Christmas Island 1963 clean up

Ivor Parsons was on Christmas Island with Naval Party 5555 in 1963 on the clear up. He has sent us a photo of the scrap yard as well as a couple of photo's taken by him while his party was towing a raft out over the reef pulling an RAF lorry full of washing machines etc which was then pushed off the raft to sink to the depth.
The last photo is the blowing up of an oil barge at sea. 

We are very pleased to be able to include these photos because it is a part of the story we don't hear much about!
Thank you Ivor.

Number Plates

With in the museum collection we have a small collection of number plates which follow on nicely from Ivor's photos. These were donated by Robert Bryden who went out to the Christmas Island with his brother John in the mid 1960's. He decided to pick through the scrap yard and brought back a collection of number plates as souvenirs.

(John Bryden still lives on the island, for many years he had Freddie Flit's Auster in storage but he disposed of it during the clean up operation in 2005-06).

Clean Up August 2006

Ex Sapper Robert Griffiths visited the remains of the church of Saint Nicholas at main camp, the stone plaque was laid by Revd EG Alsop RAF 12/09/1958. 

Christmas Island International airport "Kiritimati"

Clean up underway

Aeon Airfield (Near Southeast point)