Booya was a steel-hulled three-masted schooner with an auxiliary oil engine built in the Netherlands in 1917 and originally named De Lauwers.

Nearly twenty-nine years later, in October 2003, she was discovered by chance in Darwin Harbour, lying on her starboard side in about 20 metres of water.

In November 1942, the Commonwealth Government requisitioned Argosy Lemal and she played an important role in the US Army Small Ships Section, functioning as a radio communication vessel in the Arafura and Timor Seas during World War II.

The SWPA chief signal officer, General Spencer B. Akin, created a small fleet that served as relay ships from forward areas to headquarters.

Their function and number soon expanded when they took aboard the forward command post communications facilities as the Army's CP fleet.

He and six other enlisted men of that unit were ordered aboard her on 9 September 1943, at Oro Bay, New Guinea, to handle Army radio traffic.

As a consequence, during a trip in the spring of 1944 from Milne Bay to Cairns, Australia (on naval orders), the crew failed to hear frantic Signal Corps radio messages to Argosy Lemal ordering her to return at once to Milne Bay to make ready for a forthcoming Army operation.

Much later, too late for the need the Signal Corps had for the ship, the Argosy Lemal was rescued and towed to Port Moresby for repairs to the vessel and medical attention to the crew, many of whom were by then, according to Dunning, "psycho-neurotic."

"She was the sixth vessel," he wrote, "to be taken over by the Small Ships Section of the U.S. Army, her primary purpose was handling [radio] traffic between forward areas and the main USASOS headquarters.

The Ametco sank at Low Wooded Island off the Queensland coast, but was salvaged in poor condition, and taken to Melbourne for repairs.

[9] She was used as a mother ship and fuel supply vessel for the Northern prawn fleets, but became laid up in 1965/66 until she was sold again in 1968 (some sources say 1971) to the Denham Island Transport Company, trading cargo mainly between Dili and Darwin.

[10] For the next 29 years she remained missing, presumed sunk with the loss of all lives in the huge seas whipped up by Cyclone Tracy's 300 km/h winds.

[4] On 22 October 2003, divers discovered the wreck by chance in Darwin Harbour, lying on her starboard side in about 20 metres of water, five nautical miles (9 km) from shore.