Queensland’s Boat Mail

by David Jones, Queensland Maritime Museum

Paddle steamer Premier which connected Gladstone with Rockhampton.
Image Qld Maritime Museum

For the first hundred years of European settlement in Australia sea travel was the only way to connect our coastal towns and cities.  Railways pushed their way out from the major centres and in time, challenged the dominance of sea travel. The railway joined Sydney to Melbourne in 1883 and Sydney to Brisbane via Wallangarra on the border and Toowoomba in 1888. Once railways connected the capital cities mail was transferred from sea to rail carriage. Passengers were slower to change as an interstate rail trip was cold and uncomfortable.

In Queensland the railway threaded west from Brisbane, Rockhampton, Townsville and Cairns, but linking the coastal centres north was a much slower process. It was not until 1898 that the railway from Brisbane reached Gladstone prompting a revision of the northern mail arrangements. The post would now be carried by rail from Brisbane to Gladstone, then transferring to a coastal steamer for delivery to northern ports. Thus was born Queensland’s ‘boat mail.’

The boat train steamer’s timetable was strict and demanding. In the space of a week she was expected to make a return voyage between Brisbane and Townsville with three port stops in each direction connecting with the mail train at Gladstone, then on-going rail and steamer timetables in Townsville.

A speedy ship was needed to maintain this gruelling schedule. This ship was SS Barcoo of 1,505 tons belonging to the AUSN Company which had a strong history of serving Queensland. Barcoo was not a new ship, completed in 1885 and now 13 years old, but she was popular and fast. She had gained a reputation for speedy passages and carried a silver greyhound at her masthead to mark the fact. Her designed speed of 12kts matched that of the mail contract, but she consistently made 15kts at sea.  Barcoo departed Brisbane to inaugurate the first weekly co-ordinated northern mail service on 28 October 1898.

Barcoo left Brisbane at 8am on Friday for Gladstone where she would arrive by midday on Saturday to meet the mail train which had left Brisbane at 7.30pm the night before. In this way the train allowed businessmen to save a day on the journey, working through Friday while Barcoo was at sea, then catching her at Gladstone next day.

Friends and family farewell departing passengers on Bingera.
Image State Library of Queensland

Barcoo continued north to call at Flat Top and then at Bowen on Sunday before arriving at Townsville around dawn on Monday. Flat Top Island, the transfer point for Mackay, was exposed to the prevailing south-easterly wind and many were the stories of seasickness as passengers transferred from a heaving tender to the ship. A quick stop was made at Bowen jetty with nine minutes being the shortest time recorded between lines ashore and cast off.

In Townsville mail would be rushed to a train travelling west to Charters Towers and to a smaller steamer heading north to Cairns and Cooktown via ports. Both would be on their way by 8am. Barcoo would sail from Townsville that evening, reversing her course via Bowen, Mackay and Gladstone to arrive in Brisbane on Thursday afternoon.  On the following morning she would sail  again on her next service.

It was a punishing schedule. Barcoo’s timetable allowed just a few hours in Townsville and Brisbane for cleaning, coaling, maintenance and repairs. If a voyage was delayed by heavy weather, her port times were reduced, or ports by-passed so the schedule would not be affected. This schedule was maintained week after week throughout the year, cyclones notwithstanding.

Barcoo off Flat Top Island.
Image State Library of Queensland

A different aspect of the northern boat mail service was delivering mail to Rockhampton. The arrangements made had all the hallmarks of having been planned remotely by bureaucrats around an office table.

The route chosen took the mail boat four times a week through the Narrows, a strait 27km long between Curtis Island and the mainland. While this appeared on paper to be a direct route, it was a difficult one. It was both narrow and shallow, at one point so shallow that cattle could be driven across from the island to the mainland at low tide. Only a specialised, shallow-draught vessel could navigate it and the Queensland Government ordered the stern wheel paddle steamer Premier for the purpose. Built in Britain and assembled in Maryborough, she was a two-deck passenger ferry of 148 tons similar to paddle steamers on the Nile.

Despite her shallow draught, Premier could only navigate the Narrows at higher levels of the tide.  This dictated her departure times, sometimes leaving passengers waiting many hours before the tide was right. She made a disappointing start. Returning from her first service in July 1898, Premier ran aground and had to be taken out of service for repairs.  Disruptions like this were frequent and when the railway from Gladstone reached Rockhampton in December 1903, few tears were shed when Premier was laid up for sale.

By 1903 constantly maintaining an unforgiving schedule was beginning to take a toll on Barcoo’s engines. Her boilers were wearing out and the decision was made to build a replacement specially designed for the Gladstone boat mail service. Named Bingera, she was a larger ship of 2,092 tons with cabins for 145 passengers in two classes. Built for speed, she inherited Barcoo’s masthead greyhound.

Bingera sails from Gladstone after connecting with the mail train from Brisbane.
Image Qld Railways

AUSN bravely chose to fit her with geared steam turbine engines, only the second vessel in Australia to be powered by this highly advanced technology. Her potential was demonstrated when she maintained 16kts on her builder’s trials.

Bingera was given a rough introduction to the Queensland coast. Leaving Brisbane for the first time on February 2, 1906 she was beset by gale force winds, blinding rain and rough seas, arriving in Townsville some 12 hours late. Despite adverse winds and seas she was able to maintain her schedule on the southern run. Five months later she was still able to maintain her schedule when a propeller was damaged and a new one was fitted without affecting her turn-around time in Brisbane.

All went well for a time with fast passages and passengers complimented her steadiness. She was a glamour ship on a premier route and her saloon-class accommodation was luxuriously appointed. But behind the scenes the picture was not so rosy. She was expensive to operate, her innovative turbines were prone to breakdown and her speed fell away.

Despite the herculean efforts of her engineering officers Bingera struggled to generate sufficient steam to reach even a moderate speed. Poor local coal and hard, mineral-laden Brisbane water combined to restrict power and accelerate wear on her delicate machinery. When less than three years old, Bingera had to be taken out of service for an emergency overhaul. Again in 1910, when her speed was merely 10kts, she was withdrawn for five months for a major overhaul of her engines. Her place on the northern mail was taken by AUSN’s interstate liners.

The fast passenger-mail steamer Barcoo.
Image State Library of Victoria

As public support for Bingera waned, the company pointed out that the Brisbane to Townsville mail service was the fastest coastal route of any in the world, and her arrival at northern ports was made to fit in with trains and mall coaches. This timetable was carried out without respite throughout the whole year. Over the course of a year Bingera would steam a total of 72,672nm.

Nevertheless, her problems continued to increase and in 1914 the company took the drastic step of taking her out of service and replacing her troublesome turbines with conventional steam engines. Now fitted with three sets of triple expansion reciprocating engines and larger screws Bingera ran trials and reached 15.5kts, resuming service that December.

Turbine steamer Bingera outbound in the Brisbane River.
Image State Library of New South Wales

Bingera’s old troubles seemed to be over, but things had changed. The world was at war and the railway was creeping further north, progressively closing the gaps. By 1922 it was clear the coastal railway would soon be completed and Bingera was retired. She arrived in Brisbane at the end of her last northern service on August 3, 1922 and she was laid up.

The boat mail contract was extended incrementally using interstate vessels of the AUSN fleet until December 1923 when the rail link between Brisbane and Townsville was finally completed.

At the age of 18 there could have been more years in Bingera’s life, but as a purely passenger vessel built for speed on a particular service, no buyer could be found for her. She was dismantled, then abandoned on Bishop Island, eventually disappearing beneath the Fisherman Island development.

 The Wrecks of Bishop Island

by David Jones, Queensland Maritime Museum

Bishop Island’s days are numbered as the Fisherman Island port development begins.
Image David Jones

Today, when you think of a graveyard for unwanted shipping in Moreton Bay the ‘Tangalooma wrecks’ immediately come to mind. But during the 20th Century there was another graveyard, once popular with visitors but now rapidly fading from memory. This was Bishop Island and it was just outside the Brisbane River mouth.

Bishop Island was created out of a need to straighten the shipping channel across the Brisbane River bar to facilitate access to the city by increasingly larger overseas vessels. Two early channels involved an awkward turn at the river mouth, and it was to eliminate this bend that dredging a new bar cutting was begun in 1909.

Triple propeller shafts are a ghostly reminder of Bingera’s record breaking past.
Image Colin Jones

Leading the work was Captain AG Bishop, master of the cutter suction dredge Hercules. A channel 24ft deep was gouged out of the seabed with the mud being pumped through a long, floating pipe to a bank on the southern side of the cutting. By October 1912 when the work was completed, this bank had been built up into an island around 12 hectares in area.  Initially called Hercules Bank, as vegetation took hold it became generally known as Bishop Island after the captain who created it.

The island very soon became a place where unwanted hulks were dumped, and it was often known as Wreck Island. Among the first were two wooden coal hulks, Roderick Dhu and Yosemite. Roderick Dhu sank at her moorings at South Brisbane in February 1914, and after being dragged ashore, was demolished at Bishop Island.Yosemite was beached there in November 1916 and burnt out leaving only a its charred ribs.

Despite their ignominious ends, both vessels had interesting histories. Roderick Dhu had been a ‘blackbirder’.  Employed in the so-called ‘labour trade’, she made 40 voyages to the Pacific islands bringing kanakas to Queensland to work in the sub-tropical cane fields of the Wide Bay area.

Yosemite was a fine three masted barque of 1,154 tons built in 1868.  After spending many years under the US flag, she was taken over by Chilean owners and traded to South America. On April 1, 1908 she left Newcastle with a full cargo but returned after five days leaking badly and in danger of sinking. She was deemed unseaworthy, sold, and towed to Brisbane for use as a coal barge.

Express liner Bingera departing Brisbane in her heyday. 
Image David Jones collection

Another ‘blackbirder’ to end her life on Bishop Island was the Lochiel,as too did the coal barge Maida which had been built as a fine barque in Burma in 1857. The remains of these timber vessels, along with others including the small freighter Civility, the paddle steamer Adonis and the former Sydney pilot vessel Captain Cook, soon rotted away and disappeared below the sand.

Fishing was good at Bishop Island and in 1925 a jetty was built to allow easier access to visitors along with some basic huts and shelter sheds. A rock retaining wall was built facing the shipping channel, but the island’s eastern shore was prone to erosion from wave action induced by the prevailing south-easterly winds.  A swampy lagoon developed inland which was a haven for bird life.

Bishop Island became particularly favoured by the Queensland Government Department of Harbours and Marine as a dumping ground for surplus craft. The bucket dredge Groper which had been built in 1876 to improve and maintain shipping access to the Brisbane River and the State’s first steam hopper barge, Schnapper, were beached there to help limit erosion.  Dumb barges and pontoons were also scattered on the island’s eastern shore.

Amidst the mundane harbour craft on the island were two truly famous ships, Bingera and Lucinda.

By far the largest vessel on the island, Bingera was completed in 1905 as an express passenger liner running a weekly return service between Brisbane and Townsville co-ordinating with the railway.  She was the first vessel in Queensland fitted with steam turbine engines, and with a speed of 16kts and elegant furnishings, berths aboard her were in great demand.

Looking over the stern of Lucinda to Bishop Island’s wrecks in 1956.
Image Mervyn Jones

Unfortunately, when the rail link between Brisbane and Townsville was finally completed in 1923, she was taken out of service and laid up.  As no buyer for such a specialised ship came forward Bingera was progressively dismantled and cut down until little more than her bottom plates were left. Her stark remains were towed to Bishop Island in 1929 and beached with only the 91m outline of her hull hinting at her former glory.

The Queensland Government paddle yacht Lucinda gave 35 years of distinguished and faithful service to the State since she first arrived in Brisbane in 1885.  A graceful and well-appointed vessel, she performed many roles carrying VIPs as well as school children.  Lucinda was also the scene of historic events.  The Australian Constitution was drafted in her smoking room in 1891 and she carried the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York, later King George V and Queen Mary, during their visit in 1901 to declare the birth of the Australian nation.

After retirement from Government service in 1921 she became a coal barge and was finally abandoned at Bishop Island in 1937. Lucinda was pushed ashore beside the Moreton, a vessel of similar size which had been beached there three years earlier.  Moreton began life in 1878 as the passenger-cargo steamer Gunga, but several changes of ownership and name followed.  Her final change came in 1900 when she was renamed Moreton and spent the following decades carrying the city’s night soil out to sea to be dumped.

The suction dredge Hercules working on the Brisbane River bar cutting.
Image Qld Maritime Museum collection

Side by side, Lucinda and Moreton made an odd couple, a swan with graceful curves, and the ugly duckling of lowly service.

As the years progressed more vessels were added to those already present on “Wreck Island”.   The former Port Phillip passenger ferry Excelsior was towed there after being used as a workshop during World War Two.  The little Miner, built as a minelayer for the Queensland Defence Force in 1886 was placed there in 1953 after a full and varied life of almost 70 years in the State’s service.

At the outer end of the bar cutting stood the Pile Light with a signal station for incoming shipping. In 1949 an errant oil tanker rammed the Pile Light and pushed it into the sea. Its three crewmen swam to safety uninjured, but the Pile Light and its signal station were demolished. To rectify this loss, a small signal station and signalmen’s houses were erected at the seaward end of Bishop Island.

Eroded by rust at the waterline, the former coastal freighter Queensland was broken up later in 1956.
Image Colin Jones

A flow of visitors came to Bishop Island where a kiosk, dance floor, shelter sheds and a toilet block were provided. Sullivan’s launches Luana and Nirvana ran regular excursions to the island, as well as offering charters for clubs and educational cruises for schools.  Youngsters enjoyed the adventure of exploring the wrecks, finding ways to board and climb over them.

By the 1950s several hulks were being eaten away by rust and in danger of collapsing. A programme of demolition began with the dual advantage of recovering scrap metal and reducing hazardous wrecks. Nevertheless, many vessels remained to be explored by visitors into the 1970s.

But change was in the wind. An ambitious project had commenced to move the port of Brisbane from the banks of the river to Fisherman Island at its mouth.  This involved a vast project of land reclamation which would extend well beyond Bishop Island and continue far out into Moreton Bay. By 2004 the island had disappeared under this vast development.

Former Port Phillip steamer Excelsior with discarded dredge plant.
Image Colin Jones

Such vessels that remained were removed from Bishop Island in the 1990s. Lucinda was among them, her last, sad remains being broken up and carried away in 1993. But relics of her former glory remain at the Queensland Maritime Museum where a wide range of her fine timber furnishings and formal tableware are on display.  Most impressive of all the Museum’s Lucinda artefacts is an exact, full-scale replica of her smoking room in which the Australian Constitution was drafted.

Bombing of Darwin

by David Jones, Queensland Maritime Museum

Sunken US transport Meigs after the raid. Image Vic Cassells collection, QMM

Last February marked the 80th anniversary of the first and most powerful enemy assault on the Australian mainland. This was the disastrous air attack on Darwin on Thursday, February 19, 1942.

Japanese forces had been driving through south-east Asia, sweeping all opposition before them. On that day their invasion fleet was ready to land on Timor and this would be followed a few days later by an assault on Java. The attack on Darwin was designed to stifle any opposition from Australia.

The Japanese Navy held nothing back to ensure the success of the Darwin raid. Their four best aircraft carriers were assigned to the task with air groups experienced from the Pearl Harbor attack. That morning, in fine, sunny weather they launched 188 aircraft to attack Darwin about 200 miles away to the south-east.

Despite being reported passing Bathurst Island, the attackers achieved surprise. Their Zero fighters dived down just before 10am to strafe vessels attending the anti-submarine boom around the harbour entrance.

Damaged wharf and buildings after the Darwin raid. Image Vic Cassells collection, QMM

Moments later a formation of high-level bombers crossed the town and harbour releasing their load to devastating effect. Stokes Hill Jetty was wrecked, the Post Office sustained a direct hit which killed 10 people, the hospital, banks, shops and homes were destroyed or badly damaged. Fuel tanks at the port were set on fire sending black, oily smoke into the air.

Two vessels berthed alongside the jetty, the ammunition ship Neptuna and the freighter Barossa, were hit and set on fire.  Barossa was towed away to be beached, but the ammunition ship Neptuna could not be saved. Fires on board were uncontrollable, and when they reached her cargo of explosives she blew up, sending a massive fireball into the sky.  Altogether 45 crewmen and wharf labourers died in the conflagration.

Dive bombers moved in to pick off shipping lying offshore. Largest ship in port, the 12,500 ton US transport Meigs was hit and sunk along with her compatriot Mauna Loa, both leaving masts and funnels standing above water. The veteran Australian troopship Zealandia, after surviving the First World War and trooping for another 18 months in the second, was struck by two bombs, set on fire and sank.

Few Allied aircraft were available to counter the Japanese flyers. A group of US Army fighters were quickly shot down and other aircraft were destroyed on the ground. It was left to anti-aircraft gunners to defend the port.

First to open fire was the sloop HMAS Warrego with her four-inch high-angle guns. When the bombers came over there were crewmen over the side chipping rust, but they quickly scrambled aboard as she got under way. Other warships put up a fierce resistance which, in some instances, put enemy airmen off their aim and saved further damage.

