Early Australian spearfishing and scuba history links

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David Wilson

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Today I chanced upon three separate online sources of interesting information about the early days of underwater swimming in Australia. Here's what I found:

1. A JOURNEY THROUGH TIME.
"A journey through time: The beginning of amateur sport scuba diving in Australia". Useful information about events and developments during each decade since World War II.

2. History | Underwater Skindivers and Fisherman's Association.
A variety of topics from the history of Australian spearfishing.

3. DIVER OF FORTUNE: 2013.
A blog about Wally Gibbins, one of Australia's diving pioneers. I found scans here of pages from a short but fascinating catalogue of spearfishing gear designed and manufactured by another spearfishing pioneer from "Down Under", Bill Heffernan; fascinating at least for me because I'm collecting data about early combined masks and snorkels.

I am hoping that these sources are of interest to others as well, particularly those who want to research the history of diving around the world.
 
Great detective work-- great find!
I knew - know - many in the articles -- memories!

I authored a column for Barry As magazine for several years on spear fishing

Thank you for your efforts and posting for all to enjoy

SDM
 
I am so glad that my "treasure trove" has elicited such a positive response. Thank you!

To whet appetite further, here are a couple of pages from Heffernan's spearfishing catalogue illustrating graphic design and popular understanding of physics and physiology during the late 1940s:
1-Scan20454.JPG

1-Scan20452.JPG
 
Do you have any info on the Japanese pearl diver interred in a POW camp in broome who had almost finished a scuba system?

Also Jack Sue?
 
Do you have any info on the Japanese pearl diver interred in a POW camp in broome who had almost finished a scuba system?

Also Jack Sue?

Based as I am in the UK, and having never visited Australia, these stories are complete news to me. Can you tell me what you already know to get me started?

In the meantime, I have done a little trawling online on Jack Wong Sue (below). He died in 2009.
1960s-Jackie.jpg

Here's a tribute at Radschool Association Magazine - Vol 30. Page 2:

Ted McEvoy sent us the following which appeared in the West Australian on the 17th November and was written by Malcolm Quekett. It concerns a remarkable Australian, Jack Sue, a quiet hero and a brave man of action
Jack%20Sue3.JPG

There are times when a man’s heroics are of such magnitude that they logically belong in the world of fiction. Jack Wong Sue’s wartime deeds fall into such a category. But they were fact.

Mr Sue, who died yesterday,(16th November) aged 84, was reluctant to talk much about his own efforts, but his actions speak for themselves. Sent behind enemy lines during WWII with the Z Special Unit of the Services Reconnaissance Department, agent AKR 13’s team of seven agents was charged with getting information on Japanese troop movements as a prelude to the Australian invasion of Borneo. Borneo was occupied by 37,000 troops of the Japanese Imperial Army and so those sent from Fremantle in 1944 aboard the USS Tuna on operation Agas 1 were issued with “L-táblets”, lethal capsules which would bring death in 30 seconds. They were to be swallowed if captured to avoid interrogation and torture.

The unit trained Chinese and Malay guerrilla fighters and harassed the Japanese, killing many. They gathered information for Operation Kingfisher, the plan to rescue the Australian and British prisoners of war at the infamous Sandakan camp.

Mr Sue had to reconnoitre the camp and the landscape and the images of the emaciated Australian soldiers remained with him. The rescue plan was later cancelled.

In June 1945, in desperate need of intelligence, Mr Sue. dressed as a Chinese coolie, walked into a railway station which was crawling with Japanese troops. He found the Japanese-appointed Chinese station master, spoke to him in Chinese, made threats and walked out with vital intelligence. The act won him the Distinguished Conduct Medal.

But, feeling ashamed by his threats, he searched for years after the war for the station master. In the late 1990s, Mr Sue found the man’s family and apologised to them for what he had said.

Jack%20Sue2a.jpg

Jack Sue – second from left

He was born in Perth in 1925. His father was a Chinese doctor. Schooled at Perth Boys School, Mr Sue, a sea scout, would ferry in US crews from their Catalina flying boats as the war loomed. At 14 he played piano for the troops at the City Hotel. Sent a white feather at the age of 16, he put his age up and joined the Norwegian merchant navy He then tried to join the Royal Australian Navy, but was refused because of his Chinese parentage.

