The 1940 air disaster that decimated Australia’s war cabinet
It may seem I state the obvious using the term air disaster when writing of WW2. Every wartime crash was a disaster with the death or injury of someone’s son, brother or husband, and often in multiple terms. In this case, I refer to a crash on a fine, calm day in 1940 that had the potential to endanger the country’s wartime prospects when it dramatically reduced our war cabinet. Ten people died, six of whom were key figures in organising the war effort. There was more to it, inevitably, but the crash precipitated the loss of government. Some say Robert Menzies, Prime Minister in the early part of the war, never got over the personal loss.
A Lockheed Hudson bomber fitted out for executive transport departed Melbourne for Canberra. On arrival, after circling the airport, it turned away to the south, passing behind a hill. An explosion was heard moments later, immediately followed by a sheet of flame and billowing black smoke. A rescue team made its way to the site across difficult terrain, but nothing could be done. All that remained of the large aircraft was its empennage, propped on the slope of a hill. There was no chance anyone on board had survived.
Those killed in the crash included:
As the reader will understand, this was a massive blow for the government and for the country, but it could have been even worse. Senator Macleay, Minister for Customs, who’d been in Melbourne for talks, was offered a lift back to Canberra on the aircraft but urgent business had arisen, thus preventing his return. Assistant Treasurer Arthur Fadden, also in Melbourne, needed time to write papers and elected to return by train.
Who was at the controls?
There has always been conjecture over the cause. As well as the members of the cabinet who were killed, four aircrews perished in the crash and resultant fire. The pilot in command was Flt-Lieut Robert Hitchcock who, although he hadn’t accumulated a high number of hours on the Hudson, was a sound pilot. The main points of speculation centred on why the aircraft turned away from the airport instead of landing – there was no air traffic direction for it to do so – and, perhaps surprisingly, who was at the controls at the time of the crash.
Without becoming all technical, the Hudson, although a generally stable design that gave great service, had one flaw, known and understood by all who flew it. At certain power and flap settings, it could stall and fall away to port. There is no absolute certainty that this was the cause of the death crash, but it must be considered a possibility, especially if an under-qualified pilot was at the controls, which leads to another point of conjecture.
One of the dignitaries on board, James Fairbairn, was a veteran pilot who, as Minister for Air, may have persuaded the P-I-C, Bob Hitchcock, to allow him to slip into the left-hand seat, despite neither training nor flying experience in the Hudson. Hitchcock may have felt pressured if someone so senior wanted to take the controls, thus allowing it to happen. It was a two pilot aircraft and his first officer, Richard Wisener, remained in the right-hand seat. At least one author, Andrew Tink, believes this happened.
Bodies were not tagged on removal from the wreckage. Later, when examined at Canberra morgue, one of those taken from the front of the aircraft, as opposed to the passenger cabin, was identified as that of an older man. Tink believes he knows the identity. “I didn’t set out with an opinion (when writing about the crash), but it became clear to me that the Air Minister, James Fairbairn, was at the controls when the plane crashed.”
ABC producer and presenter Geoff Crane researched a program and also found confusion in the process of identifying bodies. “I’d gone as deep as I was able and there was no evidence to confirm without reservation who was where. There are certainly some questions about identification.”
Personally? I wonder if Fairbairn was on the flight deck, talking to the flight crew and distracting them enough to cause an error…? At this point, I think it fair to finish with Geoff Crane’s statement, “The really hard part of human nature is to accept that there are some things that we may just never know.”
My thanks to Andrew Tink and ABC Canberra for some of the background detail.
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