by Jim Eames
As they flew overhead he remembers seeing the Travelodge where TAA aircrew normally stayed. He had promised Nikki they would be able to spend some time in the Travelodge pool. The pool had several cars in it.
Then the radio burst into life and a RAAF airfield safety officer, speaking from a vehicle below, asked Vuillermin what runway length he needed to land. Vuillermin said 914.4 metres of the main runway’s 10 000 would do. They landed safely, followed the RAAF safety officer’s vehicle through the debris on a long taxi to the terminal area and into an atmosphere of general confusion and no apparent organisation. ‘No one quite knew what to do. It was very early days and people were in a state of shock and disbelief.’
One of the TAA staff offered to drive him into town where he found Nikki’s grandmother who had decided to head south in her own car. He left Nikki with her and headed back to the airport, on the way recalling seeing another TAA Darwin-based pilot washing his children’s nappies in a geyser of water from a broken water main.
That night Stretton arrived to take over and told Vuillermin and his first officer, Tony Burgess, to get some rest and to await instructions. Vuillermin didn’t want to be too far from the Fokker as there were rumours everywhere that the cyclone might be on the way back, so he headed back to the airport.
Although there was some storm activity the cyclone didn’t return and the next morning they loaded 32 traumatised women and 27 children, all destined for Brisbane hospitals. All but one of the 27 children was under three years of age, nine of the babies less than two days old. One had been born only four hours before. Qantas opened their catering section and told the F.27’s flight attendants, Debbie Marker and Marie Willis, to take what they wanted, so they helped themselves to whatever drinks, biscuits, sanitary pads and towels they could find and they were on their way.
For Vuillermin, the two-hour flight, first to Mt Isa, was like flying from a war zone, with RAAF and his TAA flight attendants providing first aid to their passengers. Like Myers’ Katherine experience, when Vuillermin called TAA at Mt Isa requesting catering, his words were initially met with disbelief. But the sandwiches and drinks were there and after a fast turnaround they were on their way to Brisbane and hospital care.
Earlier, at Darwin, as Ray Vuillermin and his crew were finalising the loading of their Friendship, they heard the sound of jet engines approaching and looked up to see Captain John Brooks’ Qantas Boeing 707 appear out of the south-east. For John Brooks it had been an early start. Called out by Qantas Operations, he was on his way to Sydney airport shortly after 3 a.m. Boxing Day and a pre-flight briefing. Such was the dearth of information available that, if he couldn’t land, the 707 would be loaded with sufficient fuel to return to Sydney.
Meanwhile other Qantas personnel were gathering at Mascot, including a medical team of nurses headed by two Qantas doctors, six engineers and staff from personnel, line maintenance, general services and the airline’s Traffic Department. Qantas’ director of engineering and maintenance, Ron Yates, had the foresight to direct that the 707 to be used should be one of the six which had single sideband (SSB) radio fitted. The SSB would prove a valuable decision, allowing requests for what was urgently needed in Darwin to be relayed direct to Qantas in Sydney. Also loaded on board were eight tonnes of food, particularly baby food, drinks, ice and several thousand blankets.
By 4.30 a.m. Brooks and his crew were in the aircraft and ready to go, only to have their request for a clearance to start engines refused by Mascot’s air-traffic control on the grounds they were still inside the curfew hours between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. Brooks’ pleas that this was an emergency flight with a Qantas medical team and supplies on board fell on deaf ears. Exasperated, Brooks suggested air-traffic control telephone the federal minister for transport for approval, but was told he was asleep. ‘Well, wake him up!’ Brooks said.
When that didn’t work Brooks asked Qantas operations over the radio whether they could do something, but after a fifteen-minute wait the answer came back that they were unable to remedy the situation. So an unhappy Brooks and crew cooled their heels until, at 5.55 a.m. when the radio crackled into life with their start-up clearance and they were at last on their way.
Brooks would describe the approach to Darwin that morning as though they were on the dark side of the moon.
