Coasts of Cape York

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

THE NAVY CADETS SERIES

THE ARMY CADETS SERIES

COASTS OF CAPE YORK

The Air Cadets

 

C.R. CUMMINGS

 

 

 

COASTS OF CAPE YORK

The Air Cadets: Book 1

© Copyright C. R. Cummings 2006

 

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealings fro the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the
Copyright Act,
no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. The right of C. R. Cummings to be identified as the moral rights author has been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000
(Commonwealth).

 

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Cummings, C. R.

Coasts of Cape York.

ISBN 1 74008 379 2.

 

A823.3

 

This eBook edition 2012

Published by DoctorZed Publishing

www.doctorzed.com

 

eISBN  978-0-9872061-4-5

 

 

C.R. CUMMINGS

 

COASTS OF CAPE YORK

The Air Cadets

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DOCTORZED PUBLISHING

www.doctorzed.com

 

 

DEDICATION

This book, while a work of fiction, is respectfully dedicated to the air crew of the Royal Australian Air Force who flew the ‘Black Cat' ‘Catalinas' in the defence of Australia during the 2
^nd
World War.

 

Especially the crew of ‘Catalina' PB2B A24-204, which was lost without trace over the Laoet Strait

 

During operations against the Japanese

27 January 1945

 

And all of whom are ‘Missing in Action'

 

Flight Lieutenant J. A. Seage

Flying Officer P. Laney

Pilot Officer J. H. Brown

Warrant Officer M. V. M. Bowness

Flight Sergeant  R. L. Warne

Sergeant A. S. R. Martin

Sergeant R. C. Preston

Sergeant J. K. Thomson

 

And in particular Warrant Officer Hector Wickham. Deeply loved younger brother of my mother Mrs Cynthia Cummings (nee Wickham).

 

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

 

 

For their help in the preparation of this book the author would like to thank the following:

 

The Beck Family of the Beck Collection, Kennedy Highway, Mareeba, for their advice, encouragement and technical information.

 

Craig Justo for permission to use his splendid photo of a ‘Catalina' in flight.

 

Mr Graham Orphan, Editor of
Classic Wings

 

Sqn Ldr John Leroy and the staff of the RAAF Museum, Townsville.

 

Sqn Ldr Mel Dundas-Taylor

For his encouragement and information on aircraft wrecks in NQ

 

My late father, Captain H. W. Cummings, Master Mariner, and the ship's companies of the
Wewak
 and
Bonthorpe.

 

 I would also like to acknowledge Bob Piper whose article ‘The Secret Airfields – Iron Range' in
Flightpath
Vol 16- No 2 Nov-Jan 2005 provided details included in Chap 17.

 

Torres Strait Heritage Museum and Art Gallery

Mr A. L. SeeKeee and Ms V. SeeKee

Wasaga, Horn Island

 

‘Savannah Aviation'

For information on the B24 ‘Liberator' crash at Moonlight Creek.

 

ALSO BY

C. R. CUMMINGS

 

THE GREEN IDOL OF KANAKA CREEK

 

ROSS RIVER FEVER

 

TRAIN TO KURANDA

 

THE MUDSKIPPER CUP

 

DAVY JONES'S LOCKER

 

BELOW BARTLE FRERE

 

AIRSHIP OVER ATHERTON

 

THE CADET CORPORAL

 

STANNARY HILLS

 

*COASTS OF CAPE YORK

 

KYLIE AND THE KELLY GANG

 

BEHIND MT BALDY

 

THE CADET SERGEANT MAJOR

 

COOKTOWN CHRISTMAS

 

THE SECRET IN THE CLOUDS

 

THE WORD OF GOD

 

THE CADET UNDER-OFFICER

 

THE SMILEY PEOPLE

 

Map 1: Cape York Peninsula

 

CHAPTER 1

 

WHAT LUCK!

 

Willy Williams, 14 years old, a Leading Cadet in the Australian Air Force Cadets and mad keen flyer, looked out the window of the PBY5 Flying Boat and thought he was just the luckiest boy alive.

“Everything seems to be going my way at the moment,” he told himself.  He turned and looked along the interior of the fuselage- cabin seemed too grand a title for such a cramped and bare compartment. His friend, Leading Cadet ‘Stick' Morton, met his eye and they both grinned.

“This is great!” Stick shouted above the bellow of the old Alison radial engines.

