Seventy Years Ago Today An Ausssie Airliner Went Down. You've Not Heard Of It.

[sixtiesrelic]

Tin aeroplanes Kaye. Rag, bits of pipe and sticks were rebuilt all the time pre-war in New Guinea.

 

 

Here's W.T. Gray working on an engine while the wings of the crashed Moth are being rebuilt ... that's one of them on the drums behind him.

 

Fitters and turners were able to gain and engineers licence... I think it was a A license.

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

May 19th 1942 Tuesday.

 

Reports arrive at Johnstone’s desk in Melbourne.

 

 

 

The pilots won't give up till the aircraft is found.

 

 

[siznaudin]

Tin aeroplanes Kaye. Rag, bits of pipe and sticks were rebuilt all the time pre-war in New Guinea.

 

Here's W.T. Gray working on an engine while the wings of the crashed Moth are being rebuilt ... that's one of them on the drums behind him.

 

Fitters and turners were able to gain and engineers licence... I think it was a A license.

Any idea what the engine is Sixties? A Genet? - maybe from the Junkers Junior?

Refuel by the 4 gallon tin - that'd be a job for the "boys" I guess?

 

And I think the workshop facility is - er - excellent! Plenty of through-flow ventilation, I see.

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

No idea Siz.

 

He was working with Ray Parer's Pacific Air Transport at the time.

 

Ray had a Junkers W34 with an in line engine.

 

 

He also had the single engine great thumping lumbering Fokker which had landed up in a swamp. Maybe that engine is the one he's working on.

 

He could have been lending a hand to the blokes in Guinea Airways on one of their big round engines. He certainly was climbing the ladder, aiming for Guinea, via Strvenson's and Carpenters in quick jumps as he got more qualifications.

 

Busy today. I'll look up Wings of Gold later and see if I can sus out when that photo was taken.

 

 

[willedoo]

Any idea what the engine is Sixties? A Genet? - maybe from the Junkers Junior?

Looked up some photos, siz, and it sure looks like one. Although they're all taken from the other side of the engine, haven't found a photo taken from the same side as the one above as yet.

 

Cheers, Willie.

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

May 20th 1942

 

 

Still no news of a sighting.

 

on Johnstone's desk today:-

 

 

 

 

 

The appendix tomorrrow.

 

The wheels turned much slower then than now in the age of the internet.

 

 

[siznaudin]

Looked up some photos, siz, and it sure looks like one. Although they're all taken from the other side of the engine, haven't found a photo taken from the same side as the one above as yet.Cheers, Willie.

Here's a Genet Major, and I don't think I'm over-exaggerating in saying that it is basically a [ATTACH=full]1212[/ATTACH]

Genet with two more pots.

 

The Genet looks a likely contender, I'd say...

 

Tomorrow will make it a month since ADY "disappeared": Four b****y weeks!

 

[ATTACH]18200[/ATTACH]

 

 

 

[siznaudin]

Golbourn/Golburn Island mentioned in Sixties last post:- one of my early mudlog jobs was in the Arafura Sea on a jackup rig. We flew from Darwin in a light twin to G.I. then chopper out to the rig. Spectacular country in its own (non-New Guinea) way, but still not forced-landing friendly by any means.

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

I have no idea and it will take an hour of reading to perhaps find the date of the crash of the Gipsy, them see if I can find a round engined aeroplane down at the same time. Sadly, the man who would have a glance at the photo and told us died last year.

 

I'fll find the story I wrota about him and stick it up here some time.

 

 

[siznaudin]

I have no idea and it will take an hour of reading to perhaps find the date of the crash of the Gipsy, them see if I can find a round engined aeroplane down at the same time. Sadly, the man who would have a glance at the photo and told us died last year.I'fll find the story I wrota about him and stick it up here some time.

The Avian might be a possibility, but let's not digress any further from the story of ADY.

