| HOLBROOK - NEW SOUTH WALES - 2644 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Population: 1,500, Height above sea level: 260m Latitude: 35.4326 Longitude: 147.1849 Location: 495km south west of Sydney Highway: Hume Hwy (1) Nearest Major Town: Sydney 500 NE. Nearest Airport: Albury Touring Area: Riverina and The Murray |
 |
 Submarine in the main street | |
 | ||||
|
Small town on the Hume Highway netween Albury and Gundagai. A full size replica of the submarine "HMS B11" is in a park in the main street. One of the few towns between Melbourne and Sydney along the Hume Highway which has not been by-passed. There is a decommissioned submarine, the "HMAS Otway", in a park on the main highway which remembers Lieutenant Norman Holbrook VC, an English naval man who, in 1914, guided the British 'B' Class submarine 'HMS B11' below a mine field in the Dardanelles to torpedo a Turkish the battleship "Messudiyeh". At this time Holbrook was named 'Germanton' and the Great War against Germany caused the town to be renamed. Holbrook's heroic deeds were in the news and he was awarded both the Victoria Cross and the French Legion of Honour for his bravery, so the town was renamed in his honour. The only town in Australia named after a VC winner. Holbrook was born at Southsea, Hampshire in 1888 and died in Midhurst, Sussex in July 1976. an information sheet describing his heroic deed is available at the information centre in the park surrounding the submarine. The first settler in the area was a German born shepherd, Johann Pabst who arrived in Australia in 1825 to work for Macarthur's Australian Agricultural Company. With his wife and two daughters he arrived in 1838 and later became the licensee of the Woolpack Inn on the southern bank of 10 Mile Creek. The 'grog shop' became known as 'the German's' and in 1858 the settlement was officially named Germanton. PLACES OF INTEREST:
| |||||||||
