THE ANSONS OF BAIRNSDALE
“16 Of Our Aircraft Are Missing!”
The night of February 24 1945, will be remembered as the night that 16 RAAF General Reconnaissance School (GRS) Avro 652 Anson aircraft “went missing”.
On that fine late summer evening in Bairnsdale Victoria, night flying was in progress; with the Meteorological forecast favouring clear conditions. However, a dense fog quickly settled over Gippsland, just within 30 minutes after 16 Anson aircraft took off from RAAF Bairnsdale, on training missions. 13 out of 16 Ansons, were engaged in night navigation exercises over the ocean.
Soon, all 16 Ansons were hopelessly lost.
One pilot managed to find a hole in the fog and landed at West Sale, while the remaining crews continued to search for suitable landing ground. When they ran out of fuel, each aircraft proceeded to crash-land on any available field or roadway.
One crew, flying the Anson DJ213 was completing a training mission at Bairnsdale Airport when on final approach, one wing of the twin-engine aircraft collided with a tree and crash-landed 500 yards short of the runway threshold, slewed around in the opposite direction and slammed into a heavy stump, instantly killing Sgt M. Lawrence, the pilot, while the other three were seriously injured. The aircraft was written off.
Another Anson AX225, which was extremely low on fuel, crashed just two miles north of Rosedale, landing on the roadway in the vicinity of Morwell. Sgt. D.J. McLeod died in the crash. He left it too late to jump and his parachute did not fully open. The aircraft was damaged beyond repair. Three crew survived.
“The cloud bank was low, right down to the deck, up to about 2000 feet which rolled in from the sea enveloping our base at Bairnsdale, which is near the coast.
I was the first to take off that night and was about 100 miles from the coast when I sent a signal to base reporting that weather conditions prevented some parts of the navigation procedures being carried out. Base notified all aircraft to return to base. Probably about half of them were able to land at Bairnsdale. After exploring every option available to me the only hope was to bail out because Eastern Victoria was completely covered.
So I was about to climb to 5000 feet when we saw a hole in the clouds and a row of lights which could have been a flare path. After checking the fuel and the time we had been in the air I calculated that I still had 30 minutes of fuel which was sufficient to investigate. The lights proved to be a stationary train.
I immediately started to climb out when the starboard motor cut at about 2000 feet above sea level. The crew managed to bail out just before the port motor cut. I went into crash landing procedure hitting four trees and losing a large section of one wing and a portion of the other. The aircraft was a write off.”
83-year-old ex Flt Sgt Kevin M. Moloney (pilot of this aircraft) in May 2002.
Sometimes even a disaster like this contains an element of comedy.
One pilot desperately trying to keep his aircraft in the air long enough to allow his crew to jump to safety, saw his observer prepare to jump, then change his mind and make his way back inside. He was looking for his tie, which he had discarded while working on his maps! After some rather heated instruction from the pilot, the observer hurriedly jumped.
Another pilot found that when he left the controls and attempted to run to the rear door to bail out, the Anson reared up in a steep climb, preventing him from leaving. He struggled back to the controls, trimmed the plane into a nose down attitude and made another attempt. This time the Anson went into a steep dive again preventing his departure. Finally, in despair, he decided that he was too low anyway and rode the crash-reluctant Anson down to a perfect landing in a South Gippsland field; he found later to be the only suitable spot for many miles.
Considering the adverse weather conditions, it was remarkable that out of about 60 RAAF airmen involved, only 3 were killed.
OTHER GRS ANSON ACCIDENTS | 1945
Anson N1336 which survived on 24th February 1945, met its fate a month later, while on a long reconnaissance exercise to Lowood, Queensland. It ran out of fuel and crashed into Lake King four miles east of Paynesville, on March 22 1945. N1336 was later “converted to components”
In another episode, Anson W2244 took off from Bairnsdale on 5 April 1945 on a reconnaissance exercise along the coast to Lowood via Richmond and Evans Head in New South Wales. Whilst proceeding to Evans Head from Richmond on 7 April 1945, the aircraft landed at Williamtown NSW due to bad weather. Although the weather was not all that favourable, the pilot, Sqn Ldr Alex Allan Buck, decided to get airborne once again — on a direct flight to Lowood.
After a while, W2244 lost W/T (Wireless Telegraphy) communications with Base due to severe cyclonic disturbance near Evans Head, thus failing to respond to the scheduled time call. Once the aircraft was overdue, at Lowood, a SAR was launched on 8 April 1945, continuing through to 12 April 1945.
W2244 apparently ran into a violent tropical storm over northern NSW, and was blown off course. It crashed into the sea, with the loss of all personnel aboard.
On 22 April 1945 searchers found some wreckage which had been washed up on a beach between Coffs Harbour and Crescent Head — approx. 62 miles apart. Further wreckage comprising small pieces of wood and fabric painted yellow and green, and Maewest GR81 which belonged to F/Sgt Kay were also found. (Kay left the aircraft at Williamtown en route and was replaced by F/Lt. D.H. Byerley. Another Maewest GR91 which belonged to F/Lt. T.A. Meiklejohn was also found.
A.C.W. Margaret Jones Carey (nee Traynor), a signal clerk of the Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force [WAAAF] was proceeding to Brisbane on Leave to be with her husband (of only a few short months). She was a local Bairnsdale girl and very popular on the station.
On 18 June 1945 Avro Anson W1991, was flying around for hours vainly in a sea of fog, looking for a landing field. It finally ditched into two feet of water on the southern tip of Snake Island in Corner Inlet. In their endeavours to keep aloft as long as possible, the crew had jettisoned everything possible to lighten the plane — which included the emergency transmitter “Gibson Girl!”
Safety and crew welfare fears grew as the aircraft had vanished without trace. It was well into the following day before they were spotted and rescued, tired, wet and cold, but otherwise unhurt.
The Flight Log Book entry of SAR pilot, Flight Sergeant Harold Percival Tunn (442564) shows the following entry
The early months of 1945 saw an influx of veteran crews returning from operations in Europe. The war in that theatre was drawing to a close, and Australian aircrews were returning for a rest and retraining in preparation for the final assault on Japan.
With a surplus of aircrews held in Australia, aircrew schools were keeping courses to a minimum. There were also semi-trained pilots who had joined the GRS; who were nevertheless held in readiness for the final phase of the war. In the meantime, there was plenty of fun and entertainment in Bairnsdale while waiting for the call of duty.
“The overall social life within the GRS was a happy experience for all of us. We had Corporal Rita Azzi, a very popular WAAAF transport driver, who produced ‘M&V’- a Musical and Variety program displaying the musical talents of many station personnel. It played to packed houses in the station cinema before repeating the performance in the Prince Regent Theatre in Bairnsdale on the evening of July 30 1945. Two weeks later the war was over!
Out of date at the start of World War II, the Avro Anson reconnaissance bomber found new use as a training aircraft. Over 1,000 Ansons were bought to Australia and used for bombing, radio, gunnery and pilot training. This restored cockpit of a training Anson features in the Aircraft Hall of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, Australia’s national capital.
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