RESCUE FLIGHTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 42, 19 February 1942, Page 9

RESCUE FLIGHTS

ANYTHING WITH WINGS

THE PILOTS OF NEW GUINEA

(0.C.) SYDNEY, February 11. Epic stories of how commercial pilots evacuated civilians from bombed New Guinea towns are being released in Australia. They flew anything with "wings and an engine" out of the danger zone over some of the most hazardous

flying country in the world

Among the "crates" called into heroic service was the late C. T. P. Ulm's old Faith in' Australia, left in disrepair at Lac, administrative centre of New Guinea. r»ilot Arthur Collins, of Mandated Airlines, and a mechanic worked on the plane, and on January 25 took on several passengers, including the Administrator, Sir Walter McNicholl, who was carried on a stretcher owing to an illness, and the Assistant Secretary in New Guinea, Captain' S. A. Lonegran. The plane safely reached Port. Moresby, but was promptly declared., unairworthy.-. by civilian aviation authorities. . -

Further repairs were made to the Faith,..and on February 5 Pilot L. J. Stephens set out for Wav to carry out a private evacuation scheme in ah area where practically all civilian planes, had been withdrawn. He failed to reach Wav, and he is believed to have been forced down in the jungle.

Stephens had previously made several plucky trips in a Gannet plane with evacuees from Wau. He suffers a "black-out" above 6000 feet, and as it was necessary to fly at 11,000 feet to cross the Owen Stanley Range, he took with him Norman Wilde, a pilot who had been engaged in gold mining for some time. Wilde took the controls as they crossed the range, and handed them back to Stephens as they came, out of the heights and Stephens came out of his "black-out." ALL BISKS TAKEN. Wilde added his name to the famous list of pilots by flying evacuees from Salamoa to Wav in his private Puss Moth plane. He loaded the two-seater plane with as many as eleven passengers at a time, taking off during bombing lulls. "It was a miracle how the plane ever left the ground or stayed in the air," said a passenger. Another crazy flight from Wav was made by Pilot M. Blackman, of Guinea Airways, and Mr. Bernard , Parer, a gold prospector. Pilot Blackman was in Lac when the settlement was bombed by the Japanese. Two days later he was picked up in a plane by Pilot Price, of-Mandated Airlines, and flown 40 miles to Wav, where he found an aeroplane abandoned by Guinea Airways when the staff evacuated. Fuelling this old cockpit machine, Pilot Blackman flew to an out-drome at Slate Creek, where he took Mr. Parer aboard as passenger.

Describing the hazardous 800-mile journey to Townsville, where they arrived,. Pilot Blackman said: "We had to- make thirteen ?tops with the old crate. It has a range, of only 180 miles, and a top speed of only 75 miles. Its fuel capacity is only .19 gallons. We took aboard: four tins of petrol as cargo. The plane has a ceiling of only 6000 feet. To cross New Guinea it was necessary to climb 7000 feet over the ranges. Near the top of the mountains we held our breath, but the old plane just made it. We barely cleared the treetops. Luckily we were able to pick --up^petrol-oh beaches atjeach hop,"