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| TREES IN GERALDTON | JOHNNY RICHARDS | |||
| by Tom Scotland |
In
1942, Geraldton Western Australia had a busy airbase
at which I did part of
my aviation training. On
top of pilot training
we learnt to use the machine-gun from the rear of the Avro Anson
planes we flew. A rotating gun turret towards the rear of the aircraft
gave
the opportunity to have another pilot fly the plane while I fired the
gun onto a
target.I had completed firing my rounds of ammunition and was loosening myself out of the gun turret. I looked to the ground and saw, with a start, that my pilot was flying us close to the head of a farmer opening a gate on his farm. Johnny, my pilot obviously had a penchant for the thrill of low flying but it wasn't too thrilling for me. We were too low.
The next thing I knew, a screaming, scraping "pang, pang, pang" echoed through the aircraft. We had flown through the top branches of a very tall eucalyptus gum tree. It was terrifying as our propellers chewed through leaves and wood. Such an event had killed many adventurous pilots previously.
I scrambled down into the main body of the Anson feeling shocked and angry. I dropped myself into the flying seat beside Johnny, determined to let him have a blast as to how I really felt. But he looked white as a sheet and his face was drawn, "Tommy I've got some branches hanging from the bottom of the plane. When we land will you get out and remove them. We don't want our instructors to see them." That made me really cross. I felt he was silly for going so low. But I calmed my anger.
Eventually Johnny landed the plane back at our base, Kojarina at that time. There was a convenient rise on the far side of the airfield and he headed the plane to where the ground fell away again. As he stopped, I got out and crouched behind whirling propellers and removed the quite thick branches, which had become stuck in the wheel bays of the Anson.
One day someone might see the unusual heap of branches lying there and wonder, but today we could leave them there and return to our instructors who were waiting to give us the target results from firing our gun. No word of our collision with the tree ever leaked out.
Many years later, the ABC Radio station at Geraldton invited me for a talk about flying at Geraldton in WWII and many phone calls were received afterwards. One bright spark made an amusing comment about “those trees”.
THOSE TREES - COMMENT FROM A LOCAL
There are a number of trees in a paddock near Greenough along the main road to Geraldton. They are a tourist attraction because they are growing horizontally along the ground. Tourism guides say they were forced to grow that way because of strong prevailing winds. Now I know the real reason those Greenough trees are laying over. It's not at all because of those consistent sea-breezes and gales that people talk about in Dongara, it's because you trainee pilots were flying too low during WWII and those trees got stuck in that position.
Johnny and I left Australia in 1942, and went to war together and took part in many air battles over Europe. He was a fair-haired handsome young man whose Halifax bomber was shot down during an attack on heavily defended rail facilities at Frankfurt in March 1944. I think of Johnny and hundreds like him who trained in the skies over Geraldton and its trees. The trees form a living memorial to so many of those young men who perished in air battles over a blood stained Europe and against Japanese invaders in Asia and the Pacific in World War 2.
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South Bunbury, WA
Australia 6230