Christmas 2000 seems as good a time as any to recall the events of Christmas 1945. The war was over (except for some odd bods to whom the message had not yet filtered through), so, with an election in the offing, it seemed an appropriate time for our politicians to emerge from their bunkers in the wilds of Melbourne and exhibit their solidarity with the fighting forces of Australia, by spending Christmas with them.
So it was that the Prime Minister, Joseph Benedict Chifley, set forth on his momentous adventure into the uncharted wildernesses of the Pacific Islands to pay homage to the proletariat which had saved him and his brethren from fates worse than death. How extensive was this journey could be gauged by the itinerary, which took in Port Moresby, Bougainville, Rabaul and Wewak in three days.
Scene Piva North (Bougainville) Christmas 1945 (The 5 star accommodation of No 10 Local Air Supply Unit air conditioned mosquito nets).
Time 0400 local black as the inside of a cow's guts.
Enter the guard: "Sir, wake up. You and your crew are required for duty.
Me: 'Why me?"
Guard: "You don't drink, sir. You're the only sober pilot in the Unit. They need someone to take the Prime Minister to Rabaul. The cooks are arranging breakfast, beans I think!"
Now, I have to tell you about Bougainville beans for breakfast.
Rabaul has no facilities. Three thousand feet of strip approach over the top of an active volcano the other end of the strip muddy and uphill. No control tower, no fuel, no maintenance, no water and no DUNNY!
So for a courier run to Rabaul, what do they give you for breakfast at Piva?
Beans! Twice now, after a breakfast of beans, I've been caught short halfway between Piva and Lakunai (that's the only 11 serviceable" strip at Rabaul. If you look at your atlas, you'll see that the point of no return is about the middle of the Solomon Sea and 120 nautical miles from the nearest dunny at Jacquinot Bay).
The Beaufort had an Elsan down the back, but that wasn't much help if your navigator couldn't fly (the Beaufort had no autopilot and was not renowned for stability). What a way to go vertically into the Solomon Sea with half a load of partly processed beans still waiting to get out into the atmosphere.
When I said that there was no dunny at Rabaul, it was not the exact truth. There were 2 Elsans reposing in the rear ends of 2 Beauforts which were no longer regarded as serviceable. One was Homer Dibden's Mark 9 (formerly the property of No 10 Local Air Supply Unit, Piva North, Bougainville) which reposed on the north end of the strip. It appears that Homer had, somewhat unwisely, decided to land into the north which involved clearing the muddy hill on the south end and landing downhill on wet grass. At a very late stage, Homer discovered that there were slit trenches in the grass at the far end. Oh dear me!
However, for all practical purposes, the remains might just as well not have been there because of the distance to be covered.
Fortunately, the wreck of Maury Atkinson's aborted take off was still within running distance of the very limited parking area about halfway along the strip. Maury's was one of the old fashioned bomber versions operated by No. 8 Communications Flight at Madang. Maury's take off had been described as "spectacular" by disinterested observers who suddenly found themselves beset by pieces of flying undercarriage. The aircraft was obviously fairly robust, because the rest of it remained recognisable and retained enough sideways momentum to leap the drain at the side of the strip and thus avoid a major runway clearance problem.
So the Elsan remained intact and there were still a few pages left of the "Women's Weekly". What a marvellous publication that was nice soft paper fold it into four and tear it carefully. The difference between winning and losing the war. (The Japs would never have understood).
Oh well, take on another load of beans and get down to the strip for briefing. All of the preceding waffle was just a bit of background.
On the way to the cookhouse after having shaved and showered (yes, we did have cold running water), and put on some attire, I was aware of a corpse like "thing" in the darkness. It was loosely contained in a canvas chair and I remember thinking that I had never before understood or appreciated the term "dead to the world".
Well, at that stage of our young lives all of 20 years old we were really errand boys. Other people organised things and we did roughly what we were told roughly. So after taking on our bean ration, we were picked up by the guard vehicle and taken to the Operations hut. Somebody must have woken Keith Herriott, because he was there with a hurricane lamp to give us a briefing.
He told us that during the night, the Prime Minister's aircraft had been sabotaged and that we were required to take him (the Prime Minister, not Keith) to Rabaul. An aircraft was being prepared, and we were to take it down to 5 TMO (the Transportation & Movement Office) and await further instructions.
So off again in the guard vehicle to the dispersal area (thank heaven the guard knew the way it was still black as a cows guts), find the ground crew, do the paperwork, crank up the aircraft and taxi cautiously to TMO. By this time, dawn was coming up "like thunder out of China crost the bay".
On the way to TMO, we passed the AOC's (that's military talk for "Air Officer Commanding") Beaufighter parked in one of the dispersal bays, so assumed that what we had been told was fact and that the Prime Minister had really been there.
