MV KOOLAMA Silver Plated Tankard

W.A. State Shipping Service vessel MV Koolama left Fremantle heading to Darwin via the northern ports of Western Australia on 10 February 1942 carrying crew, passengers, army personnel and cargo. While on route from Broome to Wyndham the ship was circled by a Japanese reconnaissance plane. Captain Eggleston gave the order to fire, and the plane dropped its bombs, none of which found their target. Shortly after 3 other planes bombed the ship, badly damaging it and causing the steering to fail and resulting in one serious casualty.
The ship was beached at Cape Rulhiers and passengers unloaded. On 20 February the Benedictine monks at the mission at Pago (80km away) were informed by Darwin of the bombing and on 22 February the monks were asked to contact the survivors. The mission lugger reached the crew and passengers on 24 February. Those wounded, including one serious head injury, were taken to the mission on the lugger. Father Seraphim stayed with those left on the beach; the plan was to walk the 120kms overland through rough country to the mission, estimated to take 4 days.
The walk commenced on 26 February but survivors found it difficult to keep up with the Aboriginal guides. This, along with their running out of food made crossing the Drysdale River too dangerous for the weak and non-swimmers. Aboriginal guide Gerome Pendagudje and seaman Dudley Anderson crossed the river with Gerome running the 40 kilometres to the mission to collect ropes and provisions for the group, which finally arrived at the mission on 4 March.
Meanwhile, Captain Eggleston, with the help of the crew and some passengers, had made repairs to and refloated the ship which arrived at Wyndham on 2 March. While the ship was being unloaded on 3 March it was strafed by Japanese Zero fighters and sank at the jetty later in the day. The mission lugger returned to the beach at Cape Rulhiers to pick up Father Seraphim and the remaining survivors. One of the survivors fell ill and died on the way back to the mission, the only person who did not survive the incident.