sixtiesrelic

Who else hasn't peeked?

y're a strong man Siz. You are getting the feel better than those who googled.

A question was put to me by 'Little Ann' about the uniforms above. They are the 1939 to sometime after the war, Guinea Airways, pilot uniforms. Old Mr Gray's grandson, Bill, is staying with us at present, so I am able to run many things past him. He brought up the thought, was that ALL the GAL pilots. We decided, there must be at least the same number away flying when the photo was taken. The name William was passed down the generations. It can get confusing which ill' I am going to cover the above a bit, later when we have no information on where ADY is and we wait for something to come up. This story, if we continue on with the actual day seventy years after the facts, is going to unfold for months.

Monday 4th May Eric Chasling has been conducting the company investigation and has uncovered an omission. It could be something. The RAAF omitted to pass a signal over to the civies at DCA on the night. Coast watcher Father Docherty, radioed in a report to naval signals at Darwin, that a twin engine, twin tail aircraft circled his Port Keats Mission for fifteen minutes between 1920 and 1935 CST before heading off in a north easterly direction. Some cove in the RAAF either didn’t think it was important or overlooked it. It was the war. Perhaps he was fatigued or perhaps he was another ‘Captain Mainwaring’ who made decisions on what is and isn’t important. ‘Captain Mainwaring’ isn’t a figment of a comedy writer’s imagination. He’s real and here with us. These days our government has made all sorts of regulations that have attracted the Mainwarings to the honeypot. It’s a bit like the government issued an edict that every workplace must have a special, ‘big electro magnet’ thing installed and when the electricity is connected it attracts that ‘certain type’. They even gave the thing a couple of names … ‘Occupational Health and Safety’ and ‘Equity and Diversity’. The Captain Mainwaring of the world are all immediately sucked onto it and begin throbbing with enthusiastic fervour. At least we know where they are but, boy oh boy! Would they be allowed to incorporate their safety measures in their own homes? HAA! Wives wouldn’t allow them. Chaseling was probably pretty thorough in his investigating, G.A. had already had two Electras make holes in the earth’s surface and I guess he would be aware of DCA’s and the other airline’s interest in their operation. The last time we looked in the archives, one folder of files was still on the secret list and funnily, another had somehow been lost, so the whole story can’t be told with certainty. This photo was taken in 1938 and is in the National Library. Harry Cook was the Chief Pilot and Chaseling with the interesting Naval style ring on his sleeve was the Operations manager. The three with the cross beside them died in the crash of VH-ABI at Katherine 18th Jan 1939. Next report Sunday 7 PM

A question I asked too Siz. Old Mr Gray was a pretty strong willed sort of bloke and would have bulldozed his way to where he wanted to go. The grandsons looked at the question and worked out that he would have stayed with Charlie till a seat was available on the Darwin flight. Charlie had comassionate leave. His son remembers the story of that happening. His logbook verifies this ... no flying from 4th to 23 May. Mr and Mrs Gray got compasionate grounds for the flight... a bit of who you know. Military passengers got priority on civilian flights and any spare seats were available for civilians Grandson Bill still has the post card, somewhere in his memoroebelia, that his grand mother posted from Darwin. Bill's father was the eighteen year old son who didn't like having to help with his nephew and neice while his parents were away. AND from 'little Ann' who lives in the USA, you have this reply... What he is missing is (a) it probably cost a lot more to fly than to take the train, and I've a vague memory of some member of the family telling me that Mother sold some of my dad's clothes because she needed the money, and that some of the Grays were angry that she had done that. (b) my mother might not have had very much money, I've no idea who paid for the train travel for the three of us, from Adelaide to Melbourne to Sydney (with that change of trains at Albury, of course, with the different gauges of State railway lines, and have they ever changed that? if so, when? One still had to change trains at Albury around 1961, the last time I took the train between Melbourne and Sydney.). © there probably were things like the pram (and maybe also the bike? but I think not the bike maybe she sold that, she bought a Malvern Star around 1952 that I had to share with Lyn) that had to go with us on the journey, and all our clothes. Was the system of <<clothing coupons>> in effect in Australia? Photos of me show me wearing what looks like maybe my 4-years-older cousin Robert's woolen pullovers and long socks. When we came down from New Guinea in around September 1940, I surely wouldn't have had any warm clothes. I know that clothes coupons went on in England even after WW2. Queen Elizabeth married in 1947. "With food and clothing still being rationed in postwar Britain," states one web site, and I think I've read that people from all over the UK sent clothing coupons to her as gifts prior to her wedding to Prince Philip. And I remember that food coupons were still in existence in Sydney around 1945 or 1946 because I remember that I LOST a butter coupon en route to the store one day, to my mother's great dismay, because without a coupon one couldn't buy butter.