[ATTACH]1215[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH]18203[/ATTACH]

 

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

May 21st 1942

 

Telegrams and letters are arriving at DCA Melbourne.

 

 

This one is collect, so Doreen had to take three shillings with her to be able to pick it up from the post office.

 

 

 

 

 

[siznaudin]

How reassuring... "some flat country" ... in amongst the hills, gorges & gullies

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

May 22nd 1942

 

 

In the office of Guinea Airways at Parafield, Eric Chaseling and senior pilots like Oben Dowie, John Chapman, Ken Steele, Nobby Buckley and first officers like Charles Gray and Eric Kreig probably had a conversation like…

 

“How can a whopping great, shiny, silver, airliner disappear like this.”

 

 

“Even if it broke up, there would be reflections from all the pieces, surely!”

 

 

“Could it have landed in one of the larger lagoons and sunk? The water lilies and other surface plants could easily return to the area they were displaced from with all the rain disturbing the surface.”

 

 

“There’d have to be something sticking out above the surface… Wheel, wing… tail.”

 

 

“They could be covered in lilies they’d collectedwhild decelerating.”

 

 

“More than forty gallons of engine oil would be pretty evident. It would have killed the lilies by now.”

 

 

“What if DY flipped when the wheels dug in and she is upside down with the breathers in the mud. Maybe the oil wouldn’t rush out of the engine?”

 

There’s enough coating the wheel well to produce the rainbow effect on the water surface and the hydraulic oil would have seeped out.”

 

 

“I wonder if anyone HAS looked closely in the lagoons.”

 

 

“OK Eric, Why do we think they didn’t go down in the sea?”

 

 

“Landed by some lights! And they were over land except when they said we’ve come to the water.”

 

 

“Could the lights be a lugger?”

 

 

“There’d be a light trail from them, across the water.”

 

 

“Would you see that trail in heavy rain?”

 

 

“Yes and if they landed by a lugger, they’d have been picked up and word would have reached us by now.”

 

 

“What’s got me is the last call was received clearly by Katherine… They’re closer to Katherine than Darwin I reckon.”

 

 

“I would have turned north myself and tried for visual contact in that direction. East West bearings were doubtful… maybe north bearings would have been clearer. Bathurst and Melville islands are low so there’s no worry about hitting a hill and the water land contrast would give them a chance to find themselves along a coast line.”

 

 

“The first bearing they were given was wrong! Gordon didn’t believe it because he reckoned they were twenty five minutes south of Batchelor at the time. It was only when he got the third bearing that he started doubting his idea of where they were. After that he had NO idea where he was and had to fly to the scientific information.

 

At Prospect, Tess has ironed Charles' uniforms.

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

May 23rd 1942

 

 

Charlie returned to work today. Funnily he crewed Adelaide, Maree, Ooodnadatta then passengered to Darwin…. To be an observer on the Katherine to Darwin leg?

 

 

 

This page in the files is a bit of a mystery as it is over a month after ADY’s disappearance. The interesting thing is … That’s Charlie’s handwriting and it’s the aeroplane he was flying (from his log book).

 

It looks like he still got to be the Morse code sender on the latter legs… bit untidy and some boxes not filled in.

 

Another interesting thing is the number of messages that got “No reply” and the “Check sense” The DF doesn’t sound like a real dependable aid.

 

Many years later I heard the following story from an old well respected TAA captain.

 

“When I was a sproggy, wet behind the ears, junior, first officer, I was on a Channel Country DC-3 run. I’d made a hell of a mess of filling out the flight plan as we flew along. Mistakes written over and crossed out, etc.

 

I said to the captain, “I’m gunna cop it for this when they see it back in Brisbane.” (We had to hand back all the aircraft’s paperwork back then; flight plans, load sheets, load summaries etc.)

 

The captain said, “Give ‘s a look!”

 

I handed it to him; he perused it and opened the sliding side window. There was a suction at that window when it was opened and the old boy releases his grip on the plan and spl’tt … she flew out and was gone.

