During my time in the bush flying for TAA (Trans Australian Airlines), I enjoyed the company of bush people; their ingenuity, hospitality and humour is still with me now.
This latest chapter fills in a period from 1949 to 1960, set in the Queensland Channel and Gulf Country.
In some cases, I have left out names of people. In others, I have left names in because, knowing them, they wouldn’t be worried. Revealing the names of the aircraft is simple, however; the DH83 (Fox Moths), DH84 (Dragons), DHA3 (Drovers) and the ever-reliable DC3, all owned and flown by TAA.
Charleville
In 1950 TAA Channel Services commenced due to widespread flooding throughout the channel country which made nearly all roads unusable. These Channel Services (starting off as PMG Charters) we carried passengers, mail, fruit and vegetables, machine parts, and also vaccines to protect travelling cattle mobs from contagious bovine pleuro-pneumonia (CBPP).
The aircraft initially used was the DH84 Dragon. The old Dragons in hot weather conditions were not the most efficient because all of the fabric and wire struts would sag. With a full load, it took 4,000 feet to become airborne – and, of course, would not fly on one engine for more than a few miles. When rigged on the coast they were ‘tight, taught and terrific’ in comparison.
Our TAA engineer at Charleville was Gordon Frazer, a real whiz, and our agent, George Herriman (junior), was also very efficient and co-operative. Probably the most important person in Charleville was Reg Orr (the radio base operator for the Royal Flying Doctor Service) with whom we made contact when we had engine trouble in the bush - because the early Dragons were not fitted with radios.
The first stop on our western run was at Quilpie. On one occasion, about 50 miles east of Quilpie, the starboard DH84 engine started to run rough and was back-firing. After reassuring one very nervous lady passenger and her husband that everything would be alright, we managed to get to Quilpie - and on checking the starboard engine found the fibre coupling on one of the engine magnetos had come amiss.
At Quilpie beside the airstrip lived an innovative mail contractor who helped me refit a spare magneto which we carried. The fibre couples had something like 45 teeth on one side and 64 on the other and, if fitted wrongly they told me, the engine would run backwards. Anyway, after many hours work, we tried it out and the engine ran fairly smoothly. So I flew the aircraft back to Charleville to have it properly tuned. (Note: In the RAAF I had completed an engine Fitter 2E course but was no expert in repairing engines.)
On the way from Quilpie to Windorah there were two airstrips we used to land at. One of these (Thylungra, settled by the famous Durack family) had a big well-prepared airstrip, and the other place, called Moothandilla, had a short rough airstrip. On this particular day it was very hot -and so I said to the air radio officer on duty at Charleville to tell Freddie Straney, the new pilot, not to go into Moothandilla because of the heat.
However, perhaps because he was never advised not to land, Freddie landed there anyway and never looked like getting off on departure. He just ploughed into the trees at the end of the airstrip and wrecked the aircraft; thankfully, Freddie, who was little, was not hurt.
When I got back to Charleville, Aub Koch, a lovely old bloke who was a pioneer ex-Qantas flying boat captain and also TAA’s company safety officer, asked me to fly him into Moothandilla. I refused, and said he should get a car from Windorah to take him there. When Aub saw the airstrip from the air he agreed with me on the unsuitability of the airstrip. The owner of the property, a lovely old bush man, immediately commenced work and completed an airstrip suitable for a Boeing 727 aircraft. This was the result of Freddie Straney nearly losing his life.
At Windorah we used to land at Mayfield station a couple of miles out of Windorah - and often stay there for lunch. It was run by the pioneering Kidd family.
One Saturday morning at Corones Hotel in Charleville I got a phone call from the Kidd sisters to say that Sandy Kidd was arriving on Saturday in Charleville from his school in Brisbane (Nudgee College). When the plane arrived, Sandy stepped off looking very smart – hat, tie and long socks pulled up and the instruction to me was “don’t stand any nonsense from Sandy and if he plays up whack him”. Well, Sandy could not have been better behaved and worked with Gordon Frazer out at the Charleville hangar.