Even when Stick shouted Willy could hardly hear him as both wore ear protection to muffle the all but deafening roar. So did all of the other air cadets on the joyride. Only a few, mostly the adult instructors, had intercom attachments.

There were 12 air cadets and four adult staff on board the restored PBY, along with a ‘crew' of four. The aircraft was one of only half a dozen in the entire world that was still airworthy and Willy appreciated just how lucky he had been to get the chance to have a flight in it.  He had flown in a dozen other aircraft types over the years and made it a point of trying to fly in as many different types as possible. But all of them had been ‘land' planes with wheels. This was the first time he had flown in a seaplane.

For a few seconds he pictured their take off from Cairns half an hour earlier and the memory made him smile. The unfamiliar buffeting as the hull struck the waves and the great curve of white bow wave and spray outside the cabin windows had added real novelty to a take-off.  ‘I like it,' he thought happily.

The girl beside him, also an air cadet, pressed herself against his arm. The pressure added to Willy's pleasure and he turned and smiled at her. The girl was Stick's sister and Willy's girlfriend. Marjorie was a year younger, 13, and a year behind at school, being in Year 8.  She was very busty for her age and had a cheerful, freckled face and straw coloured hair. She was very much in love with Willy and was very, very affectionate.

But Willy's mind was not on girls at that moment. ‘It isn't every day you get a chance to fly in a really historic aircraft,' he told himself.  It had indeed been by pure chance that the trip had been organized. One of their air cadet officers, Squadron Leader Sanderson, once their own CO but now a staff officer at Wing HQ, was an old school friend of the wealthy businessman who now owned the restored World War 2 aircraft. When the plane had arrived for a ‘Warbirds' air show Sqn Ldr Sanderson had requested a joy flight for the cadets. So many cadets had been interested that they had sold raffle tickets and then drawn the seats by lot.  The owner and pilot, Mr Southall, had been planning a sightseeing flight up to Thursday Island in the Torres Strait and the cadets had been allowed to join it.

Willy also knew he was lucky to be crouched with Stick and Marjorie at the starboard side ‘blister', one of two which had originally been fitted for gun mounts to protect above and behind.  Being in the clear perspex blister gave him a much better view than from in the cabin. In there the cadets had to take turns at peeking through the small circular portholes. Knowing that he had only another ten minutes or so before it was the turn of other cadets to sit in the blister he turned his attention to looking out.

For the next few minutes Willy's attention was taken up partly by looking at the scenery and partly by studying the details of the restored World War 2 aircraft. ‘This plane is the real McCoy,' he thought happily, not being in the least concerned that parts of it were now over sixty years old. ‘This is one of the original ‘Black Cats',' he told himself.

His eye travelled along the long, high-set wing, feasting on the lines of rivets and on the black paint work. The plane had been repainted in its original World War 2 colours, after spending forty years painted bright yellow and red as a fire fighting aircraft in Canada. Some of the black paint was now peeling off, revealing small patches of both bright colours and even some shiny bare metal but that did not dim Willy's appreciation. In his mind's eye it just made the aircraft look like it had done hard war service.

He began a day dream, imagining that he was the tail gunner and that the plane was on the last leg of a long overnight mission up into the Indonesian Archipelago. From his reading he knew that the ‘Catalina' squadrons of the RAAF had spent much of their time doing enormously long flights, up to 20 hours at a time, from Australian bases right up to the north of New Guinea and to the Moluccas and Sulawesi.

‘We have been laying mines in the harbour of Ambon,' he decided, picturing the Japanese heavy cruiser that then hit one of the mines and sank. ‘And we have had to fight off Japanese fighters on the way back,' he added. His eyes swept the sky, searching for the imaginary ‘Zeros' and he pretended in his mind to fight them off, while warning the captain in time to take avoiding action.

A tremble of minor turbulence Willy just converted to the effect of flak bursting nearby. ‘From that Japanese destroyer that was hiding near that island,' he thought. He looked down and noted several islands and a whole mass of coral reefs. At that moment the plane was just passing across Princess Charlotte Bay, that huge bight out of the east coast of Cape York Peninsula that is so conspicuous on the map of Queensland.  Behind him he could see the brown smear of the coast in the vicinity of Cape Melville and just behind and 5,000 feet below, the large islands of the Flinders Group.