We were at about 30 000 feet when we started our descent on our own decision as there was no air-traffic control and, even though it was daylight it was like we were going into a dark hole.
They had their first sight of Darwin as they broke through cloud at around 8000 feet. ‘My first impression was it had been flattened by a nuclear device. Surely a cyclone couldn’t have done all that.’
Brooks took the Boeing out over the sea to lose altitude and flew over the town for a closer look. To the small group of Qantas staff on the ground that morning, the sight of that 707 with the kangaroo on the tail would be an emotional experience that would remain with them for the rest of the lives.
Qantas manager, Ian Burns-Woods, and his pregnant wife, Gabrielle, had spent their first Christmas in Darwin like most of the rest of the city’s residents—sheltering inside as their home disintegrated around them. Burns-Woods remembers the fearsome shattering of glass as he jammed his feet against the bathroom door to stop it from blowing in on them, although he admits the bottle of cognac they had smuggled into the bathroom with them provided some solace.
By morning the roof was gone, along with most of the walls, and an eerie silence had descended as he stood there witnessing the results of a decision he’d made following the warnings the night before. With the cyclone approaching, he’d decided to leave the Qantas company Ford Falcon out in the street and put his prized Alfa Romeo GT under the car port just in case. The Ford had survived with hardly a scratch, but the roof of the car port had collapsed on the Alfa.
Some of the staff gathered outside the Travelodge later in the morning and Burns-Woods heard that someone had called a disaster meeting somewhere in town. Anyone who could provide resources needed to attend, they said. He was about to leave when they heard the sound of an aircraft but could not see anything in the overcast sky. ‘We stood there as the sound grew louder and louder.’
Suddenly, over the top of the Travelodge loomed the underbelly of a Boeing 707 as it circled around almost on top of them. ‘The thrill of that moment remains with me today,’ Burns-Woods would remember decades later.
Several of his staff had tears in their eyes as they waved and cheered before jumping into cars to drive to the airport as quickly as possible to meet it. They all found themselves fervently hoping the Boeing would be able to land.
Burns-Woods confesses in those emotional moments he even remembers forgiving his ‘masters’ at Qantas head office for their occasional ‘pedantry, their sanctimony and even their budget cuts’. ‘When we really needed help they’d arrived.’
Meanwhile, John Brooks had made a false approach and dropped to around a hundred feet, flying alongside the runway to make an assessment. Thankful that the RAAF appeared to have cleared it reasonably well, he climbed again, did a normal circuit and landed. It wasn’t until after they were on the ground that the 707’s flight engineer, Norm King, would find the runway had been littered with large roofing nails and screws, fortunately none of which had penetrated the 707’s tyres. Once on the ground Brooks didn’t know where to taxi the Boeing to.
‘There was no VHF radio, no power, no nothing. The place was deserted.’
With obviously no ground power unit available to restart his engines, Brooks decided to leave the number-four engine running to provide the Boeing with power on the ground and in the event they had to leave again. (Sometime later they would locate a ground power unit from among the debris and they were able to shut down the engine.)
With nothing to do but wait, and mystified by the lack of people around, including anyone from the air force, Brooks finally saw a man come out of a hangar so he walked over and opened the door. Inside were
scores of air-force people, women and children, some weeping. He approached the nearest RAAF officer, telling him he had a single sideband radio on the 707 for their use if they needed it. ‘He appeared really harassed, looked at me as if I was half mad, then pulled himself up to his full height and said: “We don’t need any help from you.”’
Momentarily stunned, Brooks went back out the door and onto the tarmac. As he walked back towards his aircraft another officer approached, at first walked past him and then called out for Brooks to stop.
‘Are you the pilot of that 707?’
‘Yes, I am,’ replied Brooks.
‘Well, I’m commandeering it.’
Brooks suggested he might have to call Qantas to do so, but the officer told him he didn’t need to do that.
‘Well, who do you think you’re going to get to fly it?’ Brooks retorted, by now his patience being tested.
With that there were several moments of silence, after which the officer turned on his heels and marched off. Brooks returned to his Boeing.