I took Sandy home on Monday. Six weeks later, I called at Mayfield on my way to Charleville to be told that Sandy was missing. We had lunch and eventually a shout went up. We had found Sandy and there he was with school hat turned up like a ringer. His socks were down and he was saying “If I had got a loaf and a horse you would never have got me’, and then “I’m not flying to Charleville in that Dragon. They are unsafe.’
Half and hour later, a call came through that a stockman was missing on an adjoining property and I was asked to look for him. As I was about to depart I asked Sandy if he wanted to come with me. “Too right,’’ he replied, forgetting that Dragon aircraft were not safe.
Sandy today has his own single engine aeroplane on his property near Mayfield and does some official flying for the Department of Civil Aviation.
South Galway station was our next stop. On arrival the owner told me of his problem with the scattered cattle in the Channels. A big wet was coming down the Thompson River about to flood the Cooper.
I suggested to him on the return trip I would run one hour early and he could charter the Dragon aircraft for 10 pounds per hour to do some aerial mustering. On the return trip I had one hour to spare so we commenced aerial mustering and got most of the cattle out of the Channels to higher ground. It all went well and the owner who came up with me and leaned out the front window of the Dragon to yell “ho ho’’. On getting back he said to me “didn’t they go when I yelled ‘ho ho’’’. I doubt if the cattle could have heard him above the aircraft noise but it was effective, and he was satisfied.
Tanbar Station was on the edge of the sandhill country and north of the huge lake, Yama Yama, which filled up every flood. On this particular occasion, we had become unserviceable with a flat tyre. I contacted the Charleville TAA engineer and he said “you won’t be able to get the flat tyre off the wheel rim”. The station manager, Doug McFarlane, had other ideas. Within two hours, we had the Dragon jacked up, wheel off and in the machine shop vice, tyre off and tube repaired. In the meantime, the cook came to me and said “”Blue, do you think you’ll get that gadget to go today?’’
“No, sorry Joe, but not till tomorrow.’’
“Oh well,’’ he said, “I better kill another Stinker’’ (their name for goat) and from memory we had Stinker every meal.
En route west we flew to Cuddapan, Waverley, Mooraberrie and then Monkira station. At Monkira the Aboriginal cook, Topsie, used to say to Mrs Gunther, the manager’s wife: “Captain Ball is on today.’’ And this would be an hour before the aircraft arrived. Sure enough, Captain Barry Ball would be the captain - and so we all gave Barry heaps about his strong smell. Actually the Aborigines could tell Rev Doug Belcher, the missionary at Mornington, when we had left Normanton for Mornington Island, 120 miles away. Who needs mobile phones?
At Monkira, the manager Bob Gunther made a strange remark to me one day. He said “one of our pilots has landed a DC3 out on desert country about 30 miles west of Monkira’’. “Why would they do that?’’ I asked, certain he was not one of our pilots. (Maybe someone was smuggling people from overseas.) But I shouldn’t have wondered why, because bushmen can read bush tracks like a book and they are seldom wrong.
After Monkira station there was the Hotel Betoota, run by Ron Mitchell and his wife. Then after Durrie Station, about 40km from Birdsville, there was the station of Roseberth, owned by the Morton family.
When the floods came down the Diamantina River the station of Durrie was often isolated, so we had to drop mail and goods on the open ground in front of the station.
As usual with all bush stations, there are mobs of hawks flying around the area and when we came in to make a drop we would finish up with the poor birds caught up on the struts of the Dragon aircraft. Not very decorative, to say the least.
The Durrie people used to say we were pinching their chooks again. At Cloncurry I had a hawk come through the windscreen of a TAA DC3; after that the company put wire struts leading up from the nose to the roof of the aircraft (similar to what they do in India) as a precaution against vultures and hawks.
Birdsville and Beyond
For two years running at Birdsville I was Santa Claus. On lining up, I should say conscripted, the locals warned me not to wear the suede boots that I got in the islands working for the U.S. They said the local kids would pick me in a flash.
Anyway all went well with slippers on handing out well wrapped presents for every child, black and white.
On the second occasion, a big storm arrived - so Santa had to hand out presents quickly and depart out the back door of the Australian Inland Mission hospital (also quickly) to tie down the aircraft.
