Many people are not aware that Australia was attacked by the Japanese during WWII. A significant defensive effort by Australia and it’s allies, including the U.S., turned the tide back and the US continued to use Australia as a foothold in the Pacific Ocean to fight the Japanese. The crash site is not too far from where we live and is in the middle of a very rugged National Park called “Kroombit Tops National Park”. Nancy and I have been there before but did not visit the crash site due to its very remote location and the very sportty road to get to it. Now, after having driven the Savanah Way in Northern Queensland, we decided to takle the road to Beautiful Betsy. Here’s a brief story I found on Google about the crash. There is a lot of information about the event, the park, and the drive to get there on the internet.
FROM GOGGLE: “A USAAF B-24 Liberator bomber ‘Beautiful Betsy’ went missing in February 1945, with eight lives lost. One of the veteran planes of its unit, in the latter years of the war Beautiful Betsy had been pensioned off active service and was used to transport fresh fruit, ice cream, alcohol and live poultry.
The Liberator was on a night flight from Darwin to Brisbane with six American crew members – Lieutenants McDaniel, Routt, Owen and Kilcheski, and Sergeants Lemons and Tucker. Also on board were two RAF Spitfire pilots, who are said to have joined the flight at the last moment. One of the men, Flying Officer Cannon, was to have been married to aircraftwoman Daphne Studders of Brisbane and the other, Flight Lieutenant Cook, was to have been his best man at a wedding planned for 3 March.
Despite many search attempts, the Liberator was not found until 1994, when Queensland National Parks and Wildlife ranger Mark Roe happened upon the wreckage while conducting a controlled burn in Kroombit Tops National Park, around 150km from Gladstone. Damage to the propellers suggested the plane had been spinning when the crash occurred, and personal effects that identified all personnel, including what appeared to be a wedding ring, were found at the site. “
It was indeed a challenging drive to get out there. No pictures because I was wrestling the steering wheel and Nancy was grabbing the dash trying not to be thrown around. The drive was about 40 Kilometers, round trip, from the “main road” in the park. Once we got to the site, there was a parking lot and a 5 Km hike to get to the crash site.
Personal comment: One of the geographic features of Australia that continues to amaze me is the ruggedness of any of the hills, big and small. Many vertical walls, many rocks and rock formations, deep, deep gullies, and massive trees. The Gum trees, formally known as Eucalyptus (there’s about 20 varieties of them) they tower over everything. We have a couple right behind our house and I never tire of looking up into them.
Anyhow, here are the pictures I took of the site. There is another post in this blog about one of our trips out to the park, it is under a post called “The Oz Adventure”. It includes much more about the roads and other parts of the park. The park, and getting there, is an incredible adventure. I’m not going to put much in the captions. Most are just pictures of the parts left at the crash site that Mother Nature or souvenir hunters haven’t claimed. Others of info signs that describe things. Enjoy.
That’s it. It was an adventure and after driving and hiking through the mountains, gullies, and creeks to get there, it is understandable why it took so long for the crash site to be found.
