Carl Atkinson | |
|---|---|
 Carl Atkinson with the wheel from USS Peary, sunk in Darwin Harbour | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Carl Atkinson |
| Died | 1985 |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Occupation | Diver and salvaging |
Carl Atkinson (-1985) was a renowned Australian diver and salvage expert from Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia.
Atkinson lived at Doctor's Gully from 1945 to 1979, where he lived with his pet crocodile named Cuthbert, a snake named Sammy and many dogs. He is attributed with starting the practice of fish feeding, which locals and visitors to Doctor's Gully continue to do today. [1]
Atkinson was an experienced diver for decades. He assisted police on several occasions with search and retrieval work. [2] [3] [4]
Atkinson built a decompression chamber which was used by Japanese pearl divers to prevent suffering the ‘bends’ after diving. He is known to have saved at least 16 pearl divers lives with this equipment. [1]
After World War II, Atkinson began acquiring the rights to salvage Darwin's wartime wrecks. With permission from the US Government, he salvaged the cargo of USAT Meigs in 1946 including Jeeps, Ford and Chevrolet trucks. Controversy erupted when Atkinson was required to pay heavy duty sales tax on the cargo. [5] He nearly died during the salvage mission when his speedboat sank, leaving him adrift in Darwin Harbour for 11 hours. [6]
He also discovered the location of USS Peary. [7] In 1958, Atkinson sold the salvage rights to four wrecks to Japanese company Nanyo Boeki Kaisha Ltd, ahead of the Fujita salvage operation in 1959. [8]
Wreck diving is recreational diving where the wreckage of ships, aircraft and other artificial structures are explored. The term is used mainly by recreational and technical divers. Professional divers, when diving on a shipwreck, generally refer to the specific task, such as salvage work, accident investigation or archaeological survey. Although most wreck dive sites are at shipwrecks, there is an increasing trend to scuttle retired ships to create artificial reef sites. Diving to crashed aircraft can also be considered wreck diving. The recreation of wreck diving makes no distinction as to how the vessel ended up on the bottom.
Diving activities are the things people do while diving underwater. People may dive for various reasons, both personal and professional. While a newly qualified recreational diver may dive purely for the experience of diving, most divers have some additional reason for being underwater. Recreational diving is purely for enjoyment and has several specialisations and technical disciplines to provide more scope for varied activities for which specialist training can be offered, such as cave diving, wreck diving, ice diving and deep diving. Several underwater sports are available for exercise and competition.
USS Peary (DD-226) was a Clemson-class destroyer of the United States Navy. She was commissioned in 1920 and sunk by Japanese aircraft at Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, on 19 February 1942.
The Caledon Bay crisis, refers to a series of killings at Caledon Bay in the Northern Territory of Australia during 1932–34, referred to in the press of the day as Caledon Bay murder(s). Five Japanese trepang fishers were killed by Aboriginal Australians of the Yolngu people. A police officer investigating the deaths, Albert McColl, was subsequently killed. Shortly afterwards, two white men went missing on Woodah Island (with one body found later). With some of the white community alarmed by these events, a punitive expedition was proposed by Northern Territory Police to "teach the blacks a lesson".
Underwater demolition is the deliberate destruction or neutralization of man-made or natural underwater obstacles, both for military and civilian purposes.
The USAT Meigs was a United States Army transport ship that was built in 1921 and sunk in Darwin Harbour in the first Japanese air raid against the Australia mainland on 19 February 1942.
A United States Navy diver refers to a service personnel that may be a restricted fleet line officer, civil engineer corps (CEC) officer, Medical Corps officer, or an enlisted who is qualified in underwater diving and salvage. Navy divers serve with fleet diving detachments and in research and development. Some of the mission areas of the Navy diver include: marine salvage, harbor clearance, underwater ship husbandry and repair, submarine rescue, saturation diving, experimental diving, underwater construction and welding, as well as serving as technical experts to the Navy SEALs, Marine Corps, and Navy EOD diving commands.
MV Neptuna was a 5,952 ton cargo motor vessel. She was launched as MV Rio Panuco in 1924, renamed MV Neptun in 1931 and finally became MV Neptuna in 1935. She was sunk during the Japanese air raid on Darwin on 19 February 1942, during World War II.
The history of Darwin details the city's growth from a fledgling settlement into a thriving colonial capital and finally a modern city.
Tryall was a British East India Company-owned East Indiaman launched in 1621. She was under the command of John Brooke when she was wrecked on the Tryal Rocks off the north-west coast of Western Australia in 1622. Her crew were the first Englishmen to sight or land on Australia. The wreck is Australia's oldest known shipwreck.
I-124, originally named Submarine Minelayer No. 52 and then named I-24 from before her launch until June 1938, was an I-121-class submarine of the Imperial Japanese Navy that served during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. During the latter conflict, she operated in support of the Japanese invasion of the Philippines and was sunk during anti-shipping operations off Australia in January 1942.
SS Gothenburg was an iron-hulled sail- and steamship that was built in England in 1854 and sailed between England and Sweden until 1862. She then moved to Australia, where she operated across the Tasman Sea to and from New Zealand until 1873, when she was rebuilt. After her rebuild, she operated in the Australian coastal trade.
The Victoria Hotel, or The Vic as it is commonly known, is a heritage listed pub located in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. Built in 1890, it is an important historical building but is currently closed.
SS Mauna Loa was a steam-powered cargo ship of the Matson Navigation Company that was sunk in the bombing of Darwin in February 1942. She was christened SS West Conob in 1919 and renamed SS Golden Eagle in 1928. At the time of her completion in 1919, the ship was inspected by the United States Navy for possible use as USS West Conob (ID-4033) but was neither taken into the Navy nor commissioned.
SS Egypt was a P&O ocean liner. She sank after a collision with Seine on 20 May 1922 in the Celtic Sea. 252 people were rescued from the 338 passengers and crew aboard at the time. A subsequent salvage operation recovered most of the cargo of gold and silver.
Army engineer divers are members of national armies who are trained to undertake reconnaissance, demolition, and salvage tasks underwater. These divers have similar skills and qualifications as professional divers. In the United States Army, they are members of the Corps of Engineers. In the British Army they may be Royal Engineer Divers or Commando Engineer Divers.
Bruce Albert John Litchfield was an architect in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. He was integral to the reestablishment of Darwin after it was bombed by the Japanese in 1942. He later designed and built many significant early buildings in Katherine.
The 1897 cyclone was a tropical cyclone that destroyed the city of Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is considered the worst cyclone to strike the Northern Territory of Australia prior to Cyclone Tracy in 1974. Prior to contemporary naming conventions, the storm became known as the "Great Hurricane".
The Fujita salvage operation was a two-year marine salvage operation of World War II shipwrecks in Darwin Harbour in the Northern Territory of Australia from 1959 to 1961.
The Territory Labor Party, officially known as the Australian Labor Party (Northern Territory Branch) and commonly referred to simply as Territory Labor, is the Northern Territory branch of the Australian Labor Party. It is the current ruling party in the Northern Territory and is led by Natasha Fypes, who has concurrently served as chief minister of the Northern Territory since 2023, and previously Michael Gunner from 2016 to 2023.