 

I bought him a beer on every overnight I ever saw him after that.

 

Three months later, I signed on for a flight and Charlie, who was the senior regional captain, saw me and said, “Wanna see you in my office!” (He was known as the abominable NOman back then).

 

I stood before him at attention with my cap under my arm as he went round and sat down behind his big wooden desk. He opened a drawer and withdrew a buff coloured envelope with the Australian coat of arms on it… a government envelope!

 

He pulled a much crinkled, faded, flight plan out of it and said, “What’s the meaning of THIS?”

 

It was THE plan.

 

Some Ringer out on a station had noted something unusual amongst the shrubs, dismounted from his horse and retrieved it.

 

‘It looked pretty official’ so he folded it, put it in his button down shirt pocket and kept it till he went into town next and handed it into the police.

 

They posted it to TAA.”

 

I had seen and had the above radio log identified recently and asked the old pilot for his email address. I was going to email him a copy to show him his boss’s handiwork when HE had been a sproggy F.O.

 

Being full of rum and coke when he told me his address I reckoned I’d remember it easy…

 

Forgot his name didn’t I. Remembered it was a hotmail address though.

 

 

[siznaudin]

What a wonderful story ... and here we are, still hanging on the edge of our seats - wondering whether the occupants from ADY are still alive!

 

 

[willedoo]

Well, what would be the odds on that flight plan showing up again. You just can't trust those Ringers.

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

May 24th 1942

 

 

Sunday.... No news!

 

 

Have you noticed that Sizanudin was counting the days for quite some time and then stopped?

 

That’s part of what happens to people waiting for news.

 

Hope at some time is overpowered by practicality. We realize that the chances of survival have to be remote and we settle down to prepare for the worst.

 

Deep down there is the feeling that we will let them down if ‘we give ‘em up for dead’. It’s sort of like being unfaithful… how will we feel if they turn up when we’ve gotten on with our lives? … GUILTY

 

This is the emotion millions felt, seventy years ago.

 

Those who got a telegram stating that the love one was ‘missing in action’ or ‘missing presumed killed’ had some direction to go… ‘get used to the idea’, but what about the Jews and people in remote villages in say, Russia, who were not going to ever get any word of their fighting men and women. They spent years in limbo ‘not knowing’.

 

Those awaiting news seventy years ago, knew that King lasted two and a half months on the Cooper after Burke and Wills died. King was starving and buggered when he started that wait, but he lived to tell the tale.

 

Lassiter of the golden quartz reef in the desert fame, lasted around sixty days in the desert after his camels bolted. ‘He was looked after by nomadic aborigines’.

 

Glancing through the newspapers of 1942, I saw a piece on the killing of a white man in the top end by Aboriginals. It mentioned that there were still nomads not so far from Darwin.

 

I went for a holiday to Darwin in 1958. We drove down the highway to Adelaide River one day. There were abandoned runways beside the road still in good repair… hardly a grass tuft growing or an ant hill poking up.

 

At one airstrip we stopped and were walking around having a bit of a look around when a young Aboriginal man wearing dirty tattered shorts quietly emerged from the scrub. He carried a couple of spears and didn’t take any notice of us, he was looking in the trees for his dinner. Shortly after, when he’d gotten a hundred yards on, his wife appeared. She was wearing a pretty shapeless cotton dress, had a large bundle on her head and carefully made her way through the long grass keeping quiet and glancing around her, probably for ‘women’s tucker’. They were ‘on walkabout’.

 

That was sixteen years after 1942.

 

Stories abound of survivors who lasted impossibly long times.

 

Sole survivors… why do they make it when everyone else perished? Is it because they don’t want to let the others down? They WILL survive, so they can tell people what happened to their companions who didn’t make it.

 

There are plenty of stories of them just refusing to give up.

 

Groups have the comfort of companionship. Each person can have a turn at being strong or dependent if they need it.

