Memorial for historic ship Pat Cam sunk by Japanese sea plane

THE life of the wooden collier Pat Cam began in a Daleys Point shipyard and ended far from home off the Northern Territory where it was fatally bombed by a Japanese seaplane. A scale replica has been unveiled to mark the 75th anniversary of its sinking.

Historian Peter Rea with a scale model replica of the HMAS Patricia Cam at Yattalunga. Picture: AAP/Troy Snook

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A KINCUMBER maritime historian has marked the anniversary of a locally built ship’s sinking by commissioning a scale model replica.

The 50:1 scale replica of the Pat Cam was unveiled at the weekend to mark the 75th anniversary of the ship’s sinking off the Northern Territory by a Japanese sea plane.

The 36.8m long wooden ship was built at Palmero shipyard at Daleys Point by Gordon Beattie, and launched on November 30, 1940.

The Pat Cam ready for launch on November 30, 1940, at Daley Point. Picture: Supplied

Using government funds to reinvigorate the hardwood shipbuilding industry, the vessel was built as a collier to supply coal to fishing magnate Cam and Sons Pty Ltd’s fleet and named after the owner’s granddaughter Patricia Cam.

She was set to break a bottle of Champagne over the bow to mark the occasion, but the Minister for Customs first went to the wrong shipyard and then spoke so long the chocks were released before the tide ran out and Ms Cam had time to do the honours.

She later carried out the ceremony with a bottle of beer from on board.

Patricia Cam, the woman who the wooden ship the Pat Cam was named after was supposed to launch it with a Champagne bottle but had to do it with a beer bottle instead. Picture: Supplied

When the Japanese entered World War II the ship was requisitioned by the Royal Australian Navy, and stationed at Darwin to ferry personnel and supplies around the Top End.

On January 22, 1943, the Pat Cam set off for Elcho Island with 19 crew, a Methodist pastor and five aboriginal passengers on board.

About noon a Japanese sea plane cut its engine and dived to about 30m, dropping a bomb which tore through the ship’s hold.

The Pat Cam with all its launch livery. Picture: Supplied

The sea plane returned several times, strafing the survivors who clung to debris and a life raft, before landing nearby and capturing the pastor Reverend Leonard Kentish, who was later beheaded.

Four sailors and three aborigines died as a result of the sinking. The survivors were able to make it to a small rocky outcrop to the south, Guluwuru Island, where they were rescued days later.

The ship has been recreated with painstaking detail in a scale model. Picture: AAP/Troy Snook

The model ship’s stern. Picture: AAP/Troy Snook

Local historian Peter Rea, who chairs Kincumber Rotary Club’s Shipbuilders Memorial Project, is principal of the History and Heritage, Hunter to Hawkesbury Research group and vice president of Brisbane Water Historical Society, came up with the idea of a memorial, and enlisted marine architect Bill Bollard and model maker Keith Elder to build the replica model from drawings and photographs.

On Saturday a specially chartered History Ferry Tour departed Davistown where the keel for the Pat Cam was cut before heading to Palermo Park, the site of the former Beattie shipyard at Daleys Point.

On Monday Mr Rea also travelled to Canberra for a Last Post ceremony at the Australian War Memorial to mark 75 years to the day HMAS Pat Cam was sunk.

Shipwrights who worked on the Pat Cam at Daleys Point. Picture: Supplied