Coasts of Cape York

by Christopher Cummings

  A short while later the aircraft passed Cape Direction and the intercom crackled. Mr Jemmerling’s voice boomed out. “Good morning ladies and gentlemen. In a few minutes we will fly over the Aboriginal community of Lockhart River. We are then going to fly around a bit so that I can see what is left of the World War Two airfields in the area. As we do I will give a bit of a running commentary and history, assisted by Mr Beck. Now, if you look out the port side of the aircraft, you will see the buildings of the community and beyond them to the West the airstrip.”

  Willy looked out and clearly saw the long bitumen runway. A couple of dirt roads snaked off into the hazy interior or off northwards through jungle covered hills. It looked to be a very isolated place.

  Mr Jemmerling came on the intercom with an explanation of what they were looking at. He said, “This is the Iron Range area and during World War Two a number of airfields were built here. They were built by the United States Army engineers of the Forty Sixth Engineer Battalion. They were transported to Portland Roads, which is just north of us, by the SS Wandana and the MV Islander in June 1942.”

  “After constructing a road from Portland Roads the engineers built a short, three thousand foot airstrip to use for admin and medical evacuation. Then they constructed two large airstrips: No 1, named ‘Gordon’; and No2, named ‘Claudie’. No 1 strip was completed by mid August. The first operational use was in September when a squadron of B-26 ‘Marauders’ of the U.S. Twenty Second Bomb Group landed to refuel on the tenth, then flew on to attack Japanese targets in Rabaul. They refueled at Port Moresby and then came back to refuel at Iron Range on the thirteenth. Unfortunately one of these aircraft crashed while landing.”

  Mr Jemmerling paused to clear his throat while the ‘Catalina’ did a wide circle over the airfield. He went on, “Remember that the American strategy was to base all their bombers in Western Queensland, around Cloncurry and Julia Creek, so far inland that there was no possibility of any Japanese raid finding them. The planes were prepared for the missions there, then flew north and refueled here or at one of the strips further up, then went on to New Guinea to do their job, often refueling at Port Moresby on the way. They then flew back, hopping from airfield to airfield. The same planes could just as easily fly from Cloncurry to the Darwin area, refuel and bomb up, go on to strike at the East Indies, then come back. It gave great flexibility and made the bombers almost completely safe from any form of attack. That meant they could just be parked in the open with minimal guards.”

  “So the big planes weren’t based here, at least not until the war had moved so far north that this was a safe rear area,” Mr Jemmerling explained.

  Willy found this fascinating and he realized he had never thought about the strategy of air warfare in such a way. Until then his focus had been on the individuals flying the planes and on air tactics. ‘I need to study things a bit more,’ he thought.

  The ‘Catalina’ went round again, further to the north and west and Mr Jemmerling went on to detail how the RAAF No 26 Operational Base Unit was deployed to run the airfields, and to list more tragic crashes. The worst was on the 16th of November 1942 when a B-24 ‘Liberator’ named Bombs for Nippon crashed on take off, striking two other ‘Liberators’ with its wing tip before crashing into the trees where it caught fire and its bombs exploded, destroying it and a B-17 ‘Flying Fortress’. The total loss was four aircraft and eleven lives, plus two B-24s damaged.

  Just thinking about that caused Willy to shudder in horror. He listened with sadness as Mr Jemmerling read more information, detailing another bad aircraft accident which occurred in December 1942 when another ‘Liberator’ crashed on take-off from Gordon. Its load of bombs exploded, killing all ten in the crew.

  Mr Jemmerling went on to say that in that month the American engineers were moved and civilian workers from the Allied Works Council took over construction. “That means that the Japanese had been pushed back to northern New Guinea. The Americans then based three squadrons of ‘Liberators’ of the 90th Bomb Group here: Numbers 319, 320 and 321 Squadrons USAAF, plus the ‘Marauders’ of Number 33 Squadron of the 22nd Bomb Group and also the 400th Bomb Squadron and 28th Service Squadron.”

  “By then this area had been developed into a large complex with roads, camps, taxiways, bomb and fuel dumps. There was an Australian Radar Station, No 43, on the coast near Portland Roads, and there were Australian Anti Aircraft units defending the strip, though they never fired a shot in anger as no Japanese plane ever came near the place.”