May 03 1942 Sunday lunch at Prospect, a suburb in Adelaide. Tess has cooked a roast and Hilda has come over for lunch with the children. Hilda has decided to await the news in Sydney in the bosom of her family rather than Adelaide where she has no roots. The trip in wartime will be arduous because she will have the lowest priority for the two days of train travel. Tess is unhappy. She has no serviettes and serviette rings to put on the table. They were last heard to be on the wharf at Salamaua in boxes in readiness to be shipped to Australia. “I decided to send my wedding presents and wonderful carved wooden boxes and cluster table I’d bought at the Chow’s trade store in Lae when I got here, home to Sydney when the Nips looked like coming here. Of course they’ve probably been bombed … wouldn’t matter really where they were, Salamaua or Wau they’ll be gone. ” The news this week mentioned heavy allied raids on Lae. The conversation turned to their homes and housebois and what has happened to them. The photo album Charlie managed to bring down with him when he left, came out and happier times in Salamaua and Wau were mulled over to avoid the worry of Bill. Memeories (which are in colour not black and white) of days at Salamaua and the soccer matches on Salamaua airfield ... the carnival and sports day on the Lae strip. Bill watching a Bioi working the gold lease the Grays held. Salamaua isthmus. The house boys coming back from the Lae market for the missis. There were other reminiscences like, “I remember when our houseboy came to us with the label from a tin and asked what the word said. We told him and he repeated, “Gara-sin”, he was going to name his newborn son that.” Gara-sin's dad outside the Grays house in Lae The next time the patrol officer visited the village on a census visit, he asked if there were any new piccaninnies to add to ‘the book’ and the proud parents said they had one. “Wanem name you call ‘im?” They produced the much wrinkled label and showed him it saying, “Em I name bilong piccanni here.” So Gara-sin was known to the white men who read his name as Kerosene. He would be a very old man now if he was still alive. The Lae carnival ... the Missis foot race. Greasy pole ... get the coconut on top. In Sydney, Old mister Gray has decided HE is going to Darwin to make sure everything possible is being done to find his son. He’s taken cuttings from the paper and will book his passage tomorrow. Doreen went to confession again last night and Mass this morning as she does every week. Last week? The Sailor? Oh HE wasn’t a gentleman and had ulterior motives using the stockings as bait. He got a slap across the face … It was a beauty, in the style of Bette Davis or Barbara Stanwyck in the pictures. Girls modelled themselves on the film stars they saw at the pictures. Movies in those days had all the blokes wearing hats and shouting at each other in rapid fire conversation. They punched other blokes. The women tended to sort of talk in hic-upping sobs, wore beautiful gowns, cried a lot and slapped men’s faces. 8 PM tomorrow nioght.....

MAY 02 1942 The search has wound down although Captain Eric Chaseling, the operations manager, has been in Darwin since the twenty-ninth organising the company search from there and interviewing those who were involved on the twenty-first . The Guinea airways, Ansett and any other civilian pilots are making zig-zag legs on their way over the possible area and peeling their eyes. The boys from the forty ninth are looking any time they go up, but it’s a mystery. The investigation is ramping up in aviation house. Melbourne Doreen had more papers to put in the ADY file. She now knows that ADY is an aeroplane and has started reading some that are understandable. It was later noted that Doreen hadn’t been paying attention to detail when given the job of collecting and filing today’s files… Miss Oldmaid would be keeping an eye on HER work from now on. “Young pretty things with no brains…” Captain John Chapman had begun to clear Cameron’s desk. This experience and perhaps his wearing spectacles all the time caught up with him because he would start as the operations manager with the newly formed Trans Australian Airlines in 1946 and remain desk bound in that position. Many Guinea Airways employees would leave to join the fledgling government airline in forty six. Tomorrow night same time...

!st May 2012 One of the readers following this story each day, is little Anne who had her photo taken in front of Hilda’s bicycle before she went to school (Hilda’s Letter 22 April) and sadly, today her little sister Lyn’s memorial service was held. She died unexpectedly on the 21st of April 2012, a few hours short of seventy years after her father’s crash. Ann and Lyn have been a font of information in the gathering of the facts and photos for this story.

