To commemorate 50 years of the Kununurra Amateur Race Club, in August 2017 a new collection has been placed online, the "K.A.R.C. Scrapbook" (1967-1976), which is part of a larger collection donated to KHS by Ross Barrett in 2002. This collection was uploaded in stages from 1976 back to the final inaugural year, 1967 which now completes this online collection. You can view all from here as a slide-show. Use the '4 cornered' gadget at bottom right to go full screen and from there you can use 'Show Info' to toggle information for each image. Enjoy! Read on below for more Kununurra Museum News.
It has been a very busy few months, with numbers of past residents returning, and other interesting people enjoying their time at the Museum, where time is spent finding information for former residents and getting down their family information and contact details, often resulting in new collections, as well as enjoying the extensive histories, artefacts, displays of objects and the multi-screen date-sorted slideshows at the Kununurra Museum.
In June an amazing new addition to collections was brought into the Kununurra Museum after the discovery last year by a grader operator while he was out grading a fenceline on part of Carlton Hill Station (formerly Ningbing Station), when in bush adjacent to the fence-line he came across the remains of the tail-plane from ('our') CAC 12 Squadron Wirraway A20-62.
A photograph taken of the remains of tail-plane from WWII RAAF 12 Squadron CAC Wirraway A20-62 as found in the bush at Ningbing station, East Kimberley (about 20km from the WA-NT border) in 2016.KHS Archive No. KHS-2017-59-a-P-BD
Wonder if anyone out there might recall other details about the Wirraway tail-plane or other remains, which would be most welcome.
It would appear that the remains of the tail-plane must have been removed from the site of the March 20th 1942 forced landing on coastal saltmarsh just five kilometres inside WA from the WA-NT border, at least as far back as the 1980s, as it is not in photographs of the site in the mid to late 1980s. Undoubtedly the salvage by persons unknown, back some time between 1942 and the 1980s, then subsequent abandonment in the bush has saved the tail-plane remnants from the ravages of the coastal saltmarsh.
Embedded below is the 8 Part DV about Wirraway A20-62 for those interested to know more.
[Unfortunately no resize so you will need to view on YouTube to go full screen]
A post to social media (fb) on June 16th on an interview with Vanessa Mills of ABC Kimberley, about Operation Ord Noah and the Henry Hall collection, had a link to the web page that ABC made using some of the Operation Ord Noah photographs which linked back to the collections (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-16/wildlife-rescue-photos-from-lake-argyle-ord-river-dam-emerge/8621802), was automatically shared to other social media. Several retweets and shares later gave us our largest ever one day tally for KHS collection photo views on the Flickr platform, with 66,145 views which took us over 2.25 million views and tripled the previous one day total, set the month before on May 15th 2017 with 21,099 image view, a boost after the same Ord Noah Henry Hall collection was first placed online. We normally average around 1000 views per day of KHS photographs on Flickr, so this is many times more than normal.
The great thing is that this collection came about by actively collecting, triggered after Bert Lee visited the Kununurra Museum in 2013 (Operation Ord Noah - Bert Lee collection KHS online). By then making contact with Henry Hall, who Bert talked of as the leader of Ord Noah, Henry posted up his album with good documentation, which was digitised and documented as a new collection. It was a great pleasure meeting Henry and his family when returning the album on a visit to Perth. A collection of local, State and National significance to the history of the National Development of the Ord River Irrigation Project, which is now accessible to all, from anywhere in the world! (as proved by the link at end of this KHS News post :^)
...and here’s the link to the audio of the Ord Noah ABC Kimberley interview (edited - not full interview)
The Ord Noah publicity led a journalist writing it up for the Daily Mail UK and posting the following article online, which makes use (with permissions) of quite a number of the photographs.
Kununurra Historical Society
(KHS) - Incorporated
Volunteer Run Not-for-Profit
Archive, Gallery Library,
Museum & Research
@ Kununurra Museum 72 Coolibah Drive (Goes to Map :^)
_________________________ General Meetings
185days since "Wirraway Challenge Week" (March 20 to 26th) at the Kununurra Museum. In 2017 it will have been 75 Years since March 20th 1942, which was the date of the forced landing of 12 Squadron Wirraway A20-62 on coastline near the WA-NT border. Broome and Derby suffered air raids on this day, March 20th 1942. See KHS Events Page.