  “Gordon was closed in January 1943 for sealing and Claudie became operational but was never satisfactory because of cross-winds and flooding. A second ‘Claudie’ strip was then commenced. In February 1943, as the war moved even further from Australia, the American squadrons redeployed north to Port Moresby. The Iron Range strips were then downgraded from an operational base to a transit complex for refueling.”

  “There were, unfortunately, more crashes. On the 15th June 1943 Flying Officer N. P. Randall, of Dalby, Queensland, a member of the famous No 76 Squadron RAAF, lost his life when he crash landed his P-40 ‘Kittyhawk’ fighter on a beach two miles from Portland Roads. An American pilot was killed in 1944 when a P-47 ‘Thunderbolt’ which was landing crashed into his P-40, which was on the ground. In 1946 an RAAF ‘Norseman’ transport aircraft doing a ration run crashed in bad weather, killing the three on board, including the pilot, Flying Officer C. W. Law of Blackall in Queensland.”

  “In 1944 the area was so safe that the anti aircraft units and coastal artillery were removed and the airfield handed over to the RAA.F. Later it was handed to the Department of Civil Aviation. By then the war was over. But that isn’t the end of the story. Part of the old Gordon strip was sealed and that is the airfield you can see now. It can handle most twin-engine aircraft and RAAF types such as ‘Caribou’ transports.”

  “The reason for that was a unique experiment carried out in 1964. To try to ascertain the effects of nuclear weapons on troops fighting in the tropics the army placed vehicles, guns and dummies in trenches in the jungle near here and then exploded hundreds of tons of conventional explosives. These were on a steel tower above the tree tops. It was called ‘Operation Blowdown’ and I was hoping to see some sign of it. We will now just circle the area and look.”

  Willy found all this fascinating and for the next fifteen minutes he stared eagerly down, but was quite unable to detect any sign of where a huge explosion might once have taken place. Nor could anyone else. As his father said, “I guess that the jungle has had time to grow back in forty years.”

  “They would never be allowed to do it nowadays,” Willy’s mother commented. “The environmentalists would stop it.”

  There was then another sad story. They circled over a jungle covered ridge to the North West and looked down at the site where a civilian ‘Metroliner’ crashed when trying to land in bad weather in 2005. Once again Willy wondered how such a tragedy could happen and hoped he would never be involved in such a terrible event.

  The next place the plane flew over was the tiny jetty at Portland Roads. As they did Mr Jemmerling added that he was reliably informed that there were no remains of aircraft wrecks in the Iron Range area. Mr Beck confirmed this. On hearing this Willy thought, ‘That makes our wrecks even more important.’

  Mr Jemmerling then added, “Nor are there any of the mythical aircraft allegedly left behind by the Americans when they left, so we are not landing to look. We are now flying on to the tip of Cape York.”

  The ‘Catalina’ straightened up on a northerly course across Weymouth Bay, allowing Willy to identify the winding Pascoe River. He mentioned this to Andrew who nodded and said that he knew where they were. Willy twisted to look and saw that Andrew held a hydrographic chart. Andrew then said that back in 1848 the explorer Edmund Kennedy had experienced trouble with thick jungle in that area and that the Pascoe River was notorious for saltwater crocodiles.

  “How on earth do you know that?” Willy joked. />
  “Because I pay attention in school; and because I am very interested in the history of exploration, particularly the sea explorers,” Andrew replied.

  ‘That figures,’ Willy thought. Out of politeness he said, “Good, keep me informed.”

  The next area of interest had nothing to do with aircraft. It was another huge area of massive, scrub-covered sand dunes inland from Cape Grenville. After staring at the tangle for several minutes Willy shook his head. ‘I’d hate to have to try to cross that sort of place on foot,’ he thought.

  The country from then on seemed to be one vast, trackless wilderness to Willy. The coast was the same alternating sequence of rocky headlands (mostly red in this part of the country), each with a swamp area in its lee; and then a long stretch of sandy beach. The beaches were almost pure white sand and he learned this was because they were largely composed of coral sand, rather than the grains of granite found in the Cairns area. Inland was a vast area of low hills and flat plains covered with what looked to be a tangle of some sort of scrub.

