9000-TON SHIP

Grey River Argus, 22 December 1943, Page 2

9000-TON SHIP

SALVAGED IN NEW GUINEA. SYDNEY, December 21. Despite repeated attacks by Japanese dive-bombers, Australian salvage men have raised the Dutch steamer Bantam from the mud of Oro Bay, New Guinea. Regarded as irreplaceable, the vessel was ordered to be refloated at anv cost, but the actual expenditure was only £l5OO. The Bantam, a 9000-ton vessel, was sunk by bombs in the big Japanese raid in March. Salvage equipment had to be sent bv plane across the Owen Stanley Range. Nme weeks’ work saw the Bantam raised and readv to be towed to Australia. In one attack by Japanese divebombers during salvage operations, intercepting Lightnings shot down 13 of the 15 raiding planes Captain J. W. Herd and Chief Diver J. Johnston, who earlier in the . war retrieved over £2,000,000 in gold from the sunken Niagara, off the New Zealand coast, were in charge of the work.