STRANDED BOMBER

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 155, 29 December 1938, Page 8

STRANDED BOMBER

RECOURSE TO CAMELS

DIFFICULT WILD TERRAIN

(From "The- Post's' Representative.»

SYDNEY, December 22. Camel teams, one of the world's oldest forms of transport, were requisitioned to rescue the crew, of one of the record-breaking Wellesley bombers which ,was forced' down in wild country oh the wild north-west coast of Australia.; The four men who were with the stranded machine were in no danger, as food and water was dropped to them by Avro-Ansori. escorting machines. All they could do was to stand by and await the land party. The machine, the personr nel of which'were Flight-Lieutenant; Hogan, Wing-Commander Gayford, Flying-Officer. Musson, and Flight Ser-, geaht Dixon, was one of; the three, Vickers-Wellesley monoplanes of the R.A.F. which made the long-distance record from Egypt to Darwin. '

!' Only one of the, three machines is ! now in commission, One was severely ' damaged in an accident at" Windsor {NiS.W.) recently. The[."remaining two bombers were flying frow>. Fort Hedland to Darwin, preparatory to leaving for England, when the mishap to the second plane occurred. , , Accompanied by Ayro-Ansons, of the •R.A.A.F.; the machines left Port Hedlahd, and^whehi 50 miles? south -; of Collier Bay, and 130 miles from Derby,; and 300 miles from Wyndham, an "oil pipe burst and the machine landed on a salt pan, the only clear piece of country for miles around, and only 40 miles'south* of where the late Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and his companions landed with the Southern Cross in 1929. The bomber's companion, planes circled round the:damaged plane-and then searched for the nearest habitation. This was the Munja aboriginal station.- • .While the crew of the stranded bomber waited beside the niachine. a rescue party from the missibn fought its way inland from the coast to bring the aviators to safety. The party consisted mostly of 'missionaries and trackers from the mission. Tfie rescuers had'to force their Way over 54 miles of rugged mountains and along the banks of the flooded Calder River to the marooned plane. The party faced a trek»over courftry which has been traversed before by only a few White men, The country has little or no natural food, and is one of the most forbidding parts of Australia now that seasonal rains have made the rivers swirling torrents.

The mission is situated at one of the most remote points on the Western Australian coast, and in country wljere it is impossible for a rescue plane to land. The crew will have to wait until the mission lugger .can take them to the nearest town or a launch can sail from Derby to take ,them* off. It is almost certain that the aviators will be taken jback to Derby, where the last of the three Wellesleys and the Anson escort await them.

Hope of salvaging the stranded plane is believed to be . forlorn,'for even if it is not severely damaged, West Australian Airways' pilots, who cross the district almost daily, say it would be an impossible task to transport it back to the coast. Pack horses or camels might be able to carry the fittings, but the air-frame seems doomed to stay where the plane crashed.