GREAT MATES: WOB Ian Chill and RADM Rowan Moffitt with the sailors of HMAS Tarakan who took part in WOB Chill’s heroic rescue.

Photo: ABPH Kade Rogers

By ABPH Kade Rogers

Sailors involved in the dramatic rescue of WOB Ian Chill have spoken to Navy News of their ordeal for the first time.


ABBM Stewart Pinder, who was awarded a Deputy Chief of Joint Operations Commendation for his action in the rescue and ABBM Aaron Anderson, who received a Maritime Commander Commendation, told of battling through appalling rain and climbing up precarious mountain sides during the daring rescue of a mate in trouble.

They succeeded against all odds.

“It is hard to describe how steep it was,” ABBM Pinder recalled. “It was wet and slippery too, we had to use bamboo stakes just to help us get over the hill,” added ABBM Anderson.

A stirring tale unfolded as the pair vividly told of their part in the rescue of WOB Chill, who remains wheelchair-bound after breaking his back in a serious fall in the Solomon Islands last year.

“One of the guides came running out of the cave towards us, at first we thought it wasn’t serious, but he started to panic.

Then we realised it was fair dinkum,” ABBM Pinder said. WOB Chill, the Executive Officer of HMAS Tarakan had fallen down a hole while leading a party monitoring watercourses for a local village.

He lay immobilised in the dark and alone.

“Stewie was the first one down the hole, he’d shimmied down on his own shirt,” ABBM Anderson said.

“Yeah, me and Smouch (ABSTD Matthew Smith) tied both our shirts together,” added ABBM Pinder.

“Smouch held the shirts up the top and I slid down the hole.”

“Stewie held him (WOB Chill) steady because his ribs were broken and he couldn’t breath, while I came down and helped the medics,” ABBM Anderson said.

CUP OF CHEER: ABBM Stewart Pinder, left, and ABBM Aaron Anderson recall the remarkable rescue of WOB Ian Chill, who was paralysed in a fall in The Solomons last year.

Photo: ABPH Kade Rogers

A chilling tale gets retold

This ordinary group of mates who have family barbeques and beers with each other on weekends, displayed extraordinary courage and selflessness during the gruelling ninehour rescue.

“They brought one of those special spinal stretchers in, threw a line down to us and we had to rig it up,” ABBM Pinder said. The ordeal was far from over with incessant rain beating down mercilessly upon the operation.

“It started getting dark and the oxygen started to run out. We knew that we had to get him out,” ABBM Anderson said. The odds kept mounting against the team. “Getting him out of the hole was very difficult.


It was only a small gap and we had to try to keep him horizontal all the way,” ABBM Pinder said. ABBM Anderson recalled the tireless efforts of the New Zealand helicopter pilots.

“They didn’t have night-flying capability and it was just hammering down with rain,” he said.

With visibility diminishing, it was apparent that unconventional measures would be required to lift WOB Chill to safety. ABBM Pinder tells of how they flew in and dropped a loadmaster down on the deck.

“They cleared a path through the trees with the loadmaster to where Chilly was.

We put him on the loadmaster and got him out that way,” he said. ABBM Anderson had never seen it done quite like this before. “It was pretty amazing,” he said.

ABSTD Matthew Smith and LSBM Darrell Komorowski were also awarded Maritime Commander Commendations and PONPC Raymond Rosendale was awarded a Chief of Joint Operations Commendation for their roles in the rescue.

RADM Rowan Moffitt presented the awards at HMAS Cairns on February 23 as WOB Chill looked on in full ceremonial whites grinning ear to ear, and with mates like these why wouldn’t he be smiling. RADM Moffitt put it best.

“You are all extraordinary people who were faced with an extraordinary situation”.

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