 

The strong ones have a responsibility and job to do that keeps them going and not sitting down to mope away in the doldrums. The injured know they have someone to help them and can keep suffering the pain because they’re not alone.

 

 

[siznaudin]

Anyone out there familiar with the loss of Sir John Franklin & the ongoing searches for him through the insistence & support of Lady Franklin?

 

She was one who wasn't prepared to give up ... but sadly, she was eventually to be sorely disappointed.

 

The Arctic, too, is a pretty harsh environment...

 

The ADY folk have had to have survived a forced landing in poor light in god knows what sort of terrain, and are now into their fifth week of survival.

 

The odds are starting to become pretty damn long.

 

 

[willedoo]

Reminds me of Bill Belcher, lost on Middleton Reef in the Trans Tasman. Everyone had given him up for dead except his wife, she said he was a tough old bloke & was probably floating around out there somewhere. Sure enough, after a month at sea in a life raft, he showed up off Fraser Island. From memory, he was in pretty good nick, too.

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

'Little Ann' emailed me this:-

 

Thursday morning

 

Hello

 

I do not know if you are aware of this

 

On Nov. 10, 1942, the C-47 nicknamed The Flying Dutchman (S/N 41-18564) hit a strong down-draft over the Owen Stanley Range while carrying U.S. Army troops from Port Moresby to Pongani, New Guinea. It crashed into the side of Mount Obree, killing seven of the 23 onboard and destroying most of the food it carried. Of the 16 survivors, eight received serious injuries and burns.

 

Some of the survivors were able to walk out, but they were unable to give advice for rescuers to find their way back to the site see

 

http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=15377

 

When TJ and David were little boys, Joe and I took them to that museum (National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, just east of Dayton Ohio)

 

I shall never forget the horror I felt when I came to this particular part of the museum - have a look at the writing on the door in one of those photos, and the text of the writing. In the museum is that actual door.

 

Aerial reconnaissance missions flew over the general crash area without success, but eighteen months later, in July 1944, the crash site was discovered. A rescue party went to the location, only to find the eight crash survivors dead.

 

 

Ironically, searchers looking for another downed airplane rediscovered The Flying Dutchman in 1967, and they found this door. The notes written on it reveal the tragic hopes of those who had been waiting for a rescue that came too late. The last entry was made on Jan. 1, 1943, and what happened afterward and how long the last man lived will probably never be known.

 

 

[siznaudin]

An amazing story: immediately makes me think of the Stinson & Bernard O'Reilly, not to mention the crash of the F27 in the Andes & the subsequent ordeal.

 

Then there's Bill Lancaster too ( http://www.historynet.com/bill-lancaster-lost-in-the-sahara-after-attempting-to-break-the-england-cape-town-flight-speed-record.htm )

 

There are so many such stories ...

 

 

[willedoo]

Amazing how some downed aircraft in rough country remain concealed & unable to be spotted for so many years. I've tried googling the US C-47 that went missing in NQ during the war, but no luck. Had some high ranking personell on board & was found in the 90's I think, on a station near Charters Towers, my memory might not be that accurate.

 

There were all sorts of rumours of gold cargoes, military secrets etc. There wasn't much press; it was found, the US officials flew out here, took over & nothing more was heard of it.

 

Makes you wonder how a wreck could be on a cattle property all those years & not be spotted. Must have been down in a gorge in some back country that rarely ran cattle & never got mustered. Perhaps no water or grass, so no-one went there.

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

May 25th 1942

 

Old Mr Gray wasn’t happy with the calling off of the search, yet even the famous aviators weren’t searched for over an extra long period.

 

I’d say he was getting no joy from the management of Guinea Airways, so he went over their heads and went straight to the Director General of The Department of Civil Aviation.

 

 

I find it interesting that he refers to Nobby Buckley as just Buckley and no title like 'captain'. For those days it sounds rather disrespectful, especially when Nobby was on his side.

