Men Who Killed Qantas - Matthew Benns [21]
Bobbing at her moorings south-east of the jetty in Darwin harbour was the Qantas flying boat Camilla. She was close to the 11,000 tonne ammunition-carrying merchant ship Neptuna, which was tied up alongside the wharf. The Qantas pilots were going about their normal business. Captain H. B. Hussey was sitting in the Roslyn Court building’s barber shop waiting for his turn. Captain W. H. ‘Bill’ Crowther was in the middle of shaving.
As the Japanese planes began their deadly attack, Captain Hussey came flying out of the barber’s, through the yard of the Victoria Hotel, looking for open space. Others, including a Mrs Hansen, joined him. Captain Hussey described in his official Qantas report seeing a second formation of bombers appear over their heads from where the sun was sitting in the south-east. When the bombs came down, he said they all sheltered in a concrete street gutter as debris flew through the air. Then, ‘Captain Crowther appeared around the corner mostly sideways, trying to run, turn the corner and watch for falling missiles at the same time. With his shirt front open and soap around his ears, it was evident that he had been shaving.’2
Above them the Japanese planes were under the command of Captain Mitsuo Fuchida, who had led the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was backed by exactly the same crews that had so successfully hit the unsuspecting American fleet. They had five more planes than the earlier attack on Pearl Harbor and had as a target a relatively small harbour densely packed with 45 ships and very little air defence. The Japanese wreaked havoc.
Captain Hussey and his companions had to lie low to avoid the dive-bombers, who were now using their guns on ground targets. He and Captain Crowther had formed a small group of Qantas Empire Airlines staff. They bundled into a car and, with Mrs Hansen at the wheel, tore through the devastated streets to the Qantas base. There, to their astonishment, they found the Camilla afloat and untouched. But the Neptuna, outside the wharf, and the Barossa, on the inside, were both alight. Their smoke was hanging over the Camilla, hiding the Qantas flying boat from the attacking Japanese planes. The two Qantas pilots commandeered a launch that was unloading wet and injured men on the jetty and raced out to the Camilla. A quick check revealed only two small shrapnel holes in the elevators. Crowther took the controls while Hussey primed the engines, checked the petrol and cast off the mooring rope.
Crowther took up the story. ‘I was figuring out the best way to get away from the Neptuna as quickly as possible. I became quite impatient as I had never seen such a holocaust before. The ship was burning most fiercely and with bright crimson colour.’3 With the engines started they began taxiing down the east arm of Darwin Bay. At first they considered hiding out in the mangroves but abandoned the plan as unrealistic. Together they managed to remove all the ropes from outside the plane and secure the hatches. ‘Just as we got over the mangroves,’ he said, ‘there was a bang and a bump downstairs, which gave us a fright, but on examination I found the pantry window open.’4
Just eight minutes after the Camilla took off, the Neptuna, laden with explosives, blew up with such force that she was shifted some 25 metres from the wharf before capsizing. All small craft in the area were sunk.
In total the Japanese attack sank nine ships in the harbour and badly damaged 13 others. Two Catalina flying boats were sunk at their moorings, many buildings in Darwin were damaged and the aerodrome and RAAF buildings, planes and hangars were all hit. An estimated 300 people were killed in the bombing raid. The Qantas building was also destroyed. QEA station engineer Norm Roberts was desperately trying to conceal the Qantas launch in the mangroves as a Japanese Zero strafed them