Men Who Killed Qantas - Matthew Benns [23]
The crews trained on a Cutty Sark amphibian flying boat purchased for £700 from World War One fighter ace Keith Caldwell when he joined Qantas. The plane came to an untimely end on the Brisbane River. Captain Crowther, who would later pilot the Camilla out of Darwin, landed on the river with the wheels extended and nose-dived into the water. No one was injured but the plane was written off by the salvage crew, which crushed the hull with the steel cable it used to lift it from the bottom. Despite the setbacks, and after full training in London, Qantas was ready to begin the service.
The flying boats Coolangatta and Cooee flew to the new Qantas landing strip – Rose Bay in Sydney Harbour – to begin the service. The official agreement, under which Qantas was to provide three return services a week from Sydney to Singapore, was signed on 23 July 1938. But the first flight left Rose Bay earlier, on 5 July. The Cooee went to Singapore under the command of Captain Lynch-Blosse and was then taken on by an Imperial flight crew to London.
Meanwhile, the Imperial flying boat Challenger, under the command of legendary Qantas Captain ‘Scotty’ Allan, arrived in Darwin on 4 July in darkness and during a gale. Customs officials in Darwin were ill prepared and the crew and passengers, including several journalists on board for the maiden flight, were left bobbing at the moorings in heavy swell. They all became seasick and, according to Fysh, ‘were fairly ropeable … There was a hell of a row. The wires ran hot round the world. Darwin overnight became famous, or infamous, and such was the stir that when the next flying boat arrived the passengers were quickly whisked away to the Don Hotel, where they were put through their formalities.’6 The next service ran into engine trouble at Bima on Soembawa Island in the Dutch East Indies and a spare engine had to be sent up from Sydney.
At a stately 240 kph, the flying boat service from Sydney to Southampton took nine and a half days, a day longer than the Dutch took to fly from Sydney to Amsterdam. Unlike Qantas in later years, Fysh embraced the rivalry. He felt it renewed determination within the company, and dealt with any adverse criticism about the length of the journey by emphasising how comfortable and spacious the Qantas flying boats were, as well as reminding passengers they provided a full meal service.
However, the flying boat service was not without incident. Qantas lost its first one, the Coorong, during the overnight stay in Darwin on 12 December 1938. Strong winds were pulling the plane against her mooring lines. The station engineer Norm Roberts, who later behaved so heroically during the bombing of the harbour, went on board to run the engines and take the strain off the lines. Once all was secure, he returned to shore. Despite his efforts, as the winds picked up later, the lines broke and the plane was washed onto the jagged rocks of the breakwater. Chief pilot Lester Brain was once again on hand and was quick to begin salvage work that saw the plane dismantled, shipped to England and eventually put back into service.
Then, on 12 March 1939, Captain Hussey was taxiing the Capella after landing at Batavia when the wreckage of a submerged frigate ripped a hole in her hull. The plane was quickly beached before it could sink. She was then shipped back to England but salt water damage rendered her inoperable.
Despite these two incidents, Qantas ran its service to Singapore and Britain for just over 13 months, until the outbreak of war in September 1939. It carried more than 5,000 passengers, 500 tonnes of mail and 100