Australian Thoughts at the Weekend. 14th February, 2009.

Australian Thoughts at the Weekend. 14th February, 2009.

Next Tuesday is the anniversary of the crash of a Stinson passenger airliner. The crash occurred on 17th February, 1937. Eventually two survivors of the crash were rescued. The story of their rescue is one of those stories that if it was fiction we would dismiss as not only unbelievable but unlikely to ever happen.

A couple of years ago, I visited O’Reilly’s Guest House in the rugged mountain ranges at the back of the Gold Coast. Following that visit I wrote a few thoughts about the visit and told the story of the rescue. Such was the interest in that story that I wrote a longer version.

As we approach this anniversary I have repeated the two versions and added some websites which are worth a visit. I apologise to those who have read this account in ATAW since I first wrote it in 2004 but isn’t a good story worth reading again?

Anyone who has visited the mountains behind the Gold Coast will have a good idea of the single-minded determination of Bernard O’Reilly and the Herculean effort he made. As we think of him and his massive effort, notice how he dismisses it and calls it an answer to prayer. I have no doubt it was an answer to prayer. Do you agree?

The Stinson Disaster

Most people seemed to ignore the statue in the forecourts of O’Reilly’s Guesthouse. . Some stopped and looked for a moment barely having time to read the plaque. Tourists who had arrived on buses mingled with those who arrived by private transport and from packets sprinkled seeds and other morsels which were eagerly gobbled by the colourful parrots and other birds. It was the birds which were the attraction. Those who were lucky enough to have birds land on their hands or head hoped their friends with still and video cameras had captured the moment. Some might get the statue in the background of their pictures and may wonder at the story behind it. It is a story of strength and tenacity and answers to prayer.

It is the story of a man who searched for a plane that went missing after all others had given up. It was 68 years ago this weekend on the 19th February, 1937 that the Stinson tri-motor 'City of Brisbane' (VH-UHH), flying its regular service flight to Sydney, took off from Brisbane into the teeth of a cyclone. When the luxury tri-motor with its 2 crew and 5 passengers failed to arrive in Sydney, the largest air search in Australia's history began. (See longer version of story below)
Bernard O’Reilly began his search over a week after the crash and after the official search had been called off. He searched in the rugged subtropical rain forest covered mountains of the New South Wales and Queensland Border. He was guided by a burnt out tree on a far ridge to where the wreck of the plane and two survivors lay injured and exhausted beside it. It is the story of his extra human feat in getting down the mountain and getting help to get these two men to safety.

It was a remarkable four days from when he left home to begin his search to when the survivors were brought to the waiting ambulances. With only limited sleep and food and massive human exertion during that time it was in the realm of heroic feat yet O’Reilly pointed to God. It was God who was his help as prayers were answered.
In one place as he considers comments made about his bushcraft he says that word ‘bushcraft’ was overworked. He says that anyone who carefully studies the topography and vegetation of the Border Ranges would know that no matter how well a man was equipped with bush instinct he might search there unsuccessfully for fifty years. He says the fact should be noted and due credit given to his mother who was saying her prayers back home.

Reflecting further on the rescue O’Reilly wrote in “Green Mountains”:
It is a wild dream now- that wild run (from Westray to the open forest where he met the rifle man) – I was quite mad – my heart had been wrung out with horror and pity – no one who looked upon those poor survivors could help praying as I did: “that God would let me live long enough to help these men.” I knew that I was sobbing and that I only paused when tears blinded me. I remember, too, that the shock and jar of leaping and landing on these rocks at top speed was telling on me, even though I was in splendid condition, but I was given strength to complete the task.
[Listen: http://www.salvoaudio.com/audio/music3/mus_4355.mp3 ]

If human hearts are often tender,
And human minds can pity know,
If human love is touched with splendour,
And human hands compassion show,

Chorus
Then how much more shall God our Father
In love forgive, in love forgive!
Then how much more shall God our Father
Our wants supply, and none deny!

If sometimes men can live for others,
And sometimes give where gifts are spurned,
If sometimes treat their foes as brothers,
And love where love is not returned,

If men will often share their gladness,
If men respond when children cry,
If men can feel each other's sadness,
Each other's tears attempt to dry,
John Gowans
The Salvation Army Song Book Song Number: 50

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The Stinson Disaster

It was 72 years ago this week on the 19th February, 1937 that the Stinson tri-motor 'City of Brisbane' (VH-UHH), flying its regular service flight to Sydney, took off from Brisbane into the teeth of a cyclone. When the luxury tri-motor with its 2 crew and 5 passengers failed to arrive in Sydney, the largest air search in Australia's history began.