  ‘That doesn’t look very pleasant either,’ he thought.

  Mr Beck came on the intercom to announce that they were now flying over the area where the ‘Airacobras’ had all crash landed back in 1942. “And over near the other side of the Peninsula in the swamps at the mouth of the Jardine River,” he added. That got Willy staring down at the stretches of beach with great interest but there was no sign of any wrecks at all. “All taken away years ago, or lost in the sea and sand,” Mr Beck explained.

  They flew low over the extensive areas of mangrove swamps around the mouths of the Escape River and Jacky Jacky Creek. Andrew said, “That is where Edmund Kennedy was speared by the Aborigines back in 1848. I read that if he and Jacky Jacky had been able to safely cross the Escape River they would have been safe.”

  “Who was Jacky Jacky?” Stick asked.

  “Kennedy’s Aboriginal guide,” Andrew replied.

  Willy was puzzled. “Why would they have been safe?”

  “I read that the tribe who inhabited the land on the other side of the river was friendly,” Andrew answered.

  “Wouldn’t this Jacky Jacky person have been safe anyway, being an Aborigine?” Marjorie queried.

  Willy’s father answered that. “I was told, but it may not be true, that in the old days any Aborigine found in another tribe’s area without good reason was usually killed.”

  Andrew agreed and added, “Jacky Jacky came from New South Wales. He was way out of his area.”

  “He wouldn’t have even been able to speak the local language,” Willy’s father said.

  Marjorie looked surprised. “Did the Aborigines have more than one language?”

  “Yes they did,” Willy’s father answered.

  The ‘Catalina’ went into a sharp bank to the right. Willy felt a twinge of alarm, then Mr Jemmerling said over the intercom, “Crocodile.”

  Willy had to leave his seat and look through Marjorie’s porthole but he clearly saw the huge saurian swimming along in what looked to be open sea. Then, as the aircraft continued to turn, he saw the mangroves of the river estuary. “It looks like a gecko on the ceiling from up here,” he observed.

  “You wouldn’t think so if you were down in the water with him!” Stick said with a laugh.

  Once again Willy had an almost overpowering flashback, with ghastly images of the shark tearing at the corpse. He shook his head and tried to look away.

  Marjorie said, “It’s a long way from the shore.”

  Willy’s father said, “They swim in the sea. I have heard accounts of crocodiles swimming from Australia to New Guinea. They certainly often swim from one river mouth to another near Cairns.”

  “Wouldn’t the sharks eat them?” Stick asked.

  Willy’s father smiled and shook his head. “I think they would win in any fight with a shark, with their teeth, claws and armoured hide,” he said.

  Once again images of sharks swamped Willy’s consciousness and he shuddered. But then they spotted more crocodiles. These were basking on mud banks and went scurrying into the water as the aircraft roared low overhead.

  The aircraft then leveled out and climbed higher, for which even Willy was thankful as the air had now heated up and there was a fair bit of turbulence. Mr Jemmerling came on again to say, “We are now flying over Albany Sound and on your left are the remains of the first permanent European settlement, a place called ‘Somerset’. It was settled by the Jardine family in 1864. The two sons drove a herd of beef cattle from near Bowen to here in an epic journey.”

  Willy looked down on a stretch of bright blue water and saw a small bay on his left with a sandy beach backed by a scrub covered slope. On top of the slope was a road, some ruined buildings all overgrown with vines and weeds and, to Willy’s surprise, three old fashioned cannons and a memorial. “I can see three guns,” he cried.

  “There was a Royal Marine garrison here for a few years,” his father said.

  “It was to be a new Singapore,” Andrew added.

  Willy watched the place slip astern, to be lost in a wilderness of rocky, scrub-covered hills, mangrove swamps and savanna woodland. ‘Bloody hell! Poor buggers!’ he thought. To him I did not look a very promising site but he did concede he knew very little about such things.

  Mr Jemmerling then announced that soon they would fly over the very tip of Cape York, the most northerly bit of the Australian mainland.

  Stick came and looked out of Willy’s porthole. Then he pointed and said, “There it is, the pointy bit!”