 

Searches I have found:-

 

Steve Fossett 17 days and his wife paid for more.

 

Amy Johnston 5 Jan 1941 drowned. (A claim arose in 1996 by the bloke wot done it, that she was shot down by friendly fire and on it being discovered, the officers decided they had better keep it a secret).

 

Hawaiian Clipper Jul 1938 8 days.

 

Amelia Earhadt 16 days.

 

Kingsford Smith 12 days coffee royal and not sure how long for the Lady Southern Cross.

 

Keith Anderson in the Kookaburra 11 days.

 

 

Obviously DCA wasn’t too tight with the money they would shell out even though Mr Corbett the DG, didn’t think the pilots were right in their guessing the forced landing site and it would be another wild goose chase.

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

May 26th 1942

 

Nil Sighting of ADY

 

Aviation was much smaller back in 1942. Most people in the industry knew each other.

 

Edgar Johnstone knows Gordon Cameron. They were both in the Air Force, so the friendship could go back for years.

 

Ed has to discover why Gordon got lost. He wouldn’t really enjoy searching through a friend’s dirty laundry. Crashes are mostly attributed to the pilot in command.

 

 

I’m not sure if today’s pilot group has the same respect for ‘its betters’ as we older ones had. I suspect the majority does, after all, we want to excel and when we look at those who are real aces, we hope to emulate them or despair of ever becoming THAT good.

 

People say they soar like eagles.

 

I don’t like eagles… cruel hunters, patrolling for a kill. Flying like an eagle is how I view fighter pilots. They all can really fly as only the cream gets to that position, but their job is hunting.

 

I admire the albatross for his flying ability…effortless and majestic.

 

I’ve flown with pilots who fly like the albatross. They didn’t bully, berate or discount the fumbling student or first officer who is struggling to get on top of his flying. They pointed out how another way may be better. They were a joy to fly with and we would do our best to not stuff up.

 

 

There was another type (in a great minority thank God) who flew perfectly but couldn’t understand another’s imperfection and made it hard the whole flight. They watched and judged. They treated the F O as a total idiot, not worth trusting and the F O in his nervousness stuffed up over and over proving the old bastard was right.

 

There was one captain, in a hot country I’ve lived in, who no one enjoyed flying with. The saying went, when a First Officer emerged from an aeroplane with the back of his shirt sopping wet from sweat, “Been flying with Jones!”

 

If he staggered from the steps with the front of his shirt wet as well… “Been checked by Jones.”

 

 

The albatrosses who flew so perfectly, could show little lapses on back of the clock flights. Three or four in the morning when they were tired they lost their edge and sometimes made little mistakes.

 

 

What about the pilots who had flown for months on end way above the safe maximum hours, they must have not been perfect all the time.

 

Charlie flew 60:40 in the month of May 1942 and he had nineteen days off.

 

Add the fact that Cameron and W.T. Gray had been operating for over twelve hours when the first hole in the cheese appeared and fifteen hours when they broke the wireless set.

 

 

Looking at Cameron’s photo, I’m not sure about him. He has the look of stern management pilots I’ve known. They brook no mistakes… they have the reputation of the airline to uphold.

 

He was a chief pilot. They have to be very good. They have to be tough too.

 

Often they have enemies. Slack Jack doesn’t like a C P who sees his carelessness and perhaps tells him to ‘lift his game’. Slack Jack is happy just getting through and not striving too hard, he never gets very high up the ladder and is contented being out of sight.

 

 

Management pilots sometimes suffer each other, because they don’t completely agree with all the other bloke’s ideas or methods. Both are right, they just go about things slightly differently. I wonder if this might not have been the case in GAL.

 

 

Whatever people’s opinion was, everybody would all be feeling bad about and for the lost aircraft’s complement.

 

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

May 27th 1942

 

Doreen placed this telegram on Mr Johnstone’s desk today.

 

 

Smith is one of Guinea Airway’s directors.