The Loss of Qantas Catalina VH-EAX at Lord Howe Island – Sabotage or Misadventure?
In the post-World War II era, Bryan Monkton constantly asserted that his airline, Trans Oceanic Airways, provided just the type of service Lord Howe needed. Apart from carrying 28 passengers, TOA’s converted Sunderland flying boats had roomy freight lockers with electric hoists. (The freight lockers had been wartime bomb bays and could carry freight items as large as pianos!)
The postwar shipping service to Lord Howe (operated by Burns Philp until 1952) was far less frequent than in prewar years. Indeed, by 1948, the freight situation had become dire with the Lord Howe Island Board being notified that the B.P. vessel, Morinda, would only call at Lord Howe on alternate voyages, and would only carry the amount of cargo that could be unloaded in a single day. DCA’s Marine Officer, Harry Woolnough, also commented that: “…only an outward bound service called at Lord Howe and Norfolk Island. There was no return service. If you wanted to travel from Sydney by ship, it was more or less the case of go around the entire islands”. Consequently, Monkton’s converted Sunderland flying boats, carrying 28 passengers and having roomy freight lockers, proved a lifeline for the Island.
Within four months of TOA’s inaugural flight, Qantas had also commenced a service utilizing smaller Catalina flying boats. While the Island certainly welcomed Qantas, the Cats could only carry minimal freight and about half the number of passengers – 14 compared to TOA’s 28.
Nevertheless, Qantas continued harrying TOA. In this endeavour, it was firmly backed by the Chifley Labor Government which had decided to nationalize Qantas. Consequently, the playing field was never level. TOA found itself competing against an airline that had become well-established in the pre-war period via lucrative government mail-carrying contracts, and which had continued to operate throughout the war via the secondment of its aircraft and aircrews to the Australian Government. In 1947 Qantas became fully owned by the Australian Government through a share buy-out – and the Government favoured its own airline at every turn!
This huge competitive advantage was glossed over by the Managing Director of Qantas, Hudson Fysh, in his memoir “Wings to the World”, in which it is clear Qantas had no intention of tolerating TOA. However, sparks began to fly when TOA and Qantas both had aircraft moored at Lord Howe during stormy weather. The TOA aircraft departed unscathed but, a mere 24 hours later, the Qantas Catalina broke it’s mooring and washed onto rocks next to the Island jetty. There was innuendo about sabotage and, indeed, a couple of Qantas security officers were dispatched to Lord Howe to investigate.
So what are the differing perspectives from our “Sparks from the Past” – from Hudson Fysh (Managing Director of Qantas), Brian Monkton (Director of TOA) and Phil Mathiesen, the TOA Captain against whom aspersions directed? Read on…
From Wings to the World – the Qantas View – Hudson Fysh
“Unfortunately [in the Post War period] the larger established airlines were fighting to establish their position, and ANA [Australian National Airlines] were in the process of gaining control of whatever airlines they could. We were determined to secure our own position in all services in and out of Australia, and in this we had to oppose TOA in services to Lord Howe Island and New Guinea. In the circumstances of the times the new operator [TOA] had no chance of survival”. (P.72) (My bold italics)
Editor’s note: Hudson had very conveniently forgotten that, 30 years earlier, he and another young ex World War I pilot, Paul McGuinness, had launched their own small post war airline – Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services (or QANTAS). Their operation was ultimately supported by a valuable Commonwealth mail-carrying contract to Singapore in 1934. This made Qantas Australia’s first air operator having a scheduled overseas air service. My, how times had changed now Fysh was the Managing Director of the government’s own airline…no mercy for the struggling post war ‘startups’ here!
From The Boats I Flew – the TOA View – Bryan Monkton (So many bureaucratic obstacles placed in the way of TOA’s flying boat service!)
“In a war, one is well aware of who the enemy is…Flying in peacetime…one did not expect to have human enemies and in my civilian life I was dismayed to find there were some adversaries bent on hurting, or even destroying me. We were now operating to the Soloman Islands and Lord Howe services to fixed timetables, and the first indication that we had more than the usual operating problems to contend with was when we applied to DCA for official airline licenses for these routes. So far the licenses had not been granted and we continued to operate under a section of the air regulations that classed our services as approved charter flights, although unlicensed. The regulations governing charter flights were restrictive and, amongst other things, prