Western Australia Maritime Museum - Commando Canoes, Submarines, Steam Engines and more!
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- Опубликовано: 14 май 2024
- Dropping back to the second port of call during the Shipshape Australia tour of 2023, Perth, we take a look at the WAMM and some of its collection of rare bits of maritime history!
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Pinned post for Q&A :)
You’ve explained before why torpedoes have a round head vs a pointy head, however, whenever we look at the fastest fish in the world (Sailfish, Marlins, Makos and Baracudas) all of them have pointy heads, the Sailfish and Marlin in particular seem to have a head that is specifically designed in spite of all the hydrodynamic rules you’ve outlined, yet they are some of the fastest fish on the planet. What’s their bioengineering secret and why couldn't anyone in the channel time period replicate it?
There have been various war crimes committed by Japanese subs, destroyers and occasionally cruisers against the Allies in the Pacific theatre, but outside of CarDiv1’s bombing of Chinese civilians and maybe PH are there any such cases known for Japanese capital ships?
What's that big axe in the background of the Kulama(sp?) model used for? Also which member of the shipshape crew offered to buy it or suggested 'borrowing'' it?
During the January 2023 livestream, as part of your answer to one of my questions, you said that trying to use a cruiser with 32 six-inch guns as an "anti-destroyer machine gun" (a turn of phrase I rather like) would be risky, as it would need to get close enough to the enemy destroyers that they could potentially torpedo it. If 32 six-inch guns couldn't reach out far enough to reliably swat enemy destroyers before they can launch torpedoes, wouldn't the secondary batteries of WWII-era capital ships, with many fewer guns per broadside and usually also smaller in caliber (up to ten guns of 4-to-6-inch caliber being the norm for secondary broadsides), have practically no hope of being useful in the anti-surface role? Doesn't this also make an effective dual-purpose gun an unworkable concept until the immediate postwar era, because the anti-surface role, in order to reliably kill enemy destroyers while they're still well out of torpedo range, requires a gun too large and heavy to be useable as a heavy-AA gun until the breakthroughs in heavy autoloading guns immediately postwar? If battleship construction had continued, would we have seen the return of the heavy 8-to-10-in intermediate battery to take care of destroyers with increasingly-long-ranged torpedoes?
What if Graf Spee and the then Deutschland would have operated together back in 1939 much like how Scharnhorst and Gneisenau would have in Operation Berlin? Would that have been more preferable than both ships operating on their own in different regions?
I flipped my monitor upside down to watch this in full glory
You bought a Ford AU Falcon to watch this video
Must be some very good glue to stop the exhibits from falling to the floor.
I, for some reason, misread this comment as “I flipped my grandmother upside down to watch this in full glory.”
I forgot to do this, no wonder it looked odd.
For a second I thought you were talking about USS Monitor
One of the things the RAN Oberon class Submarines got up to during the Cold War. Was tailing Soviet Submarines in the South China Sea.
The Soviets made great use of the abandoned American harbour facilities at Cam ranh Bay.
And the Oberons were nice and quiet for the job. 🇦🇺
...and for sneaking inside the defences of visiting US carrier groups to say hello.
In 1986 I did a crew-swap between my boat and HMAS Onslow at Pearl Harbor. Had a great time with the crew and thoroughly enjoyed the fact that they had repurposed their short (too short for modern weapons) aft torpedo tubes into beer-coolers for an endless supply of Guinness.
Most of what I remember was all good. I still cherish my Australian Dolphin Pin awarded to me by the crew and it has an honored place in my "I love me" box............................
Sailor 1: oh I didn't want to be on that old tin can!
Sailor 2: But we have a beer cooler
Sailor 1: For real?
I volunteer at this museum! The submarine and robert steele, hoping you came on a day when robert steele was open
Good on you for volunteering.
We went to Fremantel in 2011 or 12 on CVN-70. I was on duty the day that the Dockers, the local Football Team took a tour of the ship. I gave them a tour and they gave me Team signed Football. I still have it. It was a very cool day.
Hey Drach, the Lilliputian Navy just called, they want their triple expansion engines back!
And the Brobdingnagian Navy is probably going to show up for...whatever that other one was. 🤣🤣
22:47 the Oberon's where the greatest cold war diesel subs , super quiet . That's probably why plus the disasters that came in replacing them and now replacing their replacements helps the Oberon's image alot
Submarine procurement has been going reasonably.....especially compared to the Tiapan helicopter debacle.
The OBERON Class SSKs form an entire chapter in Dr. Norman Friedman’s book on RN submarines since WW2.
@@creativehorse7907 What planet do you live on??
those replica engines are really cool
The WA Maritime & Shipwreck museum twins were absolute highlights of my recent WA trip, first class institutions. Thanks Drach for presenting this one, can’t wait for the other !👍
Guess I now need to add Western Australia to my itinerary when I travel Down Under for my Bucket List!
MV Koolama was built by Harland and Wolf in Glasgow. It was ordered by State Ships of Western Australia. It carried all types of cargo and passengers to/from Fremantle all along the coast of Western Australia as far as Wyndam to the north. She was attacked off the the North Coast of Western Australia by Japanese aircraft. The Master beached the the vessel. The vessel was pumped dry and repaired by the crew and sailed to Wyndam and discharged the cargo.
The Koolama was attacked by Japanese aircraft but not damaged, however the crew left the ship. The pumps were now clogged and the vessel and sank at the berth as a result of the initial damage.
The Koolama was dragged from the berth but the wreck remain visible under the water to this day.
There is a fascinating documentary from 2003 titled Malice or Mutiny. The Koolama Incident.
The maritime museum and ship wreck museum here are absolutely wonderful places to visit.
Ive been a few times and still find things I havent seen
Sometime ago they had a fantastic exhibit of the battle between HMAS Sydney 1 and the Embden.
It was just fantastic.
The Ovens is a wonderful tour and Ive been lucky enough to do that a few times.
My Old Boss was an ex Submariner and simply described it as " a good boat".
Wasn’t expecting this video - that museum is my local! The Batavia story is always fan “favourite”
Edit - Oh and on pronunciation your second guess was right, it actually is pronounced like “Cool lama” :D
Batavia. Worth the trip all on it's own.
Love the model steam engines!
Absolutely awesome imho.
That wonderful little shed of steam engines is quite fascinating. Herbert Thomson from Melbourne invented quite a few advancements to steam engines at the turn of the 20th century and I think I saw a glimpse of one of his slide valve machines. Brilliant!
For those interested in extant steam engines: The Finnish icebreaker Tarmo, built by Armstrong in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1907, is a floating exhibit of the Finnish Maritime Museum in Kotka. She has two triple-expansion steam engines - one fore and one aft - that were converted from coal to oil in 1950. Tarmo was in service until 1970.
The photo of huge engine in the erection shop is a diesel engine , not steam , still impressive though , close but no cigar .
A clear stamp of museum quality. It has ship models.
yes indeedy !!!!
Awesome. I especially appreciate the model steam engine exhibit!
FYI there are a few freighters out there that still take 2-12 passengers, but you are at the mercy of the freighter’s schedule. My cousin would take them many times across the Atlantic as she had summers off from teaching
*throws binoculars at the people who beat me here, in their fishing boats, I mean submarines.
Japanese torpedo boats!!!!!
I don’t see the captain of the “L.S.” right off… must’ve ported over to the left side? Oh well. Either way, we have plenty more binoculars, we stocked up on them along with prophets of the damned, monkeys, snakes, a pet crocodile, and two dead pigeons in the water tank at Madagascar, so feel free to fling away, sir.
When you mentioned the countries that the Oberon class submarines served you forgot 2 of them, Brazil and Chile, both countries also have a single Oberon class submarine preserved
Shoutout for the Submarine Memorial in Fremantle
As we will never make it to Australia/NZ, thanks for all the wonderful insight. Cannot wait to possibly meet you in London later. Love your narrations as they bring everything to life with a humor that never fails to put a smile on everyone's faces. Hoping baby and Mrs. Drach are doing fine as well!
One of the lesser known WW2 SAS ops used Folboats at Tobruk
More than one. Many of the cloak & dagger tomfoolery carried out by HMS Seraph involved commandos using folboats. They were eventually replaced by inflatable dingys which were quicker and more convenient to get into the water.
Twenty four years ago I visited the Sydney Maritime Museum and was very impressed, an excellent museum well worth the visit.
I did the tour of the Oberon class sub they have there about a year ago. I loved it. The old GPS unit is fascinating, as are the photos of all the sailors smoking onboard. Thanks for making this video and taking an interest in Australia's naval history. The ship they have there that won the America's Cup (the Australia II) was at the centre of a bit of controversy for years. It had been on display at the naval museum in Sydney, and Western Australia wanted it as it was very much a WA project (it was paid for by a famously corrupt businessman who essentially owned WA in the eighties - Alan Bond). It took years, but WA got the Australia II back where it belongs.
Its not a GPS system, its a Transit navigation system, a forerunner to GPS..
19:29 Reminds be of Bender being ejected from the Planet Express Ship's torpedo tube.
