History | Tracking down amphibious army 'tank' that disappeared in Fingal Bay

On the available evidence, the answer is yes, and behind it lies a strange, largely unknown tale.

In generations past, Fingal Bay was known as False Bay as it was notorious for shipwrecks. Mariners sometimes mistook it in stormy weather for the nearby entrance to Port Stephens.

All that confusion stopped when a striking 69ft (21m) tall lighthouse was built in 1862 on Fingal Island.

Before that, 24 shipwrecks occurred in the sea close by.

Today, the rapidly shallowing Fingal Bay hosts a picturesque oceanside village close to Shoal Bay and is best known for its treacherous sandspit, often under water, stretching out to the port's remote Outer Light.

But then there's the bay's hidden object. District divers say they don't know about any actual Fingal Bay wreck and it doesn't appear on maps.

Peter Edwards, of Soldiers Point, however, rang me a while back on another matter and while yarning, he talked about the unknown amphibious army 'tank' that disappeared in Fingal Bay on a Citizens Military Forces (CMF) training exercise from Gan Gan Camp probably in 1958.

"They couldn't retrieve it. And unless someone snags it with their boat anchor, you wouldn't know it's down there smothered in sand," the former CMF soldier said.

Officially known as an LVT (landing vehicle tracked), it weighed about 13 tons and for simple convenience, I'll call it a 'tank' because of its impressive size and bulk.

It was really an armoured personnel carrier used to ferry troops ashore. It's probably identical to the one used at least once on Shoal Bay Beach in the 1950s to temporarily carry some female holidaymakers during a break in training exercises.

The same picture recently appeared on the Looking Back: Port Stephens online page.

But now I was left with a dilemma. How could I confirm the presence of the submerged sunken LVT, or 'tank'?

My next port of call was to visit Fingal Bay pioneer Ken Barry, now 93, to see if he had any memories concerning the sinking of an armoured carrier six decades earlier.

The former lobster pot fisherman is fondly called "the Mayor of Fingal Bay" because his family, poultry farm owners, were the only ones allowed to stay when the Defence Department cleared the whole area in World War II.

That's when the port was one, giant military base with US Marines training on nearby beaches for amphibious assaults on enemy-occupied Pacific Islands. Few soldiers ever returned.

The 8.2ha Barry Park on the bay's rocky southern headland is named in the family's honour.

Asked if he could recall anything about an army exercise gone wrong 64 years ago, his answer was immediate and enthusiastic.

"Yes, I remember it. It's still out there," Ken Barry said.

"Lost during an exercise. I can see the site across the water here from my home. I think divers went out to get it, but I don't know if they made much of an attempt to recover it. It's now corroded and normally covered in sand.

"And out there in the middle (of Fingal Bay) where it is, is not really deep now. Maybe 10ft (3m)," he said.

Margaret, his daughter and carer, then said: "We'd be the only ones who knew about it.

We have a neighbour who knows more now though. He goes swimming over it and comes and tells dad from time-to-time, saying, "Ken, the sands have shifted today. I could see it quite clearly'," she said.

But now back to former citizen soldier Peter Edwards.

"The CMF could have lost a life there when the tank sank," he said.

"(Sgt) Harry 'Typo' James was sitting on the roof with his legs dangling over the hatch and when the LVT went down in the swell, Harry pulled the driver out.

"The vehicle was dropping up and down and its track bit into the sandy bottom and couldn't get out. It sank itself in the wave trough.

"The accident occurred about 200 metres offshore. It's pretty incredible the tank's still there. Some years ago at a CMF reunion I was told some divers took pictures of it," he said.

"I never saw the actual sinking but know a Diamond T truck with a cable hook was called in to salvage the LVT, but the suction held it down. It was far too heavy to budge" Edwards said

At the time of the accident, Edwards said he was a lance corporal and attending annual training exercises at Gan Gan Army Camp outside Nelson Bay.

"I also remember using the (western) end of Shoal Bay Beach for big landing exercises. We'd anchor opposite bushland (near today's Habourside Haven retirement village).

"My memory is that there were only two LVTs based at Gan Gan. The LVTA4 is an amphibious tank with a gun. The LVT sunk was similar but with no weapon and no roof, an open back; an armoured carrier capable of carrying perhaps 10 to 20 men.

"We would drive overland on bush tracks from Gan Gan Camp around the Water Board land to come out roughly where the Fingal Bay Sports Club is now (on Rocky Point Rd) then go onto the beach," he said.

"No one was drowned or injured in the LVT sinking. There was no publicity. They'd just lost a piece of equipment. It was sort of hushed up," Edwards said.

(If the 1958 accident date is correct, then it came only four years after the Stockton Bight Military Disaster of March 1954. That's when a squall struck a convoy of 19 amphibious vehicles going from Camp Shortland (Nobbys) to Port Stephens. Some 100 soldiers were thrown into the sea with eight swamped vehicles, including five tanks, sinking. Three men drowned.)

But sunken tanks are not just an Australian oddity. In 1984, keen scuba divers recovered a sunken Sherman tank in deep water off Slapton Sands in Devon, England.

Kept secret for decades, it was a reminder of Exercise Tiger on April 28, 1944. What was supposed to be a rehearsal for the Allied landings in Normandy on D-Day in June 1944 went horribly wrong.

US troops were training to land on the replica 'Utah' beach in England when attacked off the U.K. coast by nine German torpedo boats.

Up to 946 US soldiers died and were buried in complete secrecy. It was later claimed there were more war casualties then than the later actual landing at 'Utah' beach in France.

IN THE NEWS:

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: