ONE of Williamstown’s biggest tourist attractions, the HMAS Castlemaine, was last week fitted with a replica depth charge thrower, which in wartime would have launched real explosives.
Built at Williamstown from 1941-42, the ship was little more than a gutted hulk when gifted to the Maritime Trust by the federal government in 1973.
It is now more than 70 years old and one of the nation’s most historic ships and a maritime icon.
Castlemaine crew member Richard Budzienny said the depth charge thrower restoration was just one of the projects due to be completed by June 17, which will be the 70th anniversary of the commissioning of the vessel into the Royal Australian Navy.
The crew includes two WWII navy veterans who served on corvettes during the war.
One of them, Alf ‘Bluey’ Thornton, was a crew member of the WWII cruiser HMAS Sydney, sunk by a German raider in 1942. There were no survivors.
Bluey, who had been posted off the Sydney to another ship just before this action, maintains that “sometimes it’s better to be born lucky than rich.”
The other veteran, Ian Shackleton, was a radar operator.
His corvette was stationed in Darwin shortly after the town was repeatedly bombed by Japanese aircraft. “There was not much left,” he said.
