A REPLICA submarine with a link to the Holbrook story will be built soon, thanks to a substantial federal grant.
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The model will be about 90 per cent of the size of the original HMAS AE2, although just the submarine’s mid-section will be built.
The $32,450 ANZAC Centenary grant has been made to the Holbrook Submarine Museum and Holbrook RSL.
Museum curator Roger Cooper was “over the moon” at news of the grant, part of $125,000 that Farrer MP Sussan Ley said had been made available in her electorate.
“The grant was really just perfect timing for this sort of project with the centenary of the Gallipoli landings,” Mr Cooper said.
The AE2 replica will be placed near the HMAS Otway.
Holbrook is named after the submariner and Victoria Cross recipient Norman Douglas Holbrook.
“When I took over the curatorship of the museum I had a suspicion that Norman Holbrook and (Henry) “Dacre” Stoker, who was the captain of the HMAS AE2, were friends,” Mr Cooper said.
“I’d never seen any pictures of them together or anything about it.”
With that, Mr Cooper began an investigation to try to confirm the link.
It was while entering some information onto the museum’s database he came across a photograph of Holbrook and Lieutenant Commander Stoker arm-in-arm.
“After doing some research I found they were actually training together and became good mates,” he said.
That is what got him started on the project to have a replica AE2 built in Holbrook.
The original AE2 was lost in action off the coast of Turkey on April 30, 1915.
Mr Cooper is also a member of the AE2 Foundation, which recently did a dive on the submarine.
“The foundation also built a large metal replica of the centre section of the AE2 and sank it into Corio Bay in Port Phillip, and has divers practising on that and using robotic cameras to go inside,” he said.
Mr Cooper said the museum did a lot of work with school children.
“I’ve made a small AE2 display for them of the whole history, including photographs, of what went on,” he said.
“This replica we construct really will be icing on the cake for those children’s tours and for other people coming through the town to learn the history of one of our first submarines.”
Mr Cooper said he had already sat down with Holbrook’s Nifty Engineering to discuss the project.
“They’ve done lots of work for us and they do an excellent job,” he said.
“We’ve done preliminary plans and it’s all ready to go, but we’re just waiting to have the money in the bank.
“And also, the RSL has promised some money, as has the Australian Submarine Association.”
Mr Cooper said once that money was pooled a start would be made.
It will not be ready for the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings.
