American plane crash at Barcaldine
Bob Robinson’s memories of a plane crash event at Barcaldine:
‘I am not sure of how old I was but I must have been about 10 yrs old. Around 1944. The plane came over Barcy and was met by a fusilade of tracer bullets from an African/American company which was camped on the showgrounds. Thank goodness they were not very good shots, the plane dropped a distress flare and they stopped shooting. I do not know how he was guided to flat ground but he landed on the flat which had been cleared at some time but had left stumps in the ground and in doing so he tore the port side main wheel off. I witnessed this sitting on our front steps in Acacia Street. These twin engine bombers were operating out of Longreach, flying up into the Islands at night; they must have been good navigators to find their way back. The next morning along with a couple of mates we went out to look at it, but the local Police were keeping us away on one side, so we just went around the other side to have a look at it up close as this was the first aeroplane that I had ever seen. It was still carrying his bomb load and must have got lost on his way back. The mechanics from Longreach came and jacked it up and repaired the wheel strut. By this time the Local Council grader had cleared a strip for him to take off and fly back to Longreach. This was out beside the old racecourse. My grandmother lived in Longreach and remember going up by train to see her and seeing piles of bombs stacked under the few trees there were around the Longreach aerodrome covered up with grass’.
At that time, ‘several hundred men of an American Army Engineering Corp were camped at the showgrounds. Newspapers did not mention troop movement but older residents remember that the Americans were mostly negroes and were sent to build an emergency aerodrome which did not prove necessary as the tide of war turned.
They remember that an American plane crash-landed on the old airstrip north of the town and had to be extensively repaired. Council minutes record full co-operation promised to Pilot Officer Trent and his party of the American Air Corp in April 1942‘ (Hoch, I., 2008, p.95)
I eventually found a reference to another crash in an article in the Longreach Leader of 1947.
The letter was also reported in quite a number of other newspapers at the time.
Another of Bob’s recollections:
‘… my dad worked for Meacham & Leyland and they used to refuel the troop convoys out of 44 gallon drums. I went down to look and they were lined up at right angles in two lines to the Blackall road. There was a lot of dry grass then and someone threw a cigarette on the ground and started a fire. There was a wild panic to get the trucks away but someone put it out, whew‘.
I asked Bob if he knew anything of a story about some negro servicemen who had been shot while at Barcaldine, and their bodies buried in the cemetery. He replied:
‘I have been talking to my older sister Peggy who is 90 years of age, about our two uncles in WW2. She remembered the story about the Americans. They were negroes and were buried somewhere out on the plain and not the cemetery. Then she thought it was a rumour‘.
