Finally laid to rest
Sixty years after it disappeared, a combined Indonesian and Australian Air Force team has conducted the final recovery of passengers and crew from RAAF Dakota A65-61. Private John Wellfare reports.

FLTLT Greg Williams cleans LT Alun Jones’ ID tags, which were found at the crash site.

A memorial plaque has been affixed to the rock face at the crash site.

Photos by CPL Craig Eager

Indonesian Private First Class Sugeng and Private Second Class Anang Marjuki, from Bravo 90, secure supplies alongside Australian personnel at the helipad.

Australian and Indonesian team members sift through the wreckage.

‘THEY thought they were going home.”

Flight Lieutenant Greg Williams can appreciate the tragic irony of the Air Force’s worst air disaster, which claimed the lives of 29 Service personnel in the Carstensz Ranges of Indonesian Papua, a month after the end of World War II.

Earlier this year, he coordinated a search team to recover the remaining crew and passengers of RAAF Dakota A65-61 from the crash site, 14,000 feet (4270m) above sea level, and lay their remains to rest at the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery at Bomana in Port Moresby.

It wasn’t the first recovery mission for A65-61. The aircraft wreckage was first spotted in 1967 by a missionary pilot flying a light aircraft over the range.

After determining the aircraft was Australian, an Air Force team comprising two C-130s, two Iroquois helicopters, a Caribou, a Pilatus Porter and about 40 personnel deployed to the region in 1970.

At that time, getting a team to the crash site required an enormous logistical effort.

Two members of the team spent a few hours at the site and recovered some remains, but had to be extracted again when the weather closed in. These remains were buried in a collective grave at the Port Moresby Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery in 1971 and the family members were invited to the memorial service shortly after. With the exception of Lieutenant Alun Jones, 28 of the aircrew and passengers were provided with individual headstones at the time.

A second recovery effort was launched in 1999 after a surveyor from PT Freeport Indonesia, which operates a mine about 10km from the crash site, reported having seen remains around the wreck a year earlier.

With the mining company’s help, a team, led by Wing Commander Ian Honey, recovered a significant number of remains from the site. The recovery effort was hampered by heavy snowfall and had to be cut short because of impending elections in the country.

The latest recovery mission and subsequent military funeral service at Port Moresby has brought some sense of finality to the case of A65-61, 60 years after it disappeared.

“There is now a sense of final closure, not so much for us, but certainly for the families,” Flight Lieutenant Williams says. “For the close family members – brothers, sisters, sons and daughters – particularly.

“Poignantly, Mrs Jean Jones was recently presented with Lieutenant Jones’ ID tag. She now knows for certain that her husband was on the aircraft when it crashed. This closure has been a long time coming for her.”

Planning for the mission began after the Indonesian Air Force Chief, Air Chief Marshal Chappy Hakim, agreed during a visit to Australia last year that a joint recovery effort would be appropriate.

Flight Lieutenant Williams travelled to the crash site with a small group last September to determine what the recovery team would need to complete the task once and for all.

“That was my first experience at 14,000 feet. It was extremely difficult to breath because we’d basically come from sea level the day before.”

Several requirements had been determined from the reconnaissance. Most important was the need for a stable platform on which to land a helicopter close to the site – the reconnaissance team was inserted by the helicopter balancing one skid on the edge of a large rock. PT Freeport Indonesia agreed to install a helipad near the crash site.

“That made operations with the helicopter a lot safer, particularly for getting personnel and stores in and out of the helicopter; it gave us a platform on which to work.”

The recovery team arrived at the site in June. Five Indonesian and five Australian Air Force personnel disembarked at the newly constructed helipad, expecting to spend more than 10 days on the mountain.

The air at 14,000 feet is extremely thin and, in contrast to the tropical jungles at the base of the mountains, ice cold. Despite the trying weather conditions, the crash site itself is a still and solemn place.

“Wherever you look, on bare rocks particularly, you can see individuals’ personal items – combs, tooth brushes – it makes you sit back and think about the whole thing and how it would have been back then.

“At least 17 of them were on stretchers. Their eating utensils, their plates [and] their cups are lying all around the place.

“It’s a very sad place when you sit back and reflect on it all – 29 people lost their lives there, all of whom thought they were going home, the war was over.”

The team members established their camp – tents pitched on raised platforms, built by the mining company, to avoid the constant streams of water running down the mountain when it rained. The high altitude and cold weather slowed their rate of work to an exhausting crawl.

“Breathing was the biggest problem, doing any kind of physical activity was difficult,” Flight Lieutenant Williams says. “You had to hyperventilate to get your socks on and off.

“We spent basically 12 hours a night in sleeping bags, because once darkness came you couldn’t do anything, you couldn’t just sit around; it was too cold.”

The team spent 10 uncomfortable days on the mountain, slowly searching the site for the remaining crew and passengers. Some team members suffered altitude sickness and had to be evacuated, but the mission was completed in good time and the group left the mountain and its now vacant wreckage for the last time.

Flight Lieutenant Williams says the efforts of all team members and the great rapport that was quickly established between both forces contributed significantly to the success of the mission.

“It’s just a huge logistical task to put people on that mountain for any length of time,” he says.

“Without the enormous support and assistance provided by PT Freeport Indonesia, things wouldn’t have changed greatly since the 1970 operation. Also, the Indonesian Air Force facilitated a lot of things for us and made it happen.”

The hard work was over, but the mission wasn’t yet complete. Air Force policy is not to notify the family of a missing serviceman about a recovery operation until the task has been finished. For Flight Lieutenant Williams, the next step was to contact families and arrange a final funeral service for the passengers and crew of A65-61. A headstone for Lieutenant Jones also had to be put in place for the service.

On August 10, the remaining passengers and crew were finally laid to rest at Port Moresby. For Flight Lieutenant Williams, whose job with the Directorate of Coordination-Air Force is to coordinate recovery operations like this one, it was the end of another satisfying and rewarding assignment.

There are 1055 Australian service personnel listed as missing in the Australian and South-West Pacific area. Many of them are probably deep underwater and are likely to never be found. But undoubtedly some remain hidden in a dense tropical jungle, or high on a mountain, waiting to be discovered one day and brought home to rest with the thousands of others who gave their lives in the battle for the Pacific.

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RAAF Dakota A65-61
Manifest of crew and passengers:

Air Force

Warrant Officer Hunter, Arthur

Warrant Officer Hughes, Albert

Warrant Officer Wilkinson, Eric

Flight Sergeant Wiles, Keith

Flight Sergeant Sawery, Allan

Sergeant Blackmore, Francis

Flying Officer Stibbard, Noel

Warrant Officer Campbell, Allan

Leading Aircraftman Dunderdale, William

RAAF Nursing Service

Sister Craig, Marie

Army

Private Bowden, Keith

Private Coombe, Laurie

Trooper Duffy, George

Gunner Eiszele, John

Private Ford, Mervyn

Sergeant Hyde, Arthur

Trooper Ireland, Frederick

Private Jorgensen, Arthur

Sapper McDougall, James

Private McDowall, Ian

Private McAlorum, John

Trooper Mathieson, Ronald

Sapper Matthews, John

Private Oakley, Leonard

Private Ray, Ian

Private Smith, Donald

Private Tindall, Jamest

Corporal Welsh, George

Lieutenant Alun Jones (not listed on the manifest, boarded the aircraft in Morotai)

A battle against the altitude and the elements

 

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