Eventually he found someone who appeared to be in charge, who asked him how many he could take back to Sydney. ‘I just told him to fill her up.’
There are parts of the story on this day which remain hard to rationalise, beyond the obvious state of shock Tracy had left behind. Brooks says:
There wasn’t much sign of the air force. All the others like the airline engineers and people were ripping the debris apart to try to get equipment they might need and they managed to uncover a set of steps. The air force were nowhere to be seen and I didn’t see anyone until I stepped into that hangar.
All these people and kids crying, all in this hangar with the doors closed. It shook me a little.
As a former Canadian air force officer, Brooks said he could understand the shock and trauma, but he remains perplexed by what he judged to be a limited air-force involvement in these early stages.
With the opportunity to use the return of the 707 to relieve some pressure on Darwin, Burns-Woods, accompanied by two Qantas doctors, Harvey Dakin and Tommy Thompson, from the Boeing, set off back to town to announce its availability to the disaster meeting being chaired by Stretton.
By the time he entered the room the meeting had been in progress for more than an hour and they were in the middle of a discussion on re-erecting the town’s power lines. Realising time was of the essence as far as the 707 was concerned, Burns-Woods put his hand up from the back of the room.
‘Sir, I don’t mean to interrupt, but there is a 707 waiting at the airport which can take some of the seriously ill people south immediately.’
‘Who are you?’ retorted the general, appearing slightly irritated at the interruption.
Burns-Woods identified himself, then was taken aback when the general said: ‘When I’m ready to hear from Qantas I will let you know.’
Burns-Woods says he waited for about five minutes to regain his confidence then again raised his hand.
I don’t mean to be rude, but the aircraft is currently idling on one engine because we have no serviceable ground-start equipment and as it cannot be refuelled it will need to leave very soon.
Stretton’s reply, suggesting that what was of interest to Qantas was not his concern and he needed to get on with the meeting, somehow convinced Burns-Woods that he was not explaining the situation well enough, so he interrupted again, explaining bluntly that unless some action was taken immediately the aircraft would have to leave Darwin with no one on it.
With that, Stretton adjourned the meeting and the Northern Territory’s Director of Medical Services, Dr Charles Gurd, began to nominate patients for evacuation. The two Qantas doctors would remain in Darwin to assist.
Meanwhile, at the airport, the 707’s crew unloaded supplies while they waited for their chosen passengers to arrive. Flight engineer Norm King remembers the two most popular items on board were 50 cans of WD40 for use in starting rain-soaked equipment and 500 Benson and Hedges cigarettes.
‘I’d never seen so many men lighting so many cigarettes all at once,’ he recalls.
When their passengers arrived they included patients chosen by the medical team, along with women and around 100 children. Brooks took the Boeing into the air for Sydney that afternoon with 266 people on board, more than twice the 120 normally carried on a 707.
Some were sitting on peoples’ laps and on the floor. I confess I didn’t want to know what was back there as I thought the civil aviation people might come down on me for what I did.
Groups of press, anxious for the first news from Darwin, met the aircraft at Sydney and watched as the still-dazed passengers alighted. One of the first off was a woman with her Siamese cat under her arm. Stretcher cases were taken direct to the Prince of Wales hospital and the other refugees by bus to the North Head Quarantine station.
The major Darwin uplift had now begun and as RAAF bases and airline operating teams urgently marshalled their resources, the Australian aviation industry would prove its worth. In contrast to John Brooks’ impression of the RAAF’s early involvement, there would be no denying what that service would achieve both in the air and on the ground in the days that followed.
With Hitchins dictating his requirements, particularly the necessity to move RAAF people out so capacity could be used for the main uplift task, the Hercules transports from No 36 and 37 Squadrons at Richmond were gearing up for a maximum effort, recalling their crews from leave. Others were volunteering their services anyway.
One C-130 navigator on his way to Launceston airport from leave at Penguin in Tasmania, was pulled over by a police patrol for speeding. When he explained his situation the police provided him with an escort the rest of the way.
