Cooktown Airfield 1942, Ops Base 27 and a Story Worth the Telling.

He left school in grade three to go to work with his father on the bullock wagons pulling huge logs from the forest plot. He and his school mates used to go down the creek for a smoke and so he got the name “smoker” for the rest of his life. He taught himself to read and write and understand maths and became a well-known cattle breeder and eventually a millionaire.

This is an extract from his Diary when, after many years of hard/dedicated service to his country he decided to apply for the War Veterans Pension. (He wanted to be a Fighter Pilot but his lack of maths/geometry ruled him out)

Veterans Affairs                 

Brisbane                                                                                                                                                                           

 Dear Sir,

I can only say that I was stunned to receive your letter rejecting my application for a Pension, as I don’t think there was a more dedicated & efficient worker for the cause than myself. When I had a job to do I went in boots and all, regardless of the time & effort and did the job well.

When in Townsville 24 Squadron a fl/lt Bill Sterling, who knew my country background well and my ability to survive & build something with nothing, asked me to select another person to open the Ops Base at Cooktown, this person was an LAC. Priebe & we did just that.

It was a civil strip just out of town built on a salt-pan. I was not to know then that this strip was to play such an important role in winning the “Coral Sea” and “Kokoda Trail” battles.

Within a couple of months I scrounged and commandeered whatever I could to set it up and was then sent thirty odd men and two officers, a P/0 Evans and P/O McKenzie. I was told, “A great job old chap, you can now take over the refuelling and dispatch of all aircraft” and that I could expect a “lot of action”.

With a crew of six to eight men and two “pull around” pumps we did the job and all out of 44 gallon fuel drums.

I could write a book on my experiences here. Apart from all flights sent to New Guinea with a mother ship, usually a “Lockheed Hudson” we had the P 25 Mitchells as well.

Then came the “Coral Sea” battle & “Kokoda” on top of this. My most memorable moments here were refuelling and sending off 90 old Douglas 18 U.S. Navy dive bombers, one torpedo and 2 x 100lb. bombs, each with extra fuel tanks. They had to go in waves with minute timing to pick up their Mother ship to guide them to target, a lot of the chaps said “see you on the way back” – NONE DID, only three who had engine trouble and diverted to Horn Island or Moresby.

“Jolly good job”, said my CO.

“Kokoda” and 30,000 Yanks, My memory is hazy here. It was an endless stream of DC-3’s and men in jungle green who wanted to relieve themselves but could not go more than 100 feet from the plane to do so. After a couple of days of this the rolling around of 44 gallon drums (In Yank piss and shit) to refuel the planes was one hell of a task.

As I said, how long it lasted and how many of the 30,000 we handled I can’t remember, we did the job, it stopped, and I guess we went to sleep.

The Base got a “Commendation” from a General Kenny for our effort here.

“Great job”, said the CO. 

A new strip was made at an Aboriginal Mission further out from Cooktown, we moved there and I must have been cracking up by this time as a Wing Commander Grant, who I knew, had me posted to Bundaberg for a spell. (Perhaps the Commission doubts that I had earned it?)

Next, “Darwin”, Commando course under “Killer McMahon” (not funny for an old dog like me) volunteered for assistant to bomb disposal. The Corporal who did the de-fusing had a dash of Aboriginal in him and a couple of times, when he had a tricky one, would come out of a hole or from under a building “snow white”. My job was then to use a “block and tackle”, or whatever, to move it from the earth, no, I did not like this job.

Was posted to 18 Squadron Batchelor Strip, was put in charge of small arms Armoury, here I loved this posting as I was back with my beloved Mitchell Bombers and I still consider the Dutch Pilots and the Jewish Tail gunners the best of their day. 

With my job here I got to know the Air Crews well and did 9 missions with them over the islands North, on my time off, only my tent mate knew where I was to report if I did not return. I can only remember his name was “Carl the Moe Davies”.

I was always a welcome passenger and got the tag of “coffee boy”, it was black coffee laced with “Corvette” OP 36 Rum which I scrounged from the “mess”, one drink before target and one on the way Home, yes, this was the happiest time of my whole stint, but was not to last.

24 Squadron, at a Strip nearer to Darwin, heard I was there and wanted a Sargent “jack of all trades”, so I was sent there and was most unhappy as they had converted from “WirraWays” to Bombers. Most of the old crew had changed and refused to take me on any missions, even with my great Rum and Coffee bribe.