  Willy smiled, picturing maps of Australia. Seeing that small rocky cape gave him an odd feeling. ‘I have never been this far north before,’ he told himself. He found he felt both excited and uneasy, sensing that beyond the cape it was all ‘foreign’, that vast world of New Guinea and Asia.

  The ‘Catalina’ banked and did a wide circle around Cape York so that everyone got a good look. As it did Willy noted numerous rocks, and rocky islands. Andrew drew his attention to the swirls of a vicious tide rip between the tip of the cape and two rocky islands just beyond. “That would be a deadly place for a sailing ship,” he said.

  Willy agreed. Then he pointed out a line of tiny figures. They were tourists. ‘I must go there one day,’ he thought.

  After circling once more Mr Jemmerling said, “Right people, that was the ‘Pointy Bit’. Now let’s see some crashed aircraft.”

  The ‘Catalina’ now headed South West down the ‘Gulf’ coast. On the way they flew past Possession Island ‘Where Captain Cook claimed New South Wales- he meant all of eastern Australia- for King George the third of England’. Ten minutes later they flew past Seisia and the small port in the Red Island passage. From there they turned inland and flew over the settlements that made up the Bamaga community. Willy had often heard about Bamaga but was quite surprised at how big it was and how well developed it appeared to be.

  Mr Jemmerling said, “We are approaching the Bamaga airstrip. It was built by American Army engineers during World War Two and the airfield was called Henderson Field or, more commonly, Jack Jacky airstrip. Now it is called the Injinu Airport. We are going to fly past at a thousand feet, then come down to five hundred for a second circuit. As we do we will hopefully see three aircraft wrecks.”

  There was a pause and then Mr Jemmerling went on, “My local map tells me there are the wrecks of a D.C. 3, a ‘Kittyhawk’, and a ‘Beaufort’ bomber.”

  It was midday by this time and the land had heated up so that the turbulence was very noticeable. As the ‘Catalina’ bumped and swooped through the thermals Willy tightened his seat belt and looked out. Clearly in view was the bitumen road from Bamaga town to the airstrip. Following instructions over the intercom from Mr Beck he had no trouble in locating the DC3 wreck just after they flew over the gravel road that went off to the south.

  The bitumen runway came into view and then slid astern. As he looked out Willy realized he could see right across Australia at that point. ‘That
is the Coral Sea I can see out to port and the Gulf of Carpentaria to starboard- the Pacific Ocean on one side and the Indian Ocean on the other.’

  That realization gave him a definite thrill and sense of adventure. Then his attention was taken up by the buffeting of the aircraft as it banked around to port across the mudflats and mangrove swamps along Jacky Jacky Creek. ‘Bit bumpy,’ he thought, but it did not bother him and he was able to focus his eyes on the areas where Mr Beck was now saying the other wrecks were.

  Because the country was covered in savannah woodland and not scrub or jungle, and using a couple of dirt roads as references, Willy was able to locate the wreck of the ‘Beaufort’. He saw it was in a clearing with a ring road around the pieces of wreckage.

  Of the ‘Kittyhawk’ wreck he saw nothing. The ‘Catalina’ kept on, flying a big oval course; north towards Bamaga, then coming around to do a southerly run, coming lower as it did. This increased the turbulence and Willy noted Marjorie looking a bit pale and tense.

  On this ‘pass’ Willy noted that the DC3 wreck was directly in line with the runway. ‘Crashed while landing?’ he wondered.

  They flew on over the airport and its one building terminal. Outside on the bitumen apron were two small twin-engine aircraft. Several vehicles, including a white mini-bus stood in a car park. At least twenty people stood out in the open, staring up and waving.

  The ‘Catalina’ flew past them and then turned and went around the end of the runway back to the location of the ‘Beaufort’. As it did the turbulence became so rough that Willy at last began to become concerned. At the ‘Beaufort’ wreck the aircraft was taken around in a tight circle, left wing down. This allowed Willy a really good view and he was able to take some photos.

  “I wonder why it crashed?” he said to no-one in particular.

  Andrew answered, his voice sounding quite anxious, “Probably doing the same thing we are.”

  “Don’t you like it Andrew?” Stick asked.