"An Old Kite Full Of Flight"
From the Melbourne Herald Sun, Saturday 22 February 2003

Australia is about to own the only whole Beaufort bomber in existence. Next month, the Australian War Memorial will unveil the resurrected bomber after a decade spent collecting thousands of parts scattered in jungles and swamps across the Pacific. The British-designed Beaufort is one of our most historically significant aircraft.

It was the principal bomber type used in the Pacific to beat back the Japanese and protect Australia's borders against attack.

It was also Australia's first venture in aircraft construction, employing 8500 people - a third of them women - in the war years.

"My first view of one was from the ground with its engines running and I thought it was a fierce looking beast," World War II pilot Alan Fraser recalled. The Beaufort bomber had a rough reputation, one which made the inexperienced 23-year-old airman's palms sweat as he took the controls.

It was hard to fly, went down in unexplained ways and was difficult to maintain. Or so he was told. "The Beaufort was the best aeroplane I flew operationally… it didn't seem to have any bad habits," Mr. Fraser said.
Australia built 700 Beauforts and lost half of them during the Pacific war. It was an efficient and successful machine but, as a twin-engined aircraft, it was obsolete as soon as the war ended. Beauforts dropped off the radar 50 years ago after they were sold off for farm machinery parts. The last known intact machine was destroyed in 1956.

"In a metal aeroplane, this is actually the most complicated project we've done," lead conservator John White, a Beaufort
enthusiast, said. Because little remains of the design plans, the team of aircraft mechanics and conservators had to start almost from scratch with only photos, old repair manuals, and advice and commonsense. The project was essentially a 10-year scavenger hunt for thousands of pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. To salvage parts, Mr. White had to wade through Papua New Guinea jungles and knock on farm doors across the country.

He found a stainless steel engine shroud poking out of a swamp In almost perfect condition, and begged a villager for a panel which his family used for a shower floor. A halved fuselage was used as a covered walkway. "They were a resource for the local people," Mr. White said. "Over the years, pieces have been taken away and turned into village huts and used for cooking baskets."
The War Memorial has carefully restored the bomber to look its age, history intact. The aluminium body Is sprayed with bullet holes. "Wipe your boots please" and "Have you wiped those boots yet?" are still clearly daubed in black paint around the small, arched entrance. The main sections are from a Beaufort with the serial number A9-557, which was only in operation for a year before it crash landed in January 1945.

Its last pilot was Lieutenant John "Jack" Fowler, who flew it on 33 missions and described it to his parents as "a beaut kite". It was attacked and crashed after a raid on an occupied Papuan village, careering off the runway. The crew survived, but one of the ground crew was killed. Tragically Lt Fowler and Flying Officers Waite, Shipman and Smith died on a mission two months later when a bomb prematurely exploded on release and ripped their aircraft to shreds.
Mr. White expects the Beaufort project to be the last big endeavor of its kind for the War Memorial.
A private collector in Brisbane, Ralph Cusack, will trump the War Memorial in a few years. He is working full-time to build the only flying Beaufort in the world and plans to take it to air shows.

The War Memorial successfully put together the main body parts of its Beaufort only a week ago. Lying around the Beaufort are crates of parts and scraps of metal. Four people are draped over its frame - the mechanics banging away with noisy tools and the conservators dotting barely there paint over the worst scratches. Another conservator bends over a wing part salvaged from a NSW farm, carefully cutting strips of linen with pinking shears borrowed from a colleague's mother. Mr. White collected some parts hoping they would belong in a Beaufort, and admits some are a mystery.

"We're still having problems with what's missing in certain areas because there's so little to go on," he said. "Even in yesterday's exercise, we fitted three parts of the aircraft we've never been able to fit before. All of the sudden a vacant area in the cockpit became a part with some steps and a skid panel."

The Beaufort will be moved to the Memorial's Anzac Hall In the first week of March, where it will become a permanent feature.