The reason that the Oberons are being preserved is that because of the way the AUKUS SSN project is progressing. The RAN will probably have to recomission them after the last of the Collins class gives up the ghost.
And if you ever win the lottery and can afford to visit Oz again, you should drive up/down the Hume highway to a little town called Holbrook in NSW, where you will find (100 miles inland and 900 feet above sea level) a nice 1:10 model of HM Submarine B11 and the entire casing of HMAS Otway; yet another preserved Oberon.
There is also a really good little museum in the park with lots of submarine related paraphenalia. They have even preserved a section of Otway's living quarters and have been able to reproduce the diesel/ozone/linoleum smell exactly!
You haven't really experienced a triple-expansion steam engine until you've seen/heard/smelled it actually running. This you can do aboard the SS Jeremiah O'Brien in San Francisco.
Glad to hear you came to my hometown.
There's a sleeping beauty in the UK, although it's currently in storage - it was part of the Royal Marines Museum so is now in the care of the National Museum of the Royal Navy. I guess it might return to public view when/if they secure the funding to reopen the Marines museum within the historic dockyard.
If canoes are your thing, there are a couple on display in Boathouse 4 in the dockyard (free to visit if you ask at the gate for a historic quarter pass).
A few canoes elsewhere in the UK, too, including the Combined Military Services Museum in Essex - one of theirs is reportedly the one that got damaged during launching for Operation Frankton, the "cockleshell heroes" raid.
Thank you. This video brought back some memories from my youth.
I visited the museum some 5 decades ago while on Port call in Freemantle.
I don't remember the museum being quite so grand then by my mind is fuzzy with age.
I do remember being fascinated by the whaling and pirate displays as any young sailor should be.
Altogether an enjoyable recollection.
When I visited the WAMM a few years ago there was a perfectly preserved panel van included among the exhibits. Panel vans were an icon of Australian surf culture from the 1960s until the 1980s or thereabouts. Originally designed to act as delivery vans or to carry tools and materials for tradespeople, the panel van became popular among the surfing community for their spacious interiors which would allow the owners to carry all the necessary surfing paraphernalia and leave enough space for sleeping and, erm, less soporific activities. The Australia motor manufacturing industry saw an opportunity and even produced special models to cater to this market with brightly-coloured paint schemes, sports wheels and other special features. Holden's iconic 'Sandman' is perhaps the best example of these special vehicles. Increasingly rare, original examples now typically live comfortable lives with attentive owners and can command impressive prices when sold. The Sandman at the WAMM has one extra trick too… spoiler alert…
If you get close enough to the display vehicle a proximity sensor will trigger, causing the rear of the vehicle to begin gentling moving up and down in a suspiciously rhythmic fashion.
Great video… thanks for all the hard work Drach.
O boats - I'm not sure anyone would believe what they actually DID get up to!
Thanks Drach. I live here so I should go visit.
So glad you found the engine place it really is a hidden gem worth visiting.
It’s a pity the Ovens was shut it’s a cool tour of about an hour.
Good to see you’ve enjoyed WA
My family travelled on a mixed use vessel from Darwin to Fremantle and then back in the mid 50s. It was a milk run, calling in at all the coastal towns: Wyndham, Derby, Broome, Port Headland(?), Onslow, Geraldton from recollection. Travelled in December/ January - cyclone season. Very exciting for a schoolboy in the storms with the water running down the cabin level deck and lifelines run on the fore and aft lower hold deck levels. Shame I paid more attention to that than the bridge when my father (and I) seemed to be welcomed, despite our passenger status
11/10, every time. I wish to express my utmost thanks for your effort. Really really appreciated.
Hell YES! I've been waiting for this one especially! I love going to the WAMM!
Victorian industrial effort is such a treat !
The entire crew of HMAS AE2 survived her sinking through three died while PoWs in Turkey.
Hats off to drach
Very interesting Drach, thx man !!
I did the tour of HMAS Ovens 2 weeks ago! Well worth it! The rest of the museum is awesome too!
This is great! Thanks for doing this video.
The IMechE in WA organised a free tour around there back in 2013. A really cool museum and quite a landmark to aim for when sailing into Freemantle harbour/ swan river.
oh man when I was in Freemantle, I only had time to visit the wreckage museum. but I see I really need to go there again to visit this museum too!
G'day to you! Finally a Museum I have been to a few times, great place ,lots to see, a friend of mine did a lot of work here for one of her books! Armadale WA
Thanks Drach
Those working steam engine models put the Revell "Visible V8" model engine to shame.
An absolute smasher of a video, Drach.