1942
"Wirraway Challenge Week"
at
Kununurra Museum
March 20th to March 26th 2017
RAAF 12 Sqn. CAC Wirraway A20-62
On March 20th 2017 it will be...
75 Years...
...since the forced landing of RAAF 12 Squadron CAC Wirraway A20-62, on coastal saltmarsh, just inside the WA/NT border, by Pilots Lew Dwyer and Warwick Carmody. Watch the Digital Videos (DVs) from the KHS - "A Story of Survival & Rescue in the far north-east Kimberley"
Read & see more from the KHS "Wirraway - Challenge"Research Page (has links to all 8 parts of the DVs on the "Kununurra Museum" YouTube Channel OR See the permanent display at the Kununurra Museum. Also see the KHS Events Page.
1942
1942 (Dry Season)
75 Years Ago in 2017
Establishment of Experiments at Carlton Reach
Ord River Experimental Station
On March 31st 1941 Kim Durack published his paper, 'Developing the North - Proposed Research Station for the Kimberleys', and before the end of that year the
"Ord River Experimental Station," was established at
Carlton Reach using the waters of the Ord for irrigation. In 1942 agricultural experiments began with the first irrigation in June that year. The station would operate on the Carlton Reach Site for five years and all would be moved to the Kimberley Research Station site in 1946.
More
information is available about the 36 HP Petters "Atomic" diesel pump
engine, used to raise the water for these first major experimental
attempts at irrigation, at the twenty acre farm site. available from the Carlton Reach Pump Engine (On this site)
In
April 2013 the 36 HP "Petters Atomic Diesel Engine" was donated to the
Kununurra Historical Society by the Department of Agriculture and Food
WA - Frank Wise Institute of Tropical Agriculture (formerly the
Kimberley Research Station, where the engine was also in use until the
1950s), KHS now has the original pump engine by the entrance
gate of the Kununurra Museum.
In 2017 it will be 75 years since
the Petters Pump Engine was first utilised for irrigation at Carlton Reach and it will be
70 years since the first experiments by the CSIRO and Department of Agriculture WA got under way at the Kimberley Research
Station in 1947.
108days since KHS Inauguration Day - June 5th - Inaugural Meeting that resulted in the formation of the Kununurra Historical Society Inc. (KHS - Us! ;^) on June 5th 1986. In 2016 we commemorated 30 Years as a Society and the night before we enjoyed a KHS Members Dinner in Kununurra and had an Open Day & Evening from 12 to 8pm - Sunday, June 5th 2016 - 30 Years!
Events in 2016
Wyndham and Hall's Creek (aka "Kimberley") were established.
1886
130 Years Ago (In 2016)
50 Years Ago - 1967
What was happening 50 Years Ago in Kununurra during 1967?
A new page under Research - 1967 in KHS Archives, hilights some indexed records from the KHS archive as listed by former dedicated KHS Hon. Archivist for many years, Margaret Lawson. The index listing, made many years ago, does have some more recent KHS corrections and additions.
The first Government run hospital opened on the present hospital site. We have the Opening Plaque at the Kununurra Museum, as well as from the first, Australian Inland Mission hospital.
WA-NT Border Determinations
In May and June 2016 It was 95 years & it will be.. 100 Years
...in 2021 Since the WA and SA Government Astronomers came to the Kimberley in 1921 to determine the position of the WA/NT Border on the ground by using the new technology of the day (in 1921), of radio time signals. (Yes!, the pips you used to hear before the news! :^) This expedition in 1921 would determine the border position from time signals girdling the earth, from Greenwich UK, Annapolis USA, Applecross WA, SA Observatory & Lyons France - as in how many hours minutes and seconds east of Greenwich they were.
1927 - 95 Years ago in 2017
A WA Survey crew would come back in 1927 to build the Kimberley Obelisk, which still determines the border on the ground today. Read More about the 1921 WA/NT Border Determinations