Later on one of my visits to Birdsville, I had an engine failure in a Dragon and had the TAA Chief Pilot, Captain Charlie Gray, with me. He was also an engineer and a whiz on the morse key because the only air radio station we could contact was Camooweal. However, this was not a worry to Charlie Gray. He sent a lengthy message on the morse key and within 24 hours we had a relief aircraft with engineer and parts to effect repairs.
On the lighter side of life in Birdsville, during winter times we used to have dinner in the main dining room with a big fire blazing. Halfway through dinner, a large tomcat would appear and spread his joys amongst all the cats gathered in front of the fire. John Doyle, our loader on the DC3, said it was the ‘Birdsville Hotel floorshow’.
At least once a year on visiting Birdsville we would have a mice or rat plague and this meant hanging your clothes up on wire as the rodents would not only eat your clothes but also chew on your hair and toes when in bed. Those Birdsville cats could not cope with a plague – and co-incidentally I have no hair left!
The cattle station just south of Birdsville was called Pandie Pandie and they had some champion racehorses: Pandie Star and Pandie Sun. One of these horses, Pandie Sun, was involved in a triple dead heat (with Ark Royal and Fighting Force) in the famous 1956 Hotham Handicap at Flemington, making racing history.
Further down the Birdsville track were Clifton Hills, Cowarie, Mungarane, Mulka and Ethadinna.
At Mulka, the old lady who used to run the store there on her own, to cater for the odd traveller on the Birdsville Track(1950 – 1960), was Mrs Astings. Her husband died and left the armoury he had worn in the Boxer Rebellion (in China) around 1900. There wasn’t a recognised airstrip at Mulka but we landed there a few times and Mrs Astings would stand on top of an adjacent sandhill with a tea towel to show us which way the wind was blowing. (She eventually said, “Don’t land here boys – you will break your necks!”)
Ethadinna was our next stop, run by the Oldfield family, with two daughters and a large homestead. We often stayed overnight and enjoyed good hospitality. Mrs Oldfield always kept an eye on Mrs Astings at Mulka and would give us bread etc to drop to her if we were not landing.
West of Ethadinna was a large continuous flowing bore on the Birdsville stock route which, other than the one at Bedourie, never stopped. It was called ‘Canuwalkalane’ (I think the spelling of this word is as it sounds) which is an Aboriginal name.
One incident should not be left out of happenings on the TAA Channel Service. Arriving over Bedourie late in the afternoon, we found the airstrip flooded by the Georgina River. We remembered the locals talking of an alternate landing place in front of the hotel. It looked rough, but flat, so I landed there. As soon as I did, I said to John McCabe, my only passenger and also the chief pilot’s operations clerk, “we won’t get off from here.’’ It was too short and we were not fitted with radio to advise the company.
The local policeman assured me the night before we would be right as there was an alternate airstrip about one mile away. So next morning he suggested taxiing the Dragon over a sandhill and up a road to the airstrip. That was not possible due to the height of the sandhill, so we decided to try to make a take-off area from where the aircraft was sited. We stripped the aircraft of all seats, cargo etc and had it as an empty shell. Then after a small area had been cleared, I said I would try taxiing on it. The aircraft empty, the tail came up and within 500 metres I was airborne. John McCabe was pleased to see me land up the road as he had visions of being left in Bedourie for the wet season. Without communications, no one was aware of this drama.
Our destination in the early days was Maree and then later Leigh Creek which was the site of a large South Australian coal mine, and a hotel. When we operated DC3s we continued on to Adelaide. On alternate weeks we would operate from Windorah, Cordillo Downs, Arrabury, Durham Downs, Karmona, Nappamerrie, Innaminka, Orontos, Tibooburra and Broken Hill.
We used to stay overnight at Cordillo Downs, hosted by manager George Crombie, a bookkeeper and his wife. They were wonderful and generous hosts; Cordillo Downs was a pioneer sheep station and now a cattle station. The homestead was constructed by German stonemasons who built walls twelve inches thick, providing wonderful insulation in winter and summer. R.M. Williams said in his book that George Crombie was one of the best cattlemen he had encountered, and that was high praise from such a bushman.