Got really “browned off” here as the “jack of all trades” Sargent taking a convoy of trucks to Darwin one week for equipment, unloading a boat load of 800 tons of Gas near Berry Springs, which I guess is still buried deep in a tunnel in a mountain up there. I never knew what I was doing until my name came over the loud-speaker to report to Orderly Room. I repeat again each assignment was carried out regardless of the situation, I know how hard I worked the men with me and with the limited equipment we had.

No, I was not a popular Sargent; I just got the bloody job done regardless.

Man power release came in and I felt that I had done my bit towards winning the War and applied for discharge, so that 5 years of my life closed.

The only time I did actual Guard duty was Townsville and Bundaberg but did almost everything else except fly a plane, “Yes”, relieved as a cook when anyone was sick, done slaughtering work for a few weeks in Darwin (24 Squadron), when they were shorthanded, at a Station slaughter-yards who supplied us with beef.

I could not have done more in any Theatre of War, without us blokes on the rear Opp’s bases the whole operation could not have been run smoothly. 

We were lucky at Cooktown as just prior to the “Coral Sea” battle we had a Jap reconnaissance plane almost daily and a Yank “Ack-Ack” battery was moved in.

I did a job as I was told and I am proud that I did it well.

I am enclosing part of an old diary I kept, just another of the small jobs I had to do, it explains itself. (Please return to me)

All I ask is please make a quick decision, I am going on to 67 years of age and if this bloody country paid me a double pension for the time I have left, they would be to hell in my debt, this I say from the heart. 

Thanking You,

Yours Faithfully,

R.O. Clarke 

Veterans Affairs.                                            09-01-1986                                                                                                                            Brisbane

                                Dear Sir, 

In reply to your letter of the 3^rd. January.

If this matter were not serious I would think you were bloody joking.

I had to get the best boat in Cooktown, purchase food, rope, block & tackle, axes etc. and then find the best skipper in Cooktown who knew the Coast well, his name was Jerry, a civilian, and he really must have been good or I would not be asking for a Pension today?

I vaguely remember I had to press him hard to take the job; he may not have been the owner of the boat.

I don’t know when or how the boat got back from the creek where we hid it after the engine packed it in and we took over the Lugger.

As my Diary notes say the Lugger was named “Medlar”, manned by Thursday Island crew and probably operated by “Burns Phillip” or “Walter Reid” as a Pearler & Cargo boat.

No. 43725 Priebe V.A. was one of my men and he was from Brisbane, may still be alive, his memory may be better than mine. I heard from him 20 odd years ago and I know he went to Port Moresby.

My only other sea trips were on Hayles boats from Cairns to Cooktown 4 to 5 times.

Regarding my other crazy B25 Bomber missions there’s an ex Squadron/Leader Allan McCormack of Moura C.Q. who had heard of the “coffee boy” in Darwin and while talking over old times one day, some years ago, was amazed that it was me, drop him a line as I know he is on your books.

Yes, I know that I was AWOL and it didn’t count.

Really, Mr. Davis, “WHAT WAS THE NAME OF A BOAT I WAS BLOODY PLEASED TO GET THE HELL OUT OF 43 YEARS AGO?”

Happy New Year!

Thanking You RO. Clarke

My DAD did eventually get his Veterans Affair Pension.

NOTE:  My Dad had never been on a ‘boat’ before, having been raised in the ‘bush’, the courage/audacity/ determination to take a ‘boat’ into the open sea absolutely astounds me or perhaps speaks volumes of the desperation of that era in our human history?

The untold story here is the fact that at the same time my dad was fighting his own demons up North, my beautiful Mother was in Brisbane trying to find “penicillin” to administer to her son, my brother Bobby, because he had a serious infection from an operation.

She even approached General MacArthur’s Headquarters but was told that the penicillin was being kept “for the fighting troops”.

My brother, her son, subsequently died in her arms shortly thereafter.  

 

 

The First casualty of WAR is the TRUTH.  NO, Flight- Lieutenant David Ellerton didn’t die in a ‘hurricane’.  

The other photo’s are of the Dad and his men having to cut the wing off the fighter plane to roll it over to retrieve David Ellertons decomposing body. The removed wing was subsequently used as a ‘headstone’ to show where David was buried in the sand dunes. 

 

Dad, Mum and Gran in Townsville before Mum &Gran            Dad and his mate ‘Darky’ Mcdonald

were sent South. 

                               Bomber Squadron, possibly Dutch, Cooktown or Darwin Air-strip?

 

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