01 May1942 Lofty got mail today; second time in a fortnight. The first was a, “Happy birthday in advance for April the 24th. (I don’t know when this letter will reach you)”. She enclosed a half share in a lottery ticket . His mum has sent him a cutting from the paper with the results of the lottery. His sister Alice, had felt lucky for him because she saw, when she was buying the ticket, that a few tickets lower in the book was the ticket number that was his birth date. He was born in 1915. Alice and his mum reckoned it was an omen. There was a story in the paper about an American serviceman winning a big prize in the lottery. Some readers thought “How wonderful for him”. Others thought, “Why should HE win … newcomer! I buy a share every week and I’ve never won anything!” We have been led to believe that everyone was pulling for the war effort and no one knew about the bombing of Darwin at the time, but reading the newspapers of the day shows up quite a different story. Things seem to be much the same as today. Half the population was doing the ‘right thing’ and the other half couldn’t give a bugger. It’s reminiscent of the great water saving exercise of a couple of years ago when people had little timers, so they took the minimum time and buckets in the shower to catch every drop and use it again. The Government is encouraging the do-gooders to give back any unused ration coupons rather than give them to someone else or hoarding them for later. The word is spreading around the top end that an airliner is missing and some people are wondering if they should contact someone about what they know or think. In Guinea Airways at Parafield the pilots are trying to fathom what happened and where Cameron is. They are using their experience in their deliberations… No one really trusts the HF. DF … EVERY bearing was second class on the night. That isn’t something you really should navigate by. What about the fact that he was heading southish to Katherine when he asked for the first bearing, then three minutes later he gets a bearing north of that first one? I’d be doubting the sense of that reading too. There’s the weakness of the radio reception that indicates distance from the station yet he’s being told he’d passing over the top a couple of times. If he passed over the top why was he in heavy rain when no one else was. Why couldn’t he see the search lights. Did Cameron maintain heading like he always did or did that brush with DCA recently, when he didn’t know where he was EXACTLY and continued north to be sure he was clear of all land including Bathurst and Melville islands before sneaking down to get under the cloud cause him to do something different. Why has the wreckage not been found. Has it slid under the canopy of the mangroves? Mr Adam, the supervising engineer of the engineering branch is slighted that people are trying to blame HIS apparatus and has run more tests. No one can fault the equipment, it is functioning correctly. His calculations of the track of the aircraft are on a map he’s submitting to the investigation, are based on scientific FACT … the bearings and times. The pilots are bringing in what-iffs into their summations. Charlie is having four days off. How do you think Rita Cameron and her daughter are feeling. The pilots and wives were visiting her, but she didn't have the closeness of her brother and sister in law to keep her company. 8 PM tomorrow for the next. sorry I got on the phone with a historian and we raved too long this evening.

Now! wouldn't I have loved to have one of those aeroplanes back when I went away in the Tripacer on flyaways where we took ONE half tube of toothpaste, one cake of soap and all the other ounces of weight cutting we came up with. That wait at the start of the movie, where we look at the stars... I recognise that! I reckon they have taken a picture of the ceiling tiles at my work and made it into a negative. I've stared up at them often enough, trying to count all the dots while management has us trapped, and goes on and on about what they're doing in the fairy floss plant that management has become, and how they're going to put on some more managers, and how we don't need any one to replace the workers at the coal face who have left because we are doing so well with all these new managers to communicate with each other and all the new managers in other parts of the industry... blah, blah, blah.

Wednesday 29 th April 1942 Batchelor Field… 49th Fighter Group camp. Lunch time after mail call. Wyatt Wiley’s tent mate sits talking to Billy Bedford’s tent mate. They’re concerned and sad but also jubilant. Their tent mates have been missing for over a week now. It’s not sounding good. Both Wyatt and Billy got mail today.The mail corporal hung on to the letters. Jubilation… We did well two days ago, when the Japs bombed Darwine again at lunch time. “The Kentucky Gentleman got THREE of them. Man he’s good. Did ya’ know he has the two outer guns taken out of his Kitty so it’s lighter and he can catch the Jap planes? The Kentucky Gentleman’s P40 “We lost three though.” “Yeah but they say Lootenant Martin was seen parachuting into the water beside the beach.” “Didn’t you hear? He and Stevie Andrews were picked up by the Ossies.” At another table a Corporal sits shaking his head as he muses, “How lucky am I? Gattamalata told me he wanted to go with Ray Love on that Guinea Airways airioplane, so I went in the Ansett one in his place. Man I could be out there somewhere right now…” At another table… a private talks quietly to his mate. “I’m not kidding ya Bud. There’s gold around here and I’m going to have a bit of a try, not much else to do in this godforsaken place. I was talking to one of the Aussie RAAF guys and he showed me his miner’s license and some specks of alluvial gold. He said he’s ‘on colour’ and so no one can take it off him, he got himself a license. There’s lots of them on this lurk. He reckons they found a camp in the bush somewhere where the Chinese had a mine. The Chows were digging all over the place last century.” What happened to the ten men’s gear that they had in their tents? Did everyone nobly leave it alone, or did some of it get snaffled by jokers who thought, “Might as well get it before someone else does. I can give it back when he return and say I hung onto it for him, to keep it safe.” There is still the off chance that some skinny, sunburnt, scratched, starving wreck is going to stumble out of the bush and announce he’s come from the plane crash. There’s plenty of water around. In Adelaide, Hilda spent a restless night realizing THIS time she probably is a widow. Next installment 8 PM tomorrow night.