At 4 a.m. Boxing Day, long before Brooks’ 707 had arrived, Squadron Leader Fewster’s C-130, the aircraft which had brought Stretton into Darwin, was already on its way to Sydney with eighteen stretcher cases, others less seriously injured and relatives of the patients, all in the care of a RAAF medical team. After a quick turnaround at Richmond the same aircraft would be heading back to Darwin loaded with 25 refrigerators, 52 generators, water purifiers, food and hundreds of pairs of gloves. Others would bring in an Iroquois to replace the helicopter damaged during Tracy, medical supplies, blankets, milk and other foodstuffs and rolls of plastic.
While in the air that day they would pass a second Hercules which had left Darwin with more stretcher cases, including a woman with a suspected fracture of the vertebra. Some indication of the condition of medical facilities at Darwin’s hospital could be gauged from the fact that when chosen for evacuation the woman was still lying on the door she was on when she arrived at the hospital. Both she and the door were loaded on the Hercules, along with 85 civilian refugees.
Sometime during Boxing Day, with little fresh water, emergency power providing weak lighting and floors covered with muddy water, it was decided that all patients requiring more than two or three days’ treatment needed to be evacuated from Darwin and the decision was made to close down Darwin hospital.
By the afternoon of Boxing Day Darwin airport was beginning to witness a pattern of air movements which would increase in intensity over the coming days as the Qantas 707 and Ray Vuillermin’s F.27 departed and a surge of other civilian aircraft arrived to take their place.
Priorities were being established for the evacuation, with the sick and injured and pregnant women at the top of the list, to be followed by women and children, the elderly, married couples and single people. Later estimates would reveal that more than 2000 left by vehicle in the first two days, most south towards Alice Springs or east to Mt Isa. While Stretton and his people were aware of the possibility of mental anguish by splitting families in such a way, the devastation and lack of facilities, along with the risk of disease, left little other option.
The first Boeing 727s from Ansett and TAA came and departed with refugees to Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide, while a sister F.27 to Vuillermin’s, under the command of Captain David Baker, fle
w out to Mackay with a planeload of pregnant patients from Darwin hospital. Many of the women on board had no way of knowing whether their husbands were still alive. Along with the 40 pregnant women, Baker was carrying two cabin crew, a doctor, two nursing sisters and two of the hospital’s cats. With two of the women in labour, Baker headed for Mt Isa to pass them on and refuel, but Mt Isa’s hospital was already full of injured who had reached there by car from Darwin. It was a vastly relieved Baker who finally reached Mackay. ‘The noises up the back were becoming terrifying to say the least,’ he remembers.
As Baker’s Fokker Friendship headed east, a MacRobertson Miller Airlines (MMA) Fokker Fellowship jet was heading southwest for what would be the start of a series of MMA shuttles carrying Perth-bound refugees. MMA Captain Reg Adkins recounts when one called at Newman for fuel: ‘mothers with babies got off the aeroplane and washed their babies’ bums on the lawn in front of the terminal’, while Newman women brought out tea, coffee, sandwiches and additional nappies.
With no Darwin navigation aids operating, like many of the crews involved, MMA pilots had to adjust their approach into Darwin, at first heading from Kununurra to Katherine, then back to Darwin using the Katherine navigation aids, until finally identifying the Darwin coastline on their aircraft’s radar.
Over the three days, 27, 28 and 29 December, the uplift would reach its peak and Darwin airport would appear like a war zone, with airline jets and military aircraft landing, unloading supplies, loading passengers and heading for all points of the compass with refugees and their barest possessions.
By now RAAF bases and civil airports around Australia had established emergency facilities to meet personnel and civilians at their destinations, clearing stations were providing medical assistance, clothing was being issued and accommodation requirements were being handled, with relatives or friends where possible, or in privately offered lodgings. The main destinations for the refugees would be Mt Isa, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, where they would be processed and often shuttled to other destinations within the airline network.
