Carl Atkinson (-1985) was a renowned Australian diver and salvage expert from Darwin in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

Diving

Atkinson lived at Doctor's Gully from 1945 to 1979, where he lived with his pet crocodile named Cuthbert, a snake named Sammy and many dogs. He is attributed with starting the practice of fish feeding, which locals and visitors to Doctor's Gully continue to do today. Atkinson was an experienced diver for decades. He assisted police on several occasions with search and retrieval work. Atkinson built a decompression chamber which was used by Japanese pearl divers to prevent suffering the ‘bends’ after diving. He is known to have saved at least 16 pearl divers lives with this equipment.

Salvage work

After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Atkinson began acquiring the rights to salvage Darwin's wartime wrecks. With permission from the US Government, he salvaged the cargo of in 1946 including Jeeps, Ford and Chevrolet trucks. Controversy erupted when Atkinson was required to pay heavy duty sales tax on the cargo. He nearly died during the salvage mission when his speedboat sank, leaving him adrift in Darwin Harbour for 11 hours. He also discovered the location of . In 1958, Atkinson sold the salvage rights to four wrecks to Japanese company Nanyo Boeki Kaisha Ltd, ahead of the

Fujita salvage operation The Fujita salvage operation was a two-year marine salvage operation of World War II shipwrecks in Darwin Harbour in the Northern Territory of Australia from 1959 to 1961. Bombing of Darwin Darwin was bombed by the Japanese Imperial Navy on ...

in 1959.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Atkinson, Carl People from Darwin, Northern Territory Australian underwater divers 1985 deaths Year of birth missing Marine salvage