Over the next couple of days, hundreds of seemingly reliable reports and sightings flooded in. Thousands of searchers and dozens of aircraft combed the 1000 km of mountains, beaches, and ocean between Brisbane and Sydney. Many reports said they had heard or seen the plane close to Sydney and therefore officials narrowed the search to the mountainous ravines and gullies of Broken Bay and the Kuringai Chase National Park just north of Sydney. After a week of exhaustive investigations from the air and on land, the official search was abandoned. It was to be assumed that, for some unknown reason, the plane had headed out to sea on its approach to Mascot Airport in Sydney and had crashed into the ocean.

On Thursday 25 February, Mrs H. Proud, mother of one of the missing passengers, offered a 500 pound reward to anyone who found the missing plane. Over the previous few days she had had a recurring vision. She could see her son sitting in the bush beside burnt-out wreckage. He was still alive. (This dream was documented in newspapers of the time.)

On the Queensland - New South Wales border ranges nine hundred kilometres away from the search around Sydney, Bernard O'Reilly, a dairy farmer, led his packhorses down into the valley with his week's cream supply. His property had been carved from the rainforest on the mountain tops in the early 1900s, just before the area was declared a National Park. The farm was surrounded by the towering trees of the rainforest, and the only track to his farm was up the side of the treacherous ravines that overshadow the valley.

Bernard visited his brother Herb (who had a farm in the valley) and, during the day, Bernard had the opportunity to read the newspapers from the previous week. He read details of the search for the missing Stinson, but from all of the conflicting reports, there appeared to be only one key fact: there were four passengers waiting to be collected in Lismore and the plane hadn't arrived.

During the day, Herb commented idly: 'The plane flew over here, you know. It was so low it scared all the chooks and they didn't lay for a few days.' Bernard rang a couple of Herb's neighbours to see if they had seen the distinctive aircraft flying over and, from their discussions, found a number of the locals had seen the plane passing. The last farmer up the valley had watched as the plane disappeared into the clouds—heading towards, but high enough to clear the mountains.

That evening, as the final search planes returned to Sydney without success, Bernard O'Reilly wound his way back up the track to his farm, he pondered the plane's fate and decided that, after his chores next morning, he would take a ride out to the border ranges to see if he could see anything. He drew a line on his map with a pencil and school ruler from where the farmer had seen the aircraft climbing higher over the mountains to Lismore. He reasoned that the plane if it crashed would be on one of the northern slopes of the four east-west mountain ranges along the line indicated by the pencil line.

Shortly after dawn, O’Reilly set out on horse back and rode as far as the horse could take him on the narrow track through the thick rain forest. Sending the horse back home, he turned to face the battle though the forest on foot. The rest of the day he battled on rising up the ranges and down the gorges, noting as he went huge trees which had been felled by the previous week’s cyclone.

After an almost sleepless night spent in the company of the forest’s nocturnal creatures including howling dingoes, tiger cats and powerful owls, he pushed on towards the high peak from which he hoped to survey the landscape across several mountain ranges. Upon arrival at the top of the mountain he looked and surveyed a scene of swirling low cloud. As he stood enjoying the cooling breezes suddenly the clouds parted and he could see clearly across three mountain ranges.

On the third range, in the sea of green trees, with the occasional white flowering tree was a tree that was light brown. A tree that was burnt or dying. O’Reilly decided that it was no coincidence this tree was right on the pencil line marking the guessed route of the plane. He set off with renewed vigour to cross the gorges and ranges between him and the tree. It was about 4 o’clock in the afternoon he eventually reached the top of the range where the dead tree by his calculations was situated.

After regaining his breath he sent out the great Australian bush call: “Coo-ee”. It echoed across the gorge. There also came a clear answering call from close by. Then there was a second call which woke him from the physical shock of the first. Continuing to call and hear answering calls, he moved as quickly as possible the two hundred yards or so where he saw the burnt out remains of the plane. From under the wreck came the voices of the two survivors.

As O’Reilly looked at the man he saw first, he saw the broken swollen and maggoty leg and realised this man, John Proud, had lain there in pain for ten days and he was probably too late to save him. The second man, Jim Binstead, too, was in poor condition but had been able through the ten days to drag himself over rocks and vines, etc., 300 metres down and back up a steep slope to get water. But that journey was now impossible. The last one had taken him 5 hours.