After the war Mr Sue remained tied to the ocean, starting Jack Sue WA Skindivers in 1951, and was a key figure in the world of scuba diving for decades. Mr Sue was awarded an Order of Australia Medal in the General Division in 2006.

He had three wives and seven children.

Mr Sue’s son Barry said yesterday his father had no idea of fear “He was not one to brag about himself, he was very humble,” Barry Sue said. “He’s lived the life of 10 men.” Ray Krakouer, 87, a friend of Mr Sue’s for 50 years, summed up his mate simply: “He was a good Australian. There was no better Australian than Jack Sue. He was fair dinkum.”

Another tribute can be found at Western Australian Television History (WA TV History) » Blog Archive » Tribute to Jack Wong Sue. There seems to be plenty more about Jack Sue where that came from. I'll conclude for the moment with an image of his erstwhile dive store in the Western Australia city of Perth, where I see you are also based:
Jack_Sue_building%2C_Midland_7804.JPG
 
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Thanks - I drove past Jacks shop yesterday - my father was one of his "students" and I only recall him being always busy every time we got dragged in there :)

This is the guy who had a scuba system designed but was interred as a POW before the system could be patented -

Graves | About Murakami

Having a lot more trouble finding info on Murakami :)
 
Fascinating information... Here's a photo of "Yasukichi Murakami with diving suit" from the State Library of Western Australia site at BA2754/17: Yasukichi Murakami with diving suit. The Japanese on the bottom reads Mr Yasukichi Murakami and diving equipment. :: slwa_b4626487_26.
slwa_b4626487_26.jpg

So little data to accompany the image. I wonder whether this might have been the suit he patented back in 1926?

"In 1921 he (pearler A. C. Gregory) entered into a joint venture with Murakami to produce cultured pearls. Alarmed that the price of natural pearls would fall, the West Australian Pearlers' Association persuaded the State government to prohibit the scheme. At considerable cost, Murakami designed and patented (1926) a diving suit. Less buoyant and lighter than the conventional type, it afforded the diver greater mobility. It was not, however, a commercial success." (Biography - Yasukichi Murakami - Australian Dictionary of Biography).
 
Thank you for the wealth of information on diving in Australian in the early years.
It seems to coincide with diving in California back in the 50's and 60's.
I am looking forward to reading the rest of the history you posted on Australian diving.
 
Hi David,
An intereting read, thank you for digging the info out.

The Historicl Diving Society -Australia may be of interest you. If you were not already aware of them

Historical Diving Society

I am not a member but have found some of their articles printed in Dive Log quite interesting.
.
 
Hi David, An intereting read, thank you for digging the info out. The Historicl Diving Society -Australia may be of interest you. If you were not already aware of them Historical Diving Society I am not a member but have found some of their articles printed in Dive Log quite interesting..

Thank you for pointing me in the direction of the Historical Diving Society website. I've just skimmed through the contents pages of Classic Diver and noticed a couple of articles there about Jack Sue.

Another reason for searching the contents pages was my interest in the M. D. Turnbull company, which manufactured a range of basic underwater swimming gear in the southeast Sydney suburb of Mascot. My first diving mask, purchased in a North East England store during the late 1950s, was a triangular green Turnbull Searaider like the one in the vintage ad below:
img134-jpg.418743.jpg


More recently, I've acquired a Turnbull catalogue, a scan of which can be found at https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bw7z_4bLjOOEcVVBT09INkJqNEU.

Here's an ad for one of the models in the company's fin range:
2011-09-204-png.404001.png


And here's a Turnbull ad from a 1956 Sydney to Hobart Sailing Race programme:
1956-Sydney-to-Hobart-Program_p4.png


That's virtually all I have about Turnbull, other than a newspaper report from 1969 announcing the acquisition of Turnbull by Hanimex. Despite exhaustive searches, I couldn't even discover who founded this Australian supplier of masks and fins to London's premier sporting goods store Lillywhites during the early 1950s. Perhaps there is nothing out there in the way of scholarship because historical diving research has focused so exclusively on the regulator, neglecting in the process the study of basic equipment such as masks, fins and snorkels. :(
 
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https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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