Exmouth, Western Australia: History
In 1618, Dutch East India Company ship Mauritius, under command of Willem Janszoon, landed near North West Cape, just proximate to what would be Exmouth, and named Willem's River, which was later renamed Ashburton River.
The location was first used as a military base in World War II. US Admiral James F. Calvert in his memoir, Silent Running: My Years on a World War II Attack Submarine, and US Vice Admiral Charles A. Lockwood in Sink 'Em All, his narrative of Allied submarine warfare, describe its history. After the retreat from Java in March 1942, Allied naval forces required a forward base for replenishing submarines, then the sole form of offensive warfare against the Japanese. Both Darwin, and Broome, were too exposed to air attack, so a 500-ton unmotorized lighter was placed as a refueling barge near the mouth of Exmouth Gulf, where the Allies were already maintaining a seaplane tender.
Code-named "Potshot", the spartan base was also developed as a submarine advanced base and rest camp using the tender USS Pelias. An airfield (now RAAF Learmonth) was constructed to provide fighter defense for the base. Z Special Unit used Potshot as a staging base for Operation Jaywick, a raid on Japanese shipping in Singapore Harbour, in September 1943.
Writing of a fishing trip which he undertook in Exmouth with politician Bob Hawke, British businessman Alistair McAlpine (1942–2014), wrote of the town in his memoir:
Exmouth is on a bleak peninsula of land halway up the western Australian coast. I say 'bleak' because not many people live there and certainly no Aboriginals for they believe the land to be cursed. They may be right for when the volcano Krakatoa exploded over a century ago, Exmouth was submerged by the resulting tidal wave. Regenerated by the need for an American Air Force base and its contingent airfield, Exmouth acquired a number of brick homes and a reputation for having the best fishing in Australia. The Australian tourist industry ignored this place for many years, but then the Australian tourist industry had for many years ignored tourists.
In 2008, an emergency landing of the flight Qantas 72 was made at the nearby Learmonth Airport / RAAF Base Learmonth. The A330 had an incident involving the ADIRU which confused AoA (Angle of Attack) data with altitude data, making the plane think it was in a 16° pitch up when it was flying level. So the protection measures on the plane forced a 16° pitch down twice and brought negative G-forces on all passengers and it made them float for about 15 seconds. There were no deaths, but 1 crew member and 11 passengers suffered serious injuries.