The Oberons were around and about everything and anything that needed to be done discretely during the Cold War, so... Maybe a few more decades of secrecy until the files are eventually released to the public.
Cheers.
HMAS Sydney 2 was an Amphion class cruiser, not a Leander.
The TSS Earnslaw is a working steam ship in New Zealand that has triple expansion engines using locomotive boilers. It sails daily on Lake Wakatipu. There is recent video around shot in its engine room. I toured the engine room as a kid during the 1960s when it was owned and operated by NZ Railways. Back then it used to service the sheep stations on the lake and the village of Glenorchy. I remember it transporting live stock (mostly sheep), wool, vehicles and anything else required.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSS_Earnslaw
I visited that sub years ago with my family.
Yay Perth
If you go to Kew pumping station, they have a triple-expansion steam engine. And a working newcomen(?) 90" beam engine. So not quite battleship, but worth a look.
Drach, what a great preview of these amazing museums in western Australia (Perth)
So I'm 95% sure the engine you bring on screen at 25:03 is a Marine Diesel engine, not a triple expansion. For one thing you can see the injectors on the third tier, and the fourth tier looks a heck of a lot like rockers. Triple Expansion engines, while large, usually aren't that large because they don't need the stroke length and compression that diesel does. More specifically steam power is proportional to the size of the piston (that fun old force/area thing!) so more cylinders does not equal more better. Rather you need to have an appropriate amount of expansion at each stage to get the most out of it. The monster you show in that image is an 8 cylinder diesel.
Drach, surprised nobody has commented before, but right at the beginning when you mention Castlemaine, you say HMS, she is of course, HMAS.... keep up the good work
Hay Drach, can we have a video about Australia's most successful warship, m/v or HMAS Krait, depending on the date
@9:54- You're wearing Australian Dolphins...... If I was there, I'd have tacked them on......;-)
Triple expansion steam engines talk to you in ways a diesel can't.
Saw the pic of the enormous engine and assumed modern diesel. Left absolutely gobsmacked.
Threr is a mixed use ship still operating out of Tahiti that does cruises and supply voyagges arounf Marcasas, Tuomotos and even out to Pitcairn island. Aranui crises! brilliant way to checkout French polynesia
The only postwar diesel boat preserved in the US is USS Blueback (SS-582) in Portland OR. She is the fraternal twin to the nuclear powered Skipjjack class so the Blueback is the closest thing you can get to a modern nuclear submarine. I believe Turkey and Italy have Tang Class submarines preserved as museums.
The scrapped solid bronze(!) conning tower probably paid for a lot of the pilot boat's restoration.
The Aussie Oberon-class submarines are among the best driven spec-ops subs in the world. If only half of the rumored exploits of the RAN with these boats is true, they'd be legends.
For you fellow model kit builders, both the Welman submarine and the MSC Canoe are available in 1/35 scale from Ukrainian model companies.
Memory says roughly half of In Which We Serve takes place on a Carley Float.
Feeling very old just now. Having served in FFG 03 HMAS SYDNEY ..(.IV.).. (in the Gulf 1990/91) it is a shock every time I see DDG 42 ...HMAS SYDNEY (V!) I do hope this Fifth ship of the name can avoid war service... as none of her predecessors managed to do...
Been there. Done that. Thanks for the vid.
So I live in a town called Port Pirie it's like smackbang right up in the tip of the Spencer Gulf and we have the largest smelter in the southern hemisphere and we got a few tugboats / pilot boats as well we still get a few small cargo ships less than we used to a crazy story a whole bunch of drugs were actually discovered on one of those ships in town a while back apparently they came from the Bahamas or something like drawing the second world war the smelters in town had smoke generators due to the fair of enemy aircraft attack..
If the Japs had gone all that way South, one would think there were better targets than Port Pirie! 😂😂😂
While in Australia, if you can you should contact the Queensland Maritime Museum at Southbank. They have a River Class Frigate, the Diamantina and also Queensland Museum at South Bank has the only genuine A7V in existence. Very interesting to see. ;-)
The Queensland Government, to its shame, has underfunded the Queensland Maritime Museum for decades. Last week they announced a redevelopment of Southbank including the museum area - it would seem turning the area into a park. Very unclear what will come of the Diamantina. It will probably rust away as the Forceful has.
Drach, sorry for hijacking the comments, but your narrative on the Folboat reminded me of when I was serving in the RAN and was on HMAS Otway and one of my duties was a member of "the canoe launching party". As can be seen on the opening credits of the attached video, Attack Force Z, the canoes exited the submarine via the torpedo loading hatch, not the torpedo tubes. I am the third one out of the hatch. The canoes used in the movie were replicas, but from memory they looked very real. ruclips.net/video/LHYkJ-5O2IM/видео.html
This comment is addressed to Mr. Al Gorithm. He can be quite a popular chap actually, if you talk to him a lot.
