A HALF-FINISHED model of HMS Amphion, started in the 1930s, has become a centrepiece in the newly opened HMAS Perth (I) Memorial on Riverside Road, East Fremantle.

HMS Amphion was renamed HMAS Perth (I) and commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy in 1939. 

She was involved in many actions before being sunk by the Japanese at the Battle of Sunda Strait in March 1942.

The unfinished model was discovered by accident by retired navy commander Bob Mummery, a member of the HMAS Perth (I) Memorial Foundation, during a chance visit to a museum in Wales in 2023. 

• Model maker Alan Hawkins, right, assisted by Gerry Westernberg study the plans associated with the newly arrived partly completed model of Amphion.

The model was deemed “surplus to requirement” and was available to the HMAS Perth (I) Memorial if the foundation could find a way of shipping it to Fremantle.

Enter the Lions Club International.

The local Lions clubs of Western Australia decided to take on the recovery and repair of the model as a project, and to that end, raised $7000 to bring it to WA.” 

Lions members in the UK built a crate for the delicate piece before it was air-freighted to Fremantle.

Once in Perth, the model was handed to Alan Hawkins, a model maker and past president of Lions here in Western Australia. 

Over the next year Alan slowly brought the Amphion back to ‘“ship-shape condition”.

The 1.8-metre-long model was then mounted on a new base and protected with an acrylic cover.

On October 7, Mr Hawkins delivered the finished project to the memorial, where it was accepted by foundation chair Mike Bailey.

It now sits in pride of place within the memorial and provides a direct link to the origins of the wonderful ship that she became, HMAS Perth (I),.

Foundation chairman Mike Bailey said the Foundation was “grateful to the Lions clubs of WA and in particular to Alan Hawkins for his incredible work in completing the model started 90 years ago”.

by DAVID NICOLSON