O’Reilly found enough dry material to start a fire and soon had the billy boiling to make tea. Meantime, he heard the tale of the crash. How the plane had been caught in a sudden downdraft of the cyclone and dashed against the trees chopping off their tops and then finally hitting the big tree which had become the guiding beacon. Four, the two pilots and two passengers, were killed instantly in the crash and subsequent fire. A third man an Englishman, Jim Westray, had also escaped the crash and had helped Binstead drag Proud clear. Westray had gone for help but had not returned.

Not much more than a half hour after finding the two men, O’Reilly set off for help. Westray had chosen the best direction for help, so he went the same way down along the creek. Eventually, he came to a waterfall and saw where Westray had slipped over it as he tried to move around it. O’Reilly expected to find his broken body at the bottom but it wasn’t there. Westray had dragged himself down the steam for several more miles and successfully past other waterfalls until eventually he died as he sat with his back against a rock bathing a smashed ankle in the cooling pool and with his last cigarette in his hand.

O’Reilly had no time to stop. Light was fading and he must get as far as he could before night’s darkness was complete. He was driven on, as mile after mile of obstacles in the creek bed passed by, by the thought that Proud was dying. Eventually, he came to an area where the jungle gave way to more open forest and he eventually found a broad timber-getters track. Nearby there was the crack of a rifle. O’Reilly called out and received a cheery youthful reply. As they met, the rifle’s owner said he was just shooting flying foxes but asked where O’Reilly came from.

O’Reilly broke the news he had found the plane and two survivors. As quickly as they could they got to the young man’s house and phoned the news the plane was found. As the news went out, a rescue party organised. A doctor, ambulance cars and the police were notified. Men from the district were organised into two groups. One with the doctor to go back to the wreck, the way O’Reilly had come. The other group would go to a closer vantage point and would commence cutting through vine and bush with brush hooks and axes to make a way for the men on stretchers to be brought.
It was 10am when the rescue party got to the wreck. O’Reilly had come down to the open country in three hours. It had been 8 hours since he met the doctor and the party and began the same upward climb. The doctor quickly began treating Proud’s wounds as the rescuers began to fashion stretchers from saplings and chaff bags. A bush tent was made for the two men to rest in with the aid of sedatives. My nightfall the men cutting the track through the jungle emerged at the wreck. It was time for a night’s rest for all. Not many slept. After refreshing billy tea in the pre-dawn darkness the stretcher bearers set of down the slope. At times depending whether they were travelling up or down the carriers had their end of the stretcher high above their heads while at the other end it was carried well below the knees of weary yet willing men.

Eleven hours after the dawn departure, the weary party arrived at “base camp” where ambulance cars waited and the local women had set up a canteen. Four days after O’Reilly left home he could now rest except for those, friends and strangers, newsmen and photographers who questioned him and remarked about his “bushcraft”.
In one place as he considers comments made about his bushcraft he says that word was overworked. He says that anyone who carefully studies the topography and vegetation of the Border Ranges would know that no matter how well a man was equipped with bush instinct he might search there unsuccessfully for fifty years. He says the fact should be noted and due credit given to his mother who was saying her prayers back home.

Reflecting further on the rescue O’Reilly wrote in “Green Mountains”:
It is a wild dream now- that wild run (from Westray to the open forest where he met the rifle man) – I was quite mad – my heart had been wrung out with horror and pity – no one who looked upon those poor survivors could help praying as I did: “that God would let me live long enough to help these men.” I knew that I was sobbing and that I only paused when tears blinded me. I remember, too, that the shock and jar of leaping and landing on these rocks at top speed was telling on me, even though I was in splendid condition, but I was given strength to complete the task. (1941. p 45).
```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````Bernard O'Reilly's book Green Mountains tells the story of his family pioneering, clearing and settling the rainforest of the McPherson Ranges and, in his book, he dedicates three chapters to his search for the missing Stinson. O’Reilly’s Guesthouse in the mountains behind the Gold Coast continues to provide a link with the family and the home of this heroic pioneer.
http://www.oreillys.com.au/
http://lamington.nrsm.uq.edu.au/Documents/Other/stin.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/dimensions/dimensions_in_time/Transcripts/s678197.htm
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,21085822-5003416,00.html


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