29Th April 1942 The Sydney morning Herald had two interesting articles. The Argus in Melbourne ran almost word perfect reports on the same stories. The Adelaide Advertiser ran a somewhat longer piece on ADY seeing as it was local news. Did you really read the article on the lost plane or did you gloss over it, because you know the story already and miss the interesting mistake? Elsewhere, some journalist at the Advertiser wasn’t impressed with people who were rushing out to hoard butter when news came that it might be rationed. There’d been a higher than normal run on butter sales in the affluent suburbs, rich people had refrigerators and could hoard it. Have you gone back and read it or are you just reading on? That mistake set the cat amongst the pigeons in Sydney. Mr and Mrs Gray were suffering shock and hadn’t told the rest of the family, only the three children at home. Both parents came from large families and most of the aunties either read the Herald and saw the name of the first officer and went into shock or telephoned the others to find out what they knew. Charles was the favourite of all the women. He was the least boisterous of the five boys and had a nice soft, gentle, nature. He was going to be sorely missed. Now the authorities have admitted defeat, the theories and investigation really starts and turns up some little ommissions on the evening of the twenty first and subsequently.

In this day of internet communication it is a bit of a revelation going back to the wartime forties. Letters, telegrams, trunk line calls ("Three minutes are you extending?") I will spreed it up later as the investigation went at a snail's pace. Lots of crashes due to the war.

28th April 1942. Nil sighting ADY. “A week today The chance of survivors is awful slim. Hell I hope they didn’t suffer.” At Pine Creek Railway Station N.T. Conversation:- Station master to his wife over a cuppa at smoko. “Young Hardy came to see me a little while ago about any news on the plane that was flying around their house on Tuesday night. Old Harry thought it might be trying to land, so he got the boy to go out on the landing strip and wave a lantern to show them where it was, but it just flew off. That was the night the airliner went down. I telegraphed the army camp to tell their authorities in case it’s important.” “What airliner was that dear?” Charlie arrived home this afternoon to find a note saying Tess was staying with Hilda. He had done an Alice, Oodnadatta, Maree, Adelaide today. Oodnadatta was a bit soft... they had 105 points of rain in the last few days. He filled out his logbook after tea and realized he’d cracked his first thousand hours on the fifteenth, probably passing Dalby on the Archer to Batchelor trip … "and I was so tired I didn’t even think to be ready for it …Bugger!” No newspapers covered any story on ADY OR the bombing raid on Darwin at 1207 YESTERDAY, where a number of aircraft were shot down. NEXT REPORT AT 8 pm TOMORROW.

