Men Who Killed Qantas - Matthew Benns [26]
Captain Brain, weak and ill from dengue fever and lack of food, looked out from his hotel window as the Japanese fighters wreaked havoc on the helpless flying boats. ‘Shouts and screams can be heard coming across the water from the burning boats and it appears that when the Japs have finished there will be nothing left afloat to rescue the survivors,’ he recorded in his diary.11 Despite his weakened state he struggled to drag a rowboat down to the water’s edge with the help of Malcolm Millar, who had been in charge in Java. ‘After getting about half a mile out we could see heads bobbing in the water and hear shouts for help. On coming up we found seven Dutchmen, two of them supporting a Dutch woman who was in a state of collapse. Another was swimming on his back supporting a young baby and keeping its head above water. The others were keeping contact with a Dutch boy of about eight who was able to swim and support himself. We got the woman and baby, also the boy and three of the most exhausted men aboard the rowboat, and the remaining four clung to the edge. We could not handle any more, so returned to the nearest mangrove beach.’12
A 17-year-old Dutch girl swam for two hours to help her injured mother and another man to shore, and then told how she saw sharks take a woman and child who had been with them. The Japanese attack destroyed all the flying boats in the harbour, six land planes at the aerodrome, the Liberator that managed to take off and a Douglas DC3 96 kilometres north of Broome. Estimates suggest 70 people were killed. The Qantas flying boat Camilla, so bravely rescued from the attack on Darwin, was saved by Brain’s caution. He told pilot Captain Sims not to return until 11 am, after the Corinna was due to have left for Sydney, because he did not want two company planes in the harbour at the same time. However, Camilla’s luck would also soon run out.
‘Back in Sydney early in March 1942 we counted our losses, licked our wounds, and wondered how we were going to carry on as effective airline operators,’ said Fysh.13 The overseas service had been cut and half of the ten flying boats owned by Qantas and BOAC had been destroyed. Qantas was left with just its land plane service between Brisbane and Darwin, a couple of other provincial Queensland routes and three Empire flying boats: Camilla, Corinthian and Coriolanus. Matters became worse when the Corinthian crashed on landing in Darwin Harbour. Captain Ambrose was flying the plane with the equally experienced Captain Tapp as first officer. There were 12 US military passengers on board and a heavy load of gun barrels, ammunition chests and reels of wire. As the plane came in to land at 1 am on 22 March, the planing bottom broke up. Fysh believed it may have struck a submerged object that split the bottom; the heavy load then shifted and caused the plane to capsize. A rescue launch rushed to the scene and picked up survivors. Captain Tapp, realising that two people were missing, bravely swam into the darkened hull of the sinking wreck but could not find them. Their bodies were never recovered.
Fysh now had an airline with few aircraft. He was keen to re-establish a link between the two ends of the Empire route – a non-stop service of 5,656 kilometres between Ceylon and Perth. Qantas pilots Brain and Crowther thought it would be possible with American Catalina flying boats. Director General of Civil Aviation A. B. Corbett felt otherwise and wrote to Fysh: ‘My reaction is that at present such a proposal would be little short of murder.’14 McMaster and Fysh continued to lobby for it as the other work of the war carried on unabated. At one point, two Qantas DH86 aircraft were sent to Mount Hagen in the heart of New Guinea to bring out refugees. Their plight had been highlighted by a missionary called Father Glover, who used every conceivable mode of transport through enemy lines and across the sea to raise the alarm. Captain Orme Denny led the flights