Arrabury was a pioneer cattle station run by the Debney family. When old Mr Debney left Annabury with us, en route to Broken Hill and Adelaide, I did two circles above the homestead because this would be the last time the old chap would see Arrabury where he had lived all his life.
Durham Downs was a Kidman station and run by Peter Stevenson. Poor old Peter lost his life when the homestead burnt down. In the DC3 days we had broken down at Durham Downs and were all out at the airstrip with all of the passengers. One of our passengers was the new overseer for Cordillo Downs. He took a fit but, after we put a spoon over his tongue and wrapped him in an aircraft blanket and pillow, he recovered from the agitations of the fit. The manager of Cordillo said to me, “Hell, I couldn’t cope with that’’ - and I assured him it didn’t happen often.
While leaving Nappemerrie Station in a Dragon VH-BAH (which had a bus-like seat across the back of the aircraft), two big blokes got on at Nappemerrie and I said to them, “you stand up front of the passenger cabin on take-off’’.
All was going well when all of a sudden the aircraft took a tail-down attitude and stopped climbing. In alarm I looked back and the two big blokes had returned to the big seat at the rear of the aircraft. “Come up, fuck you, come up!” I yelled in panic, which they duly did, and the aircraft just cleared the trees at the end of the airstrip. One TAA senior executive, Ralph Conley, used to tell this story with glee; especially when it was said Mrs. Shied from Karmone tried to climb into the cockpit with me during this incident.
Innaminka had a hotel run by an Aborigine and his family. Across the creek were an Australian Inland Mission hostel and the Kidman Station property. In floods the airstrip was unusable and so we had to land the Dragon aircraft on a temporary strip on a hill behind the pub.
On landing we took the tail-wheel off the DH84 and came to a halt. It was Sunday, so I used the A.I.M. pedal radio emergency system which consisted of me pedalling furiously and blowing a whistle into a microphone (a bit like patting your head and rubbing your tummy). Within one minute the voice of Vern Kerr, Broken Hill Royal Flying Doctor Service, came on answering the emergency call. I told him what had happened and asked him to contact the TAA Melbourne engineering department with our plight.
They later replied that they were sending a DC3 aircraft with engineers to the rescue. I immediately replied that the airstrip was too short and to cancel that idea.
With the help of many bushmen, and spare parts from a wrecked DH84, we effected repairs to the aircraft and flew back to Charleville. The A.I.M. sisters are still getting over the excessive amount of my spit in the microphone.
At Broken Hill, we stayed at the Paradise Hotel run by Johnny Paradise, an Olympic wrestler from Sydney. He was a great host and got up early to serve us breakfast - and always had a schooner of milk for Moo, the first officer who didn’t drink. He later became the TAA Queensland chief pilot. (Maybe there is a message here for young pilots.)
On leaving Broken Hill one morning early, as I walked across the tarmac to the aeroplane a voice called out “Any cigarettes?” This was the driver of the airport fire truck who used to be in the Transport Section of the RAAF at Archerfield in 1945. When we got back from the islands (New Guinea and The Philippines) he used to collect our imports of American cigarettes and take them down to Northern New South Wales to sell them. This helped our wages which were only three pounds and 10 shillings - plus airline cap, badge and wings. (I should point out that this was not approved by Customs.)
Cluncurry
When we were not required for mail run flying duties, we often had to do Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) work. A couple of trips stand out in my memory. One was a trip to Anthony’s Lagoon in the Northern Territory. It was on the limit of the Cloncurry circuit.
On this trip I took an English doctor whose name I have forgotten. At Anthony’s Lagoon, the doctor conducted the medical clinic up on an open veranda where I was sheltering from the midday heat. The manager said to the doctor, “I want you to look at an old bloke who I cannot get to work’’.
An elderly Aboriginal man appeared and the doctor asked him to take off his shirt. He was shaking all over and gingerly removed his shirt revealing a large bump in the middle of his back. The doctor looked at it and said, “This man has broken his back’’.