27th April …18.35 Sunset at Darwin. Still ADY is not found. In Adelaide this morning Tess walked to the shop to buy the Advertiser . Yesterday had been terrible, “If only the trams ran on a Sunday, we could have taken the girls out and given us something to DO after Captain Dowie and Nobby left.” There were a couple of articles about Darwin in the paper but no news of ADY. Mr. Steele had told them he would send someone around to the flat the moment anything was heard. They waited. The Courier Mail in Brisbane had an article on ADY ... their reporter decided he might be onto something. At Pymble in Sydney, old Mrs Gray screamed when she read the letter from her daughter-in-law… “Bill missing?” She telephoned Mr Gray at his engineering works at Gordon. As usual, he wasn’t wearing his hearing aid and couldn’t hear what she was saying. He told her to wait while he turned a machine on so he could hear over the telephone better. His deafness was odd, in that he couldn’t hear the telephone so well in the quiet. On receiving the news from his wife he erupted. “Why haven’t we been told!” He had noticed a small piece in the Saturday, Sydney Morning Herald on page seven … right down the bottom. He didn’t dream that it would be one of his sons. Old Mr Gray was one of those parents who wants to KNOW and won’t stop worrying people till gets all the answers. He put a trunk call through to Guinea Airways in Adelaide and was told there was an indefinite delay. They would call him back. He paced up and down his office, not wanting to go back to the workshop in case he miss the telephone bell. He had plenty of time to get himself worked up and he did. When the Guinea Airways switch girl got onto him, he was off. He wasn’t the slightest bit interested in what some slip of a girl had to say, but she got to listen to his tirade and when he’d finished she was told in no uncertain terms that he wished to speak to the general manager of chief pilot. She was glad to call Captain Steele and switch him through. Old Mr Gray’s hearing affliction caused him to be loud in his ordinary delivery but when agitated he raised his voice a little… to him! You’ve heard old blokes like him. You’ll be in a theatre or shopping centre and suddenly some old codger starts booming in a slow drawl and no one misses it. You get to hear what he has to say whether you want to or not. Steele was questioned at length as to what was being done to find the aircraft and why Captain Gray’s parents hadn’t been informed. Ken Steele found that most of his answers weren’t being heard, old Mr. Gray was more interested in talking than listening. He wasn’t too happy when he settled down and absorbed the fact that his firstborn hadn’t mentioned THEM as next of kin. Mister Gray was NOT satisfied and immediately set about getting himself and the mater, seats on a flight to Darwin where he could observe that everything that could be done, WAS being done. We don’t know how long he stayed (It is confirmed that they went, as the youngest son stayed at home with his sister and her two children… He was a lot like his father and was most put out at having to help look after the children, a duty his mother had always carried out.) Old Mr. Gray also flew to Melbourne to worry DCA. He knew a lot about flying. He’d studied it for some years. When Bill came down from New Guinea on bi-annual leave and Charles was learning to fly, they sat discussing flying as pilots do and especially the way students do, as they soak up the knowledge like a sponge. Old Mr. Gray felt left out. Here he had two sons discussing a technical subject he knew nothing about. He had indentured all his boys into engineering trades and he had been the font of all knowledge in any discussions. He didn’t like this, so immediately took himself off to Mascot to start flying lessons. Did alright to for an old bloke, and went solo. After his first solo, he reckoned he knew all about it and ceased lessons, but continued to pour over all their text books. As mentioned earlier Bill Gray purchased the very latest texts printed. ‘Through the Overcast’ and Safety in Flight by the American, legendry pilot, Assen Jordanoff were two. Charles changed aircraft and captains and flew AAU from Katherine to Darwin then Alice. 7:20 looks like a little bit of searching took place on the flight.

27th April Conversation at about 9AM Darwin Briefing Office . Present :- a Qantas captain. A couple of Air Force Hudson skippers in to talk to the DCA search master, Briefing officer and Killingsworth the aeradio operator who spent the last hours in contact with ADY. “Anything yet?” “Nothing…There have been quite a few sightings but … nothing.” “It’s a rum thing. Our blokes got in with no trouble…” “Well… They don’t have the training we have. Tin pot little outfit.” “That second dicky; he’s not long down from New Guinea. I’m not saying they’re not good stick and rudder men those blokes, but, they flog around in contact with the ground all the time, in bloody great ancient corrugated sheds! Never go in clouds… ‘full of rocks’ they reckon”. “Yeah, there’s a hell of a difference flying blind much of the time in Douglasses and Lockheeds and daylight flying in those old New Guinea crates.” “They reckon he had a bit of a prang a month or two ago in a Fox. How can a bloke get proficient when he’s flying a Fox Moth one day, then an Electra the next and a Fourteen the next?” “That second dicky, Gray… he hasn’t been on the line long. They say his Morse wasn’t too flash. Probably went to pieces under stress and couldn’t read or send properly.” “I’ve never noticed it! Couldn’t tell him from most of the others. You don’t get to recognise the pilot’s hand like ground operators … turbulence mostly… he certainly has never stood out as a poor operator. It was the static and weak signal. I was having to get them to repeat as much as he was getting me to. Cameron was sitting beside him with head phones on. If Gray wasn’t understanding it because he was in a flap, Cameron would have. It was both sending and receiving that they were having all the trouble with. ” “Shut the bloody door over there! You born in a tent or something. Bloody dust and noise. Why does Guinea have to park so close and why can’t they close the engines down quicker.” “Tin pot outfit!” “Anyway, that Cameron’s a funny cove … won’t leave his heading when he’s not sure of his position. Reckons he’ll hold it till he knows he’s safe.” “Yeah he was a bit of a perfectionist when he was with us back in the old days.” Shhh! …Watch it! this second dickety coming in is Young Gray, Bill Gray’s brother.” “Another bloody New Guinea wonder!” The above is a figment of the writer’s imagination. Qantas and RAAF pilots weren’t like that… neither have mainline pilots been derogatory towards their company’s subsidiary pilots… EVER! It is what COULD have been said and I’m using this form in the story, to acquaint you with the rumours floating around. They’re all documented.

