse the
U.S. planes were shot down and the remainder were
driven away. Two airstrips on Moen, Parem Field and Etten Field, were attacked with such intensity that only
100 of the original 565 Japanese planes remained undamaged. A second wave of 18
Dauntless dive bombers dropped fragmentation clusters
and incendiaries on the airfields to render them totally unusable by remaining
Japanese aircraft. These attacks were followed by a third wave of fighters,
dive bombers, and torpedo bombers, their mission was
to destroy the fleet in the lagoon. On
February 18 the first night bombing attack in the history of U.S. aircraft
carrier operations was launched. It accounted for almost one-third of the total
tonnage destroyed by the air strikes. This was followed during daylight hours
with missions concentrating on land targets and the few remaining ships.
Bombs and torpedoes sank ship after
ship loaded with supplies for
the Sixth Submarine Fleet. The
total effect of U.S. operations against Truk was devastating. After the
February attack a total shipping loss of 200,000 tons lay at the bottom of Truk
Lagoon.
Today, for divers
fortunate enough to see these ships, the experience becomes a glimpse into a
past filled with violence and destruction. Virtually untouched for thirty-four
years, these shipwrecks still contain all the equipment necessary for ocean
transports of that era, along with a variety of war related material.
The variety of fish and plant life
seems endlessly complex on these artificial reefs. Soft and hard corals abound,
their brilliant colours visible to those divers with a waterproof light source.
Grey shark, Clown Fish, Barricuda, Batfish, Damsel
Fish, Lion Fish, Snapper, and Tuna all inhabit these undersea ecosystems.
Witnessing all the life forms around these ship reefs, reminds one of the
incredible resilience of nature, and of the folly of war.
Our first dive in the lagoon was on
the wreck of the Kiyosuni
Maru, a transport
of some 8600 tons and over 450' long. She was lying on her port side in 110' of
clear water. Swimming through the torpedo hole about
80' down, we crossed through the engine room to the deck to find the whole ship
covered in colourful hard
and soft coral. These, combined with the garland-like marine growth. flowing from her superstructure, gave the impression that
she had been
dressed for some festive occasion.
This of course was not the case, unless the scene is viewed as natures answer
to a, Shinto burial shrine, for when the Kiyosumi
went down she took seventy Japanese sailors with her, and as we moved quietly
about we saw several skeletons in the bridge area, and in some of the cabins.
There were many reminders of the
fateful day this ship was sunk. A
lonely waterlogged tennis shoe, a
pile of dinner plates, spilled onto the canted deck from a galley table, the
tiled officer's baths in the ablution area behind the bridge. Then on the more
lethal side were the silent coral encrusted guns, the
holds full of small arms ammunition, and other supplies of war.
As the days went by we dived on many
such ships. Massive armed aircraft ferries like the Fujikawa
Maru, which is
resting upright in 120' with the tops of the masts showing above the surface.
In her holds we
found partially stripped Zero fighters, machine guns, tyres, heaps of aircraft
parts and a small outboard motor deep in one of the holds. On the Yamagiri Maru is a pile of 18'' shells that were
destined for the battleships Yamamoto and Musashi.
Thanks to the Americans these shells, the largest made during World War II,
never made it, and now, guarded by a pack of restless grey reef sharks, they
never will.
In the bridge of the 500' long oil
tanker Shinkoku Maru we saw phonograph records,
rifles, an operating table and even a typewriter. Looking at this last item one
couldn’t help thinking about the long since gone records clerk, who must have
used it to tediously bang out his endless fleet refuelling
reports, his thoughts probably far away on his distant family and homeland.
The Fujikawa
was our favourite dive, unfortunately she was so big and our tine down so
limited, that even though we visited her on many occasions, we only just began
to know her. We sat in the soaking tubs in her two large bathrooms, swam in and
out of the several bridge levels inspecting the instruments and gauges, and
explored her six holds.
Then when it was time to go we did our
decompression stops by holding onto
her masts for stability, always looking down,
thinking and wondering. During
our two weeks in Truk we dived on twenty
different ships; transports, tankers, destroyers, troopships and tugs.
Some had
strange sounding names; Sankisan,
Hoyo, Heian,
Amagisan
and Fugisan.
Others were more familiar, Seiko, Susuki,
Rio de Janeiro, and San
Francisco.
During our ‘up’ time, filling in
between dives, we would snorkel on some of the many aircraft that had crashed
in shallow water, just offshore from the old fighter and bomber strips. We sat
at the controls of Betty bombers, Emily flying boats, and Tony and Zero
fighters. Again with imaginations running riot at the thought of the dramatic
scenes that must have preceded the moment of their
disappearance under the surface of this placid lagoon.
