The Broome Flying Boats

Author/s M. McCarthy, J.N. Green, S. Jung and C. Souter

Year of publication 2002

Report Number: 170

Abstract
On 20 December 2002, Dr Judy Edwards, the Minister for the Environment and Heritage published a Conservation Order at the ‘Flying Boat wreckage Site’ in Broome on behalf of the Government of Western Australia under the terms of the Heritage of Western Australia Act 1990.

The order, reproduced below served to provide protection to the WWII flying boat wrecks, replacing an ad hoc management strategy that had earlier served to protect the sites for nearly a decade.

This strategy—developed by the Broome Historical Society, the RAAF Aviation Museum and the Department of Maritime Archaeology at the Western Australian Maritime Museum— was recognised as having little legal strength resulting in a nomination to the Heritage council of Western Australia.

In being successful that nomination has, not only provided the legal basis for the protection of the sites, but it has also introduced a new force in the protection of the submerged cultural heritage of the State.