"In Perth"
excuse you, thats Freo. >:c big difference
theres also the memorial on the hill, overlooking the port. Has a Mark 15 torpedo on display. did you have a chance to visit that as well?
I am afraid ships do not berth in Perth unless very small. Fremantle is the port .
No sharks or jellyfish?
Saw a Wellman submarine in Horten Norway. Wondering who would be nuts enough to pilot one of those contraptions. Terrifying little thing
Both museums are in the City of Fremantle.not Perth, Just saying.
Thought that was the By-Jove in the thumbnail for a second
I wonder if pilot boats are still used today to bring out pilots to incoming vessels?
Yes
yep
Used in Brisbane daily
Indeed they are.
Suprisingly quick and efficient at their jobs.
Next time come to Canberra to the Australian War Memorial.
Fair Dinkum.
HMAS Ovens
Do they also have museums for ship models that were built by multiple people? Models built by one person seems oddly specific.
There's actually anything in WA? Never knew.
Hi
is there anything there about the catalpa escape? I never got a chance to go to any of the museums in the area when I was there on a choir trip, and I've always wondered if they consider that sea-faring history or prison history
Quick question - when did the trend of portholes on submarine conning towers end? I assume some time during the interwar period, but it feels somewhat anachronistic. Granted, I'm operating on a modern conception of submarines being submerged for 99% of their mission time.
Nic31 Drac
Is the museum staffed by convicts? Or are they kept out of the area by fencing and guards?
A question for navy savvy people. Do RN ships use pilots to enter ports or are the officers expected to wing it alone?
I imagine this depends on peace or war and the size of the ship and the location and the era you are talking about.
In peace time it's a whole lot safer to use a pilot - or even in some cases to use tugs to move a larger vessel in tricky waters (in which case the pilot would be on one of the tugs I imagine).
In some times and places navies would maintain their own pilots - these would be local military personnel - in key ports even in peace time.
War time is potentially a different situation. Civilian rules often get thrown away or modified.
The smaller ships such as destroyers did not typically use pilots in WW2 based on the accounts I've read, though sometimes they would bring somebody aboard to help them navigate around any minefields or shallow wrecks that might be present, or to navigate through tricky waters.
For example, the author of Peter Charlie (PC == USN Patrol Corvette) mentions taking RAN Lieutenant G.E. Howe aboard as a pilot for a journey through the Solomon Islands during WW2. In this case the pilot was responsible for a multi-ship convoy, where the PC was one of the escorts.
@@bluelemming5296 Thank you very much for your very full reply. Are you, or were you, a serving member of the RN?
@@benchapple1583 No.
I was an RAN officer, (Not RN) and right from the start of our sea training as Midshipmen we were trained in pilotage. (And Celestial navigation.. presumably one can't expect Harbour Pilots or GPS to be available in wartime!) In fact AS a Mid I "piloted" a small training ship...HMAS BANKS, down the Adelaide River and out to sea... (and sweated buckets doing so I will admit!) I can't recall us taking Pilots onboard TBH.
@@trooperdgb9722 Thank you very much for the information.
To go around the world single-handed once is impressive, but 3 times is astounding. I can't imagine facing the rogue wave.🫣
3 times! Indicates a serious failure at navigation
"An Americas cup winning yacht, which is somewhat less impressive challenge".... We have an ex prime minister who may disagree with you
correction - had.
That is the Oz II he is disrespecting.
Boo Drachinifel.
"Any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum." - Hawkie.
That's the one
An official day off
lady forrest...haha sounds like a bushy beaver
Graphic but tacky.
Trim the main mast!
This one stinks Drach, They don't have Quaaka. LOL
Lady Forrest. The name Forrest is well known in Western Australia, Sir John Forrest, Baron of Bunbury, was an early pioneer, pastoralist, explorer etc., many things are named for him. He also was a key figure in the Pinjarra Massacre when 70+ aboriginal men, women and children were, well, massacred.
Any relation to Twiggy?
Sir John Forrest was born in 1847. The Pinjarra Massacre took place in 1833. The massacre was led by then Governor James Stirling and would be pioneer, Thomas Peel. Which is not to say Forrest was blameless in matters concerning our original population. He worked very hard with the British government to ensure recompense for the Aboriginal population WASN’T included in the establishment of independent government in Western Australia.
@@stencilledgood 😂
@@LukeBunyip Yes