The aircraft allotted to us for this epic journey was on of the Unit's Beaufort Mark 9s (alias "Beaufort Transport" alias "Beaufreighter" a term which was verboten!). After A9 700 had been completed, some of the older Beauforts were fed back through the factory for refurbishment. In the process, the turret was removed, the rear fuselage faired over the gap and 4 seats fitted where the turret used to be. A9 744 was one of these. It was much faster than the bomber and cruised about as fast as a Beaufighter. All in all, not a bad aeroplane for its time.
Another bit of completely useless information which you don't need to know is that the Transportation and Movement Officer was also known as the TMO. In this particular case of No.5 TMO, the TMO was one Mervyn Lawrence Sheehan, alias Mick a Wireless Air Gunner of considerable skill who had been purloined from my crew at a previous unit on some pretext which did not stand up to serious investigation, leaving me with a hapless individual who managed to ensure that every radio in the aircraft was unserviceable before we got the wheels up.
Enough of these asides, back to the story.....
Having parked opposite TMO in the early morning light, we could see a silver Gooneybird parked alongside the hut but reclining rather sadly in the direction of the port wingtip as if yesterday's efforts had been just too much.
We decanted from the "Beaufreighter" and met TMO who had observed our coming and marched out across the taxiway in our direction.
Mick: "G'day sport!" (Mick had a bit of a gift in his ability to get the maximum out of the English language).
Me: "G'day Mick what's going on?"
Mick: "Werrrri, looks like somebody got at the Prime Minister's aeroplane. When I come down early to do the paperwork, I noticed the port tyre was flat so I called the duty crew and then they discovered some plug leads hanging off and when they started on the fuel drains, it came out yellow, it appears that somebody put Atebrin in the fuel tanks."
"They don't know what else has been done to the aeroplane, they're going to try and fix it but if it doesn't work, you are going to have to take Ben and his mates to Rabaul. In the meantime, I've got to go and find a compressor to pump up the tyres."
Me: "Thanks Mick. Anyway, why didn't they put a guard on the aeroplane if it was so important?"
Mick: "They did mate. He's still there. They told the guards to look after the silver aeroplane and they did. It just so happened that the only other silver aeroplane north of Australia was the AOC's silver Beaufighter and that was the first aircraft they came to in the abysmal blackness of the dispersal area. just keep an eye on what's going on and I'll keep you posted."
Me: "Thanks mate!"
Well to attenuate what might otherwise have been a short story, the numbers of troops seen to be milling around the Gooneybird gradually dwindled, whether through the normal heat of the morning or just plain boredom is not for me to say. At some stage, a very noisy piece of equipment appeared and was towed to the vicinity of the port undercarriage and after a considerable delay, the wings of the Gooney returned to the horizontal.
(By way of explanation, I might add that TMO alias Mick was not only a crash hot WAG (wireless air gunner) but, before re-muster, had been a Fitter 11E or in other words an engine fitter). Obviously, they got the right bloke for the job; it must have been the first time in the history of the RAAF
Then followed the normal lapse of time for the pre flight checks to be done, the paperwork entered up and the flight crew to appear on centre stage. (I wonder who they were.)
Again after due passage of time, the engines were cranked up, the aircraft disappeared around the corner and was observed to make a very sedate circuit of the strip; it then returned to the position which it had vacated some minutes previously and shut down.
Further passage of time. Then enter TMO again from left stage:
Mick: "Looks like its serviceable sport, so you won't be needed. You con go back and finish your kip."
Me: "Good o sport, see you later!"
So, crank up the engines, taxi back to dispersal past Wally's silver Beaufighter with the guard on it and put the "Beaufreighter" back to rest for another couple of days. (You have to say this for the guards, they get their priorities right).
On the way back to the tent, I passed the corpse like "thing" loosely contained by a canvas chair in broad daylight and observed that some 4 hours previously, it had been there but since then had rotated through some 90 degrees. Presumably, one of those extraordinary metaphysical characteristics of the tropics not normally witnessed by ordinary mortals.
So get out of the jungle greens, dive under the mosquito net and start on the recovery cycle, thinking "you blew it that time Ben. Just think, you could have looked forward to telling your grandchildren that you flew in a Beaufreighter with Looie the Lollywater Lapper (the only sober pilot in the R.AAF at Christmas 1945) from Bougainville to Rabaul sic transit Gloria".
I wonder what they gave them for breakfast? Hell, why did I have to think of that? Sorry, got to go, see you later!
Looie
P.S. The journalist of the Courier Mail reported (and I'm quoting from memory now): "To demonstrate the airworthiness of the Prime Minister's aircraft, the pilot took off and performed aerobatics over the Torokina airstrip".
Do I need to comment on this? We know that the media presents only the truth. I did not observe any stress tests being carried out after the aerobatics, nor did I get a chance to talk to anybody at Torokina who may have witnessed this spectacle.
From Brisbane "Courier Mail" 26th December, 1945