HMAS Swan was alongside Neptuna transferring ammunition when the bombers arrived. Dave Sporne, a gun-layer on Swan later wrote:

“I realised that we were in trouble lying alongside an ammo. ship, so I hurriedly returned to the Neptuna and cast off the two wire rope springs, and the Swan drew away ...  The Neptuna blew up shortly afterwards, but with so much going on I don’t think I actually saw it ...

Swan was attackedseven times. Her upperworks were riddled by machine-gun fire and shrapnel and plates below water were buckled and split which caused flooding in compartments aft.

Dave Sporne again: “We suffered many casualties and I remember when my ‘B’ gun did not fire when aimed, I turned round to yell at the rest of the blokes, “What’s wrong with you b’s”, I found they were covered in blood. The gun captain was dead. Some of the others were dying. Our ‘B’ gun crew was practically wiped out.” Three of Swan’s crew were killed and another 19 wounded.

Lieutenant Commander T Ferris Roberts commanding the patrol vessel HMAS Vigilant recalled “great plumes of water were appearing round the ships anchored at the wharf and nearby. The US warship Peary was already on fire amid a sea of burning oil. It was obviously impossible to get near her, so I headed to the nearest one which I could help.

Transport Mauna Loa with HMAS Swan and HMAS Warrego before the raid. Image US Archives NH43659

 USS Peary at sea. Image from Melvin Duke, one of her survivors, QMM

“It was the Portmar, a US troopship of about 4000 tons packed with an artillery regiment. She was badly damaged. Most of the troops and some of the crew started to leave the ship, some being taken off by the HMAS Deloraine as well as the Vigilant. The Vigilant was in danger of overturning by the sheer weight of troops clambering down from the Portmar.  She returned to retrieve more and also took some wounded off.”

Ferris Roberts was full of admiration for the American destroyer Peary “which had been literally murdered by the dive bombers and sank stern first in a lake of burning oil, the gunners on the fore deck going down fighting in the tradition of Sir Richard Grenville in the Revenge … HMAS Southern Cross picked up some survivors from the blazing Peary. They had somehow escaped through the burning oil and were put aboard the hospital ship Manunda.” A total of 88 lives were lost with this brave little ship, the largest single loss of life in the attack.

The hospital ship Manunda was anchored in the harbour and her captain, recognising the scale of the disaster unfolding, lowered boats to go quickly to rescue survivors needing medical attention. Despite her red crosses and international recognition as a hospital ship, Manunda was not immune from attack.  A near miss peppered her hull with shrapnel, then a direct hit behind her bridge caused considerable damage. Twelve of her people were killed in these two attacks.

Neptuna explodes at the wharf with HMAS Deloraine in the foreground. Image RAN Historical Section via Wikipedia

Amid the noise and smoke of explosions, roaring aircraft engines and gunfire few had any awareness of time. But little more than half an hour after they had come, the attackers were gone. They left six ships sunk in the harbour, another three beached in sinking condition and five more badly damaged.

Darwin and its civil and military facilities suffered serious damage, but there was more to come. After an hour’s lull more Japanese aircraft appeared overhead. They were 54 twin engine bombers from Sulawesi and Ambon. They passed over the city to target Darwin’s two airfields where hangars and facilities were heavily damaged, and aircraft destroyed on the ground.

The surprise and scale of the attack caused chaos on shore. Civilians sought safety inland and military organisation was in disarray. It is estimated 236 people were killed in the raid and around 311 more were wounded. But the fortunes of war would change.

Less than four months later, all four of the aircraft carriers which performed the Darwin attack were sunk in the Battle of Midway. Ships damaged at Darwin were repaired and most returned to the war. Some, like Portmar, were sunk later, but others including HMAS Swan, Barossa and Manunda would continue long and fruitful careers after the war was over.

Darwin suffered 64 wartime air raids before they ceased in November 1943. Forces from Darwin took the war increasingly to the enemy, leading to victory 3½ years later.

The devastating raid on Darwin has gone down in history as the first enemy attack on the Australian mainland and has long been a source of controversy.  LtCdr Ferris Roberts speaks as one who was there.

“Contrary to some of the written reports and books by certain authors decrying the behaviour of service personnel during and after the raids, I can only say I saw many acts of extreme bravery and heroism by naval and service personnel, and the behaviour of all I saw far outweighs any suggestions appearing in those books.”

(Dave Sporne and LtCdr T Ferris Roberts written recollections are in the QMM collection)