Edgar Johnston DFC Sunday morning:- Melbourne. In a little suburban, red brick, slate roof 'semidetached' , Mrs Johnston moans, “Oh No dear, not another one.” “Sweetheart I’m under a lot of pressure and I really need one.” “You’ve had one a day for the last four days dear!” “Sweeeetheart I really do need one.” “Oh alright, but now I’m going to have too light the copper to get the water hot and do the washing today because your last collar was for tomorrow. I can just imagine those busybodies, Mrs Ryan and O’ Reilly sniffing as they walk past from late mass, judging ME because I’m doing the washing on the Sabbath. This is going to put my whole week out!” “You’re a Gem Sweetheart. I do HAVE to go in and control the search. For at least, a few hours. Mrs Johnston goes into the kitchen to put the iron on the gas stove to heat so she can iron the starched collar. Doreen went to confession last night and mass this morning. Katherine N.T. 06.30 In the Guinea Airways hostel, house keeper Mrs Dulce Hunt (widow), looked in the kitchen and reminded Yellow Mary to let the toast go cold before buttering it. Captain Chapman didn’t like melted butter on his toast. Young Charlie… that poor boy, liked a slice of bread and butter with his early morning cuppa. Mrs Hunt went down the hall adjusting her hair to knock on the boys’ door to wake them. Her hair was her crowning glory when she was a girl… ‘that was a long time ago’. She’s one of those tank like, solid, iron-grey haired, hustle bustle, ladies who gets things done. She is wearing a sensible dress, not too many foundation garments (too hot and anyway who cares) an apron and slippers. She’s a woman not to be trifled with, but her motherly nature comes out in her catering to ‘her boys who are always so tired. Both engineers and pilots are working horrendous hours with the threat of the bloody Nips all the time. Little buggers even killed poor Yellow Mary’s cousin, Dodger a month ago, way down here at Katherine.’ After she knocked, she went to the kitchen and return with their trays of tea for the boys to have in bed as they woke up… “At least they only had a quick two and a half hour return, trip today and they could go and swim down in the river after it. I’ll get Mary to pack sandwiches later for them to have down there.” Darwin. HF DF hut. Sergeant Johnston…(Not to be confused with Edgar Johnston DFC) of DCA Melbourne, was worried about Corporal Killingsworth. He had started chain smoking since the night they operated the DF apparatus. Lighting fag one off another and mostly lighting the next ,when he still had sometimes an inch to go. He was getting twitchy about the bearings and was crosschecking the sense too often. Obviously he needed a rest and reassurance that they had done everything they could, to help ADY the other night. They couldn’t have done more with those fuzzy readings. A Guinea's engineer in the Guinea Airways hangar wreckage. Direct hit a few weeks ago and yesterday a near miss that has wiped out many of the tools. “Ah ya little yeller mongrels… look at this… my vernier now. Micrometer last time… If I coulda gotten my hands on one of those bloody Nips in that bomber that caught it yesterday, he’d die by the death of a thousand bashes. All with me busted tools and to finish him off I’d wire the small bits to a broom handle and use it like a cat an’ nine tails. How we gunna work on anything now?” Adelaide. 9.45 AM Captain Dowie had walked six blocks in the passing drizzle to Prospect Road where Nobby Buckley another Guinea Airways captain picked him up in his motor car to visit the two Mrs. Grays on the way out to the drome to discuss where DY could be. Nobby, as they drive out to the drome. “I’m going to have to mix some aviation petrol with the car petrol at this rate I’m going through it. I have been milking a pint a week from my tank and storing it in a two gallon tin for emergencies, but I’ve been through all that with all the extra driving last week. Captain Dowie doesn’t answer. “Funny things women!. Have you noticed how they home in on what people could be thinking and that is their main line of thought? “What would Bill be thinking when they were told they were east of Darwin? What would he be thinking when they couldn’t find the search lights? What would they be thinking when they were having trouble receiving messages?” Man gives them a sensible answer and they’re off again… “yes but what would they be thinking?” Captain Dowie doesn’t answer. They are going to come up with some sort of answers and captain Bob Godsell is going to type a letter off to DCA Melbourne revealing their concerns. So many questions. “How could they be having so much trouble receiving and transmitting?” “Crook wireless? .. well hardly! Not both the transmitter AND receiver in two different sets?” “Aerial? … pretty spectacular to lose both the HF and the VHF!... How? Bird strike?” “In cloud at night?” “Lightning? Would have burnt out the sets wouldn’t it “ “So!... that leaves distance! … they weren’t near Darwin!” There is the unaccountability of their being East of Darwin at 18.35. Duncan didn’t believe it, judging from his reaction.” “At that time of day and Thunderstorms… I would have difficulty believing them. Yet they give and ETA for Darwin, so they must have identified their position.” “I think they were mistaken on that!” Pilots love trying to work out what happened… FROM their perspective and experiences. The media, love writing what THEY think. They tend to get their information from each other. They love using technical terms that they don’t know the exact industry meaning of and of course, pepper the story with superlatives. "Glide" turns to plummet, generally hero in media talk is dickhead in pilot talk.