Towards the end of our stay we dived
160' down to the sunken Japanese submarine the I
169, just over 530' long, weighing
1400 tons. She submerged to avoid the U.S. air strike and after the raid was
over, failed to surface. A diver was sent down to investigate. There were
responses to his hammer signals coning from all hatches except the conning
tower, so it was assumed that very little water had entered the sub. A thirty
ton crane was dispatched to attempt to hoist her bow to the surface, but the
cable snapped under the weight of the sub.
At that time there were answers from only the after torpedo compartment,
and efforts to signal to those inside to open the ballast tanks were
unsuccessful. Soon all answers from within the sub ceased, and the rescue
effort had failed. Later it was discovered that the upper valve of the storm
ventilation tube in the bridge had been left open by mistake, and water had
flooded the sub. Even though the water-tight compartment doors within the sub
were closed, she could not surface because of the flooding of the control room.
Divers recovered thirty-two bodies out of the estimated eighty-seven crewmen
aboard.
It was an eerie sensation to swim
along the outside or her hull all these years later. At times I would stop, placing my hand on the
steel plates, almost expecting to feel and hear those long since gone hammer
blows of the trapped crew inside. But of
course there was nothing, and it was with almost a feeling of relief that we
left her, for somehow she seemed as evil in death as she must have been in
life.
We left Truk for
Guam, the first leg of our trip hone, on a clear afternoon a few days later. We
had said our good-byes to new found friends, the U.3. Navy
diving team, our Trukese guides, the waitresses at the hotel, and the few other
divers that had gathered, like us, from all over the world. It had been
neither a sad nor joyous farewell, perhaps quiet and sincere are
the words, for we had shared a rare experience and we were aware that whatever
our diving future held, it would never be quite like Truk.
There we had performed with an international
all-star cast at the Rose Bowl, now
we were
heading home to each’s own small local production.
As the plane circled before closing
on course, we passed over the islands we had come to know so well. Moen, Dublon, Fefan, Eten, and Uman, and in our imagination we could visualise the great
ships that were lying under the sparkling, and now peaceful waters, of the Truk
Lagoon.
E, (Chappy)
Charlesworth
“Diving in Truk Lagoon”, by E.
Charlesworth, is reprinted with permission from the Royal South Australian
Yacht Squadron Newsletter No. 76.
MLSSA Calendars
by Philip Hall
Until Phill
McPeake reminded us at the February Committee Meeting that our 2008 edition of
the calendar is our tenth, we had completely forgotten. We should have put this
fact on the front cover perhaps.
The calendars
started after a suggestion by one of our members that a calendar would be a
great way to raise funds for the Society. Ralph Richardson volunteered to
create one with the funds raised to support our website. From about May until
August he worked on the project with assistance of myself
and Geoff Prince. His job required him at this stage to go to Sydney for the
company. When he returned in late October it was to discover that someone had
deleted all his files for the calendar from the company server.
We started again
and in late November the calendar was ready for printing. Being uncertain as to
its popularity we decided on a limited print run of 100 units. Geoff did the
printing in his own time and then the trimming. Margaret, Ralph and I joined
him to do the collating by hand. I then saddle stitched the calendars, punched
the suspension hole and Geoff did the final trimming. All this was a very
tedious process.
Sales went well,
to the extent that we sold out in 4 days. The decision was made to do a second
100 unit run and this time we enlisted more help from Phill and Barbara
McPeake. Again we sold out well before Christmas.
The second
edition in 2000 was easier as we had learnt from our mistakes with the 1st
edition. We used the best of the Photo Index pictures in both these calendars.
In the first two calendars we also used background pictures behind the calendar
spaces. This was discontinued for 2001 owing to many complaints that notes
written on the calendars were hard to read. We also obtained a sponsor in 2000
and this enabled us to increase the number printed with this guaranteed number
of sales. The printing numbers have reached 1500 but we have now settled on a
1200 print run as being the most sensible. We do not want any left over as this
would be a waste of resources.
Sponsors have
changed over the years and the 2008 edition is supported by three different
Government Departments, a Bank and a private company chosen because of its
dedication to improving the environment.
Over the years,
minor but important changes have been made to the layout. This is mainly due to
the fact that Phill McPeake took over the creation of the calendar from 2001
and has brought many great ideas to bear.
In all of our
calendars we have only gone for the best quality printing, pictures and layout.
New technology has resulted in a reduction in printing costs and these have
been passed on to the purchasers. We started off charging $15 per calendar and
it has now been $10 for several years.
Over the years
the main picture contributors have been David Muirhead and Chris Hall. A few
non-members contributed the odd picture too. Recently however, we have asked a
wide range of non-members for their pictures to enable us to maintain the
quality. This has been a great success. It is our proud boast that our
calendars are totally South Australian. They contain only South Australian
situated pictures and it is printed in South Australia. Two Premiers have
received copies and expressed their pleasure at such an excellent production.
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
