Seafaring family from a century ago

When City of Port Adelaide Enfield Mayor Gary Johannson decided to grant Freedom of the City to the Merchant Navy on September 3, he recalled his grandfather Fredrick Johannson and his aunt Adelaide Johannson.

Frederick was a merchant seaman who joined the Belfast registered vessel Carmmoney in Gothenberg, signed off in Port Lincoln in 1909 and settled in South Australia.

Adelaide Johansson signed on as a Stewardess at Port Victoria in the merchant vessel SS Viking just after World War Two.

She became a Cape Horner on the Viking, which was the last windjammer to leave Australia.

Frederick and Adelaide would have been impressed if they had known that Port Adelaide would become the first port in the world to grant the Merchant Navy this honour on Australia’s first ever Merchant Navy Day.

Australia's first annual Merchant Navy Day will be celebrated with a commemorative
march and the Freedom of the City ceremony on September 3.

Minister's Merchant Navy Day Message

A MESSAGE FROM THE MINISTER FOR VETERANS AFFAIRS FOR MERCHANT NAVY DAY 3 SEPTEMBER 2008

The service and sacrifice of Australia’s merchant mariners during wartime has been formally recognised with the Proclamation by the Governor-General, Major General Michael Jeffrey AC CVO MC (Retired), that 3 September each year will be a day of national observance known as Merchant Navy Day.

From this year, Merchant Navy Day will be an occasion to give merchant mariners the prominence in Australia’s wartime history they deserve.

The role of Australian’s merchant mariners was vital and often dangerous, evacuating civilians from threatened areas and transporting supplies and personnel to and between areas of conflict.

Thousands of Australian merchant mariners have served during wartime on Australian, Commonwealth and Allied ships. Australian and Commonwealth memorials commemorate 435 Australians who lost their lives serving in the Merchant Navy.

It is important that Australians preserve the memory and history of all our service personnel.

Merchant Navy Day will serve to remind current and future generations that we owe an enormous debt to the merchant mariners whose service helped to secure the freedoms we now enjoy.

As Australia marks the first observance of Merchant Navy Day, all merchant mariners should be proud of their contribution to our nation.

Alan Griffin

Our photos show: Construction work on Stage Two of Newport Quays. See more at:
www.newportquays.com.au/

Merchant Navy Day flags, sponsored by the multi million dollar Port Riverfront residential development Newport Quays, flying on 28 flagpoles in Port Adelaide.

Minister Griffin and popular local MP Mark Butler who played an important role in the organising of of the first ever Merchant Navy Day March in Port Adelaide at 11 am on Wednesday September 3.

SS Admella and Merchant Navy Day

One of the worst shipwrecks ever in South Australian waters will be a central theme of Australia’s first ever Merchant Navy Day in Port Adelaide.

The Merchant Navy Day March along Queens wharf will finish at The Navigator Memorial, which commemorates the tragic loss of the SS Admella 149 years ago.

New Port Chaplain Robin Trebilcock will conduct a short service there and our photo
shows Keith Ridgeway from the South Australian Maritime Museum with a restorer getting
the memorial ready for September 3.

Participating in the march that will begin near Birkenhead Bridge at 11 am on September 3 will be some of the 160 people representing 44 different survivors, victims and rescuers.

All 160 are involved in "Admella 150 Festival " which will be held from Thursday August 6 to Sunday August 16, 2009.

The Navigator memorial in St Vincent Street, Port Adelaide tells the story of her destruction on Carpenter Rocks, 20 miles west of Cape Northumberland, South Australia on August 6, 1859.

The Land Management Corporation is selecting a new waterfront site for the memorial as the building behind it is being developed.

It is hoped that the move can co-incide with the the August 2009 "Admella 150 Festival".

The SS Admella was a steam ship of 209 tons (212 tonnes) also fitted with three masts and sails. Her length was 55.6 metres. She left Port Adelaide at 5.30am on Friday August 5, 1859 bound for Melbourne.

Early the following morning she ran onto Carpenter Rocks that lie a few kilometres offshore of South Australia, almost due South of the current town of Millicent.

Over the next 8 days, 89 people lost their lives but miraculously, about 24 survived, most of them hanging onto the wreck in raging winter seas for that 8-day period. There was little food and virtually no water and many acts of heroism. Learn more about the Admella story.

Many ships were wrecked along this part of the Australian coast, both before and after the wreck of the Admella, but this wreck is arguably the most famous.

It is this fame that has brought together the local Councils of the areas most impacted by the wreck, to create a series of events to mark the 150th anniversary in 2009.

Those Councils are the District Council of Grant, which includes Carpenter Rocks and Port MacDonnell, the Glenelg Shire Council, which includes the City of Portland in Victoria, the City of Mount Gambier, the Wattle Range Council, and the Robe District Council.

For more information: http://www.admella.org.au/