Mrs Hastie was at home that Monday in March 1941 when she heard the milkman yelling … “Quick, call the police, there’s been a plane crash.”
With both station cars absent however, and the motorcycle out of commission, a taxi had to be requisitioned for the local police. While awaiting its arrival the nearby Air Force base at RAAF Amberley was duly notified, and a search plane despatched. It was late afternoon when the local constabulary eventually arrived at Moore’s Pocket, Tivoli Hill in Brisbane’s west, only to learn that the plane had in fact come down at Moore’s Pocket, North Booval, on the opposite (i.e. southern) side of the Bremer River. Having also been directed to the wrong side of the river, one of the attending RAAF ambulance officers then elected to swim across the river – with his medical kit. 1
Preferring instead to journey by taxi another 6.3 kms (via Ipswich), Police Constables Louis Plaltz and Johannis Sprenger accompanied by veteran Sergeant Reg Argus eventually arrived at a clearing where they found the pilot, Flying Officer Dewar and his passenger, Rigger Cecil John Mason standing alongside their undamaged Moth Minor plane, registration A21-24. Dewar explained, when interviewed, that he had been forced to land after the plane’s engine had quit. His passenger meanwhile, being unaware of the engine’s failure, believed the pilot must have chosen intentionally to land alongside the river. Although he and Mason had since been able to restart the engine, Dewar was reluctant to attempt a take-off owing to the many stumps in the paddock.2
A police guard remained at the site until an air force ground crew eventually arrived and retrieved the plane.
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‘As the afternoon wore on, a string of boys and girls on bicycles headed for both Moore’s Pocket and North Booval.’
(Australian War Memorial, P00174.016)
Coinciding then with a rapid build-up of allied air operations in and around Brisbane, Queensland Police were increasingly having to attend similar callouts, many of which were fatal. In fact, it was barely a fortnight after this Booval callout that they were required to attend another forced landing involving the very same aircraft, in similar circumstances. On that occasion (1545 on 3 April 1941) Flying Officer J Brereton (pilot) and his passenger, Pilot Officer J Woods were forced to land two miles east of Boonah after the engine failed in flight, the RAAF’s official report once again describing as ‘obscure’ the cause of the failure.3
‘About five times it circuited the town, now and again just missing the treetops and electric light wires. Over the school grounds where the children had just been released from school, the plane came so low that spectators shuddered… By a tilt of a wing the plane just missed a cow as she scurried away. The landing place was cramped, swampy country, in which many treacherous logs lay hidden in the grass. The manner in which the landing was affected was a tribute to the skill of the officers who were on board.’4
Moth Minor A21-24 was once again dismantled and trucked back to the RAAF’s No.3 Secondary Flying Training School at Amberley – but not for the last time. Seven months later Brisbane metropolitan police were once again required to attend yet another forced landing by Moth Minor A21-24, this time ten miles west of Archerfield in the vicinity of The Gap. Yet again the engine had failed in flight for ‘obscure’ reasons, and once again the plane was undamaged.5
Although the No.23 Squadron pilot Sgt. Ally Davies survived unscathed on that occasion, his luck didn’t last. He was posted missing barely three months later when his Kitthawk fighter aircraft failed to return to Port Moresby after escorting American dive bombers attacking Lae on New Guinea’s norther coast. He was presumed to have been killed, his aircraft having never been found.6
Somewhat surprisingly, Moth Minor A21-24 survived the war and continued flying, in civilian guise, for several more decades. It was the West Australian Police however who attended the final callout in late November 1963 finding, this time, that it had crashed and been destroyed.
[1] “Forced landing,” Queensland Times, 25 March 1941, 4. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/114171409
[2] Aeroplane accidents, Queensland State Archives, ITM320055. [3] National Archives of Australia: A9845, 202, ID 6950570. https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/NAAMedia/ShowImage.aspx?B=6950570&T=P&S=25 [4] “Plane lands in paddock,” Queensland Times, 4 April 1941, 6. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/114165337
[5] National Archives of Australia: A9845, 202, ID 6950570. https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/NAAMedia/ShowImage.aspx?B=6950570&T=P&S=23 [6] Operations record book (forms A50 & A51), 75 Squadron, National Archives of Australia: NAA: A9186, 95, ID 1068620. https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/NAAMedia/ShowImage.aspx?B=1068620&T=P&S=40
This story was written by a Guest Contributor Mark Clayton. The Police Museum is open 9am to 4pm Monday to Thursday and 10am to 3pm on the last Sunday of the month (Feb-Nov) and is located on the Ground Floor of Police Headquarters at 200 Roma Street, Brisbane.
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“FROM the VAULT: Three Times Lucky” by the Queensland Police Service is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (BY) 2.5 Australia Licence. Permissions may be available beyond the scope of this licence. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/au/legalcode