STINSGN DRAMA

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 56, 8 March 1937, Page 11

STINSGN DRAMA

SURVIVOR'S STORY

MIRACULOUS SAVE

NIGHTS IN JUNGLE

(From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, March 5.

Shortly before 11 o'clock last Sunday night, a telephone call from Brisbane threw Sydney newspapers into a fury of excitement and activity. The Stinson had been found! The airliner, which had been missing for more than nine days and which had been given up as. lost after intensive search, especially in. the Broken Bay region near" Sydney, had been found on the Queensland border! nearly 600 miles north. *What was more, two of the seven occupants were alive!

.Far into Monday morning, relays of reporters took down shorthand notes of the dramatic story that came over the telephone wire • from Brisbane—a story that has amazed the world and concentrated attention on an almost inaccessible plateau in some of the roughest country in. all Australian Cablegrams have told this story to New Zealanders—of how Bernard O'Reilly, 33-years-old mountaineer, disbelieved the numerous reports he had read of the Stinson being sighted 30 miles north of Sydney arid acted on a premonition that she had crashed in the mountains he knew probably better than any otfcer man; how he rode and tramped for nearly 24 hours before he sighted in the jungle the burnt patch ■which he thought would represent the graveyard of the Stinson; how he made an epic journey to it, guided by "coo-ees" answering his own; how he found two survivors, J. R. Binstead and J. S. Proud, both Sydney men, the latter with a broken leg; how he scrambled back to the nearest township and gave the news to the world; The subsequent rescue operatipns in the most difficult circumstances of country and climate have also been related.: But .there is. perhaps one thing that the cablegrams have been unable to emphasise—the full drama of the wordr for-word, story told ?by Binstead as he. told it, lying, in . hospital. Condensation has necessarily been made in the cabled version, but here is the complete story, as Binstead told it. HIT TOP OF A TREE. "I think the Stinson came down because of the rainstorms she ran into," he said. "The engines were all right, but we were flying rather low in the mountains. She. bumped heavily a couple of times, and then;banked, as though the pilot was trying to return. Then the machine hit the top of a tree, and a propeller was knocked off. The machine rocked and dipped sideways, the wing hit. a tree, and was cut off sharply, as though slashed with a fastcutting machine. Next we hit head-on right into a very large, tree. It was just 45 minutes after we had left Brisbane. "The front of the machine or the engine just crumpled back on the pilots. I saw'them killed instantly. I felt that I could actually see them die. Both passengers on the right side of the aeroplane Were also killed instantly when the machine swung on their side and crashed through trees to the ground. Everything giust have happened in a flash, and my mind is a blank on what happened after I saw that the^pilots and the other two were dead. I must have been stunned. The next thing I can recollect is opening my eyes to a.blinding .flash —of course, it was, ..the..fire, '.that imiist have ■ started when the head-on crash occurred. I don't know how the'machine tumbled from the tree'tops to the ground. "I could see a man—Proud, I know now—in the seat in front of me, smashing a and struggling to get through it. I tried to scramble up, but found-my knees pinned against the front seat. I wriggled out and went to push.Proud through the window, but he called out, 'Don't push, for God's sake. My leg's broken.' J then got nearer to him and helped him more steadily. • I had to lever his broken leg past the frame of the window. Then this young fellow, without a groan or word of complaint, turned and helped to pull me through. For the first time in. my life when travelling by aeroplane, I had taken off my coat, and that saved my life. I am broader than the other man, and with my coat on, I could not havegot through. Someone behind me gave a push and I fell through: . • ' " . BURST OF FLAMES. "Proud again held on, and helped to pull out the young Englishman Westray. No sooner had we got him out than the.fiames burst all over the seats where we had been sitting. We had to leap for our lives. Proud got down somehow: ■ j It, must have been agony for him to move, but not once did he complain. He is the gamest man I have-ever-met.:: We had to carry him up a steep slope away from the terrific heat, and look at the aeroplane being consumed by fire.- We came out of an inferno into, terrific rain. And there, in a heavy rainstorm, the three of us sat, strangers to each other, halfstunned ancl bedraggled, and watched the fire rapidly consume the aeroplane. "The aeroplane fire burnt itself out in about half an hour, but several trees caught fire^nd there was a fierce blaze, with plenty of smoke, which lasted about five hours. I had no doubt this would give a clue to searching aeroplanes of the location of the wreck, but I know now the kind of country we were in and-1 am amazed we were found at all. "I had hit my head on something, and a lump came up on my temple. Westray had a few small burns. We propped a log against the machine on which, to rest Proud's leg and stop him from slipping down the slope. Logs also had to be used to prop ourselves up. All night we just sat there and looked into the night, scarcely talking. Our thoughts were on the men who had not got out. We lit a fire with parts of the machine that had not been burnt, and had fallen off with the wing. This wing also was not burnt, and, as it seemed to stand out clearly, we left it were-it fell as a guide to searching aeroplanes. "By morning the firf had been put out by the rain, and our matches were too wet to be used: It was then I remembered a schoolboy trick of drying matches in my hair, and they dried after along while. We did not know what to do. I dressed Proud's leg as best I could, and bound it up to keep the rain from stinging the wound. It rained nearly all the time we were lost —nine or mor^ wretched days. Ugh! I shudder at the thought of them. I never want to see that mountain again

—never.

IMPENETRABLE JUNGLE.

"We all remained by the aeroplane, which was in apparently impenetrable jungle, until Saturday afternoon. Then Westray said he would go out and see what he could do towards getting help. He went off cheerfully. That was the last we saw of him. I thought it risky for him, for he was a young Englishman, and certainly no bushman. Still, he was game, and so confident of bringing help that for a time it gave \is both fresh heart. By the way, what did happen to Westray? Every time I mention his name everyone becomes strangely silent, and looks away or talks about something else. I take it ho' did not get through, but where is he? He was a likeable chap. (Neither

»• Binstead nor Proud was. told that Westray, soon after leaving the aeroplane wreck, fell over a cliff hidden by vines, was injured, crawled several hundred yards, and died, propped against a tree.) "In the afternoon I crawled down the hillside to see if I could find water. I had to tear my way through vines and prickly bushes—look at my hands and imagine what the task was like" (Binstead's hands had lost most of the outer skin and they were swollen and covered with sores).

"I found the water and crawled back most of the way on .my stomach. I cr.rried a coffee pot we had found in the wreckage and Proud is keeping that as a souvenir. I've told him that if ever he shows it to me, I'll smash it on his head. I used to try to cheer him up during the day, for I knew he must have been suffering terrible pain. His wound became swollen and each day I did my best to cleanse it. No one will ever know the suffering of Proud—Jack. I now call him. What ,a hero that boy is! Often he v urged me to go and leave him, as he believed that he was done for, but he had saved my life, and I told him I would stick to him. He tried to make me believe he wanted me to seek help, as he feared mortification would set in if his injured leg was left unattended. I realised his only'chance was in my staying with him and looking after him. ' He had to have water.

"We used to try and conjure all manner of things in everyday, life — the noise of cars and trams and of people on the footpaths. When we drank we tried to imagine it was rum or milk, or both, and talked of all the nice food we could enjoy when we got' out. Often we drew a picjture of the Sydney hotels, and I promised to buy him a pint of beer in the Australia lounge. Now I'll be able to keep my word, because of the wonderful Queensland bush gentlemen. They have been marvellous, plucky, kind, and always courteous. SLEEP IMPOSSIBLE. / "The time passed somehow. I never slept—l could not. Sometimes we talked of cricket. Jack busied himself with a rough'sort of diary, but I mostly kept a look-out for any possible searching 'plane. About the third day we began to eat some red berries. I had noticed them the first day, but I was afraid they might poison us. Then I watched the birds. One of them seemed to come to us every day, and I thought if it could eat the berries so could we, so we tackled them. I gathered handfuls and left them beside Proud, who used to suck them as he wished. They may have done us good. At any rate we thought so. After a few days my hands became so numb and powerless 'from thorn scratchings that I was forced to carry these berries back to Proud in my mouth. I would say to him, 'Here comes mama bird with the eats.' "Towards the end, our lips had become swollen, our tongues hard, and we could scarcely drink water. We no longer wanted food. Last Thursday, three days before O'Reilly found us, I so doubted my strength to get back to the 'plane from the creek that I scratched on a piece of fuselage a message to let any searchers who, might come too late know that I was down at the creek, and that Proud was lying near the 'plane with a broken leg. However, I got back that day and next day. On Saturday I was too weak to move from the 'plane. We both lay there, hoping against hope. "Proud's injured leg became steadily worse.. I cut what remained of my shirt into bandages. Several times the pain sent him a little delirious, and he would call for me. All I could do was to make him more comfortable. At the finish, my main job was to try and keep the flies from, getting to his injured leg. Finally,' I ripped away a piece of ,char,red fuselage,., and.bent it into the form of a shield, which. I placed over his leg. There was never any panic. 'Jack and I talked it over, and decided to reserve our strength as much as possible. We would take it in turns to coo-ec at half-hour intervals. We kept this up for days. "Last Sunday I seemed to feel ever so much better. Whereas I used to go down for water crawling all the way, about 4 p.m., and return next morning. I found that this day I could go down and back ;n half the time Proud called me a loafer, and said I had been malingering on the other days. We argued about it until I told him not to talk so much, as soon he would need his voice to coo-ee. He has a deep voice that carries well. I had not thought of making a bed, as every day we expected to.be rescued, but on Sunday as I was so well, I thought it as well to crawl up the hill and get some crows' nests on the big tree that the aeroplane had smashed. I kicked them off with my feet—l could not stand up on that slope—and they rolled down against the aeroplane. HEARD A COO-EE. "Just as I had kicked the last one, I thought I heard a coo-ee. I called to Proud to coo-ec, and his voice echoed through the hills. Then there was silence. We waited for half an hour. I thought then that the sound' must have been the whistle of a bird. I asked Proud .to try again. This time we heard a clear reply! We just sat and looked at each other. It was unbelievable. We had imagined this moment so often that we hardly dared to think it was real. Proud gave another coo-ee. It was answered-again. We knew then that help had come at last. "What moments of joy were those as we heard someone crashing through the forest, the coo-ees getting nearer and nearer. At last a man broke through, and we saw Bernard OReilly. He was dumbfounded. He just stood and looked at us, and we looked at him. Then he spoke. His first greeting was, 'Oh, you poor ■ .' "Then we all laughed, spoke a lew commonplaces, and suddenly everyone wanted to talk together. O Reilly wanted to run straight away for help, leaving fo-,i with us, but r said, No, you don't. Make us a cup of tea nrst. He boiled the billy, and we had the first drink of tea for nine days. Somehow we didn't want to eat or drink, so we just sipped and nibbled a little bread and butter. It revised us. "The wait for help was pleasant attei those other days. And now we are is certainly a wonderful bushman. Next day he unerringly led the rescue party back to the spotsomething I-will guarantee no other man could have done. Jack and I both, owe him our lives, and we will be eternally grateful." Mr. Binstead's eyes filled with tears as he spoke of his rescuers and Praised them. He expressed sympathy with the relatives of the men killed in the aeroplane. Then, waving his hands as though to brush away sad thoughts, he laughed and said: "You can deny any rumours afloat that 1 intend^ to build a bungalow in those ranges."