Day FIVE... Sunday! 'The LORD'S day' ... A day of rest! Story will continue at 3PM .... (Writer has to do some jobs.) There were no Sunday newspapers in 1942 didja know?

Things are indeed grim. Are there survivors? How injured are they? How many dead? Are they suffering and jammed in the wreckage? Imagine the flies, mosquitoes… ANTS … dingos or Hawks. We’ve got to find them! The Guinea Airways pilots have poured over the radio reports trying to work out where they think ADY flew. They are typing out their ideas tonight. Mr Adam of the Engineer’s branch plotted ADY’s probable route from the bearings and times , but can only give a rough idea because the aircraft flew a further forty minutes without obtaining a bearing. Searches have re- combed the probable area of one hundred miles from Darwin that it could have flown in that time. People are delving deeper. Questions are being asked, now that the equipment and personnel have been unable to be faulted.

2.10 PM Anzac Day Lofty overtakes Rinso streaking for the split trench. When the boys untangle themselves, spit the dirt from the bottom of the trench out of their mouths and get the latecomers from off the top of them, they look at each other. Rinso’s face is a nasty browny- grey colour with the large freckles standing out even more than normal. (‘Y’ don’t see a lot of Abos with freckles … red headed father… Ol’ Rinso always looks a bit unwashed doesn’t he!) “Y’ done it again mate. I reckon y’was runnin’ just before the siren sounded… BLOODY Nips! This is the twelfth time the little bastards have done us over.” “There’s the Yanks… They’re Kittys… Hope they don’t fly into our flack like the last raid.” “At least the pilot bailed out safely.” “Give it to ‘em boys!” Charlie and his captain had already flown UXH to Katherine so it was ready for the following day's flight.

10 AM The search aircraft found the wreckage this morning… ‘A Hudson from some time back.’

It's in real time as much as possible... The records had dates and times often. If you haven't looked up ADY on google to see what was on the last page of this story as it were, (like who done it in a murder mystery) DON'T! Part of this story/game is to re-enact what was happening for the searchers, family etc. Later I'll move over to the cockpit, but not yet. This part is the distress phase.