“Is that what’s wrong with the old bludger. Well, he’s no good to me’’, said the manager, who sent this elderly man back to his tribe at Booraloola.
On the way back from Anthony’s Lagoon, we received a message to say an Aboriginal woman had escaped with the help of her husband from the Normanton Hospital. She had a suspected case of tuberculosis, so we set off for Mitchell River station (up the Gulf) when we received a radio message that there was an Aboriginal man and woman camped down on a lagoon nearby. When we got to the station, the manager met us and drove us to this lagoon. The doctor and the manager strode out in front while I lagged some distance behind. I could see the Aboriginal man had a woomera and a spear and I wasn’t going to be the first one speared.
The doctor unafraid marched up to this man and said, “You are a very naughty man’’, and took the woman by the hand and escorted her back to the truck. They had swum at least two crocodile infested rivers to get this far on their way home.
On the lighter side, I flew Dr. Alan Vickers up to Tambo from Charleville. On arrival on a very short airstrip, the doctor departed hurriedly and returned later with a very pregnant lady. The doctor instructed me to fly her back to Charleville and he would remain at Tambo. “But doctor,” I asked, “what if she has her baby on the way?’’
“You will be right, Blue,” said Dr Vickers. “Just don’t waste time worrying.’’
At Doomadgee Mission in the Gulf Country, they had an airstrip that would suffer when the wet season came. Their method of hardening the airstrip was to walk a mob of cattle up and down the airstrip.
On this DC3 mail run we used to pick up stockmen and cooks, for the various stations, from the Doomadgee Mission. I was always impressed with the kindness shown by the missionaries, Mr and Mrs Hocking, to the Aboriginal people leaving to and returning from station work. (My appreciation was not shared by the local station people but I thought them to be kind.)
Perhaps the best known and best loved pilot on the Gulf Run was Captain Ross Crabbe. When Ross used to arrive at a stop with an aircraft that appeared to be full, he’d be asked if he had room for one more. “If you can get on and close the door, you’re on,’’ he’d say.
One stormy night, Ross failed to return to Cloncurry and panic reigned supreme at both RAAF Townsville and TAA Melbourne. Next morning, with daylight at 5.30am, Ross turned up at 8.30 am. When questioned by the aerodrome officer, he replied; “The weather was crook and I landed on a claypan’’.
“But Ross, it’s now 8.30.’’ “Oh, I slept in,’’ said Ross.
Another western pilot who made his name among bush people was Captain Ron Anderson. He was Dr. Alan Vickers’ pilot for many years, based at Charleville. Ron was an ex-Tasman radio officer on ships between Sydney and Auckland - and could take morse code as quick as you could send it, and type it out at the same time. During the war, Ron flew as a pilot/radio officer on the double sunrise secret service from Perth to Ceylon, a total of 26 hours (I reckon they deserved a medal for this).
Ron and his wife Joan now live at Holy Spirit village at Carseldine, not far from where I live now.
Jack Swarby was our Cloncurry agent and had a great storytelling ability. He described the new RFDS doctor’s wife ‘bringing culture to the country’; and in the middle of one of her Shakespearean scenes, while she was town on her hambones, a blue cattle dog came on to the stage.
“Get him luvey,’’ was our local engineer’s request to his own dog. As Jack Swarby described it, there followed one of the best dogfights you would ever see – all while the good lady was down on her knees asking: “Wherefore art thou, Romeo?”
Doctors of the RFDS
No story about the Queensland bush should be concluded without paying a tribute to the Royal Flying Doctor Service and its flying doctors.
Dr. Alan Vickers was the most senior and best loved flying doctor in the bush. He was greatly respected by all the bush people, and will be long remembered as he was a great favourite and a great doctor.
Dr. Timothy O’Leary, with his Irish brogue and sense of humour, was a great doctor to follow on from Dr. Vickers. Many bush people said he was as good an animal vet as he was a doctor, as he often gave valuable information on problems they had with their animals.
During my time in the bush I enjoyed the company of bush people and, as I said at the start, their ingenuity would win any episode of the TV programme, “The Inventors”.