25th April... ANZAC DAY Things are becoming serious. Collopy up north has been burning the candle at both ends, what with all his normal work the extra the war threw at him and now ADY. In Adelaide:- Steele of Guinea Airways is getting frazzled. Pilots annoying him for information and wanting to go up and search. “Where’s a man to find aircraft for a search when we’re down one and we were up to our ears in work when DY was flying. How long is it going to take to get it back in the air. Engineers in a man’s ear about not enough manpower and time to service the kites. Work piling up on Dunc’s desk, ‘spose I’ll have to attend to that as well as my own till he gets back. Gawd I hope he hasn’t been injured and can’t get back to work at least in the office." In the DCA office Darwin:- “Telegrams demanding this and that … yesterday, people ringing about search aircraft… Hell! Things are starting to look a bit grim for ADY. We should have found them by now. How bad are the injuries? … there’s gotta be injuries or someone would have turned up by now, anyway we’ve got a kite going straight to that sighting yesterday evening for a closer look. Place is still a mess even though it’s twenty days since the last raid.” Search master’s briefing Darwin drome:- “Take particular note of any areas of recent burning… I think our forced landing may have been crash landing and they unfortunately, usually end up in fire.” Melbourne :- Johnston’s been in his office since six keeping tabs on the search for ADY. He scanned the Argus on the way in the tram … ‘Allied troops still forced back by Japs in Burma... Heavy Jap ship losses in Pacific, Port Moresby had 3 raids in a day… Page two … Young munitions workers for the army, Polish girl joins WAAAF, Today’s first aid hint. No 13 The large arm sling… Page 3… Allied planes on Soviet territory, JAPANESE WILL NOT ATTACK AUSTRALIA by DR VAN MOOK LONDON. “Oh! For crying out loud… bloody experts safe in Washington… ” Roosevelt’s mother left $1,090,000… Wouldn’t mind a piece of that… Ah … REPORT THAT MISSING PLANE WAS SEEN ‘A report that the missing Guinea Airways Lockheed 14 airliner had been seen somewhere in the vicinity where it was lost in Northern Australia on Tuesday night was received late yesterday afternoon. Mr. A B Corbett Director-General of Civil Aviation stated last night that this report was so far unconfirmed, but that a plane had been sent to search the locality It was however, not possible to obtain any results from the search till this morning.The missing plane was under charter and flying on a special trip for the Department of Civil Aviation It carried a complement of 12 including a crew of 2’ Darwin:- A couple of Sergeant fitters. “Where th’ hell you been?... Man’s dyin’ o thirst out here and you’re in the mess tent gutzin y’self on a leisurely breakfast.” “Sorry Lofty, The boys were discussing the lost kite and there’s all sorts of rumours going round. Didn’t want to leave till I heard ‘em all.” “While I’m out here in the hot sun, bloody miles from a trench. Hell I hate this dispersal area. Too far away from safety. At least I got ‘Rinso’ on my team. Good worker Rinso. Got the best of both worlds there. His mum’s mob’s hearing and eyesight and his dad’s brains. Gawd he heard the nips comin’ long before the air raid warnings the last two times an’ we was runnin’ flat out for the split trench I c’n tell ya…Beats that useless bloody secret ‘early warnin’ device’. Where was that the other night?” “Yeah the boys were talkin’ about that at breakfast. They reckon poor old Johnno from the DF. You know … that sarge that comes into the mess and has a good singing voice?... he got put through the wringer yesterday good and proper to make sure he hadn’t stuffed up in some way." "Someone reckons the skipper of that kite said he was in heavy rain a lot of the time.” “What? I was out here on the line puttin’ the Hudsons that arrived just after dark, to bed, then we had to give bloody ol’ -210 an oil change in both motors. Took hours with bloody mossies tryin’ to find a way past the Kokoda I had sloshed all over meself. … eyes stingin fr’m th’ mongrel stuff and there was a bit of drizzle, that’s all.” “Well that’s what the boys said.” “That Civy skipper isn’t a patch on our boys… got lost once before, comin’ up from Katherine, an’ only just got back from half way to Timor with enough juice to keep the bottom of the tanks wet.” “You know ‘Carrots’ Ryan the flight engineer?” “Yeah” “Well, he was on that flight from Koepang that arrived just after seven and reckoned they could see the moon through the high overcast clouds at six thousand with some at two and visibility of six to twelve miles… they had no problem getting in… Funny ay?” “Yeah … well! I can’t stand here maggin’ and listenin’ to you all day with me guts growlin’. C’mon I’ll hand over to yer.” “Titch Taylor was in the D.F. hut when they flew over you know.” “When who flew over?” “The lost kite!” “What?” “There was a mob of them who went in for a squiz and Johnno said,” they’re about to pass over us now” and Titch and co heard it fly over.” ‘Whad y’r talkin’ about? I was out here all that time workin’ on -210 an’I didn’ hear no eighteen thirties passin’ overhead … what time was that s’pose ter have happened?” “Dunnow” “Bloody Titch wouldn’t know the difference between a Singer sewin’ machine an’ a Yank, bloody Army Harley!” “Well they all heard it.” “Well I was ‘ere all the time and never ‘eard nothin’!” “….. Was it just after nine?” ???? “… We did a quick engine run after changin’ the oil at about nine. All we did was slowly chase the oil temp up with max RPM for it rather than wait idling for the temps to get up… we wanned ter get off for smoko. THAT coulda sounded like a kite passin’ by.” “Might go ‘n talk ter th’ officers an’ run it past ‘em.” OK! That actual conversation didn’t really take place, BUT someone worked out that what the boys in the hut heard, was an aeroplane running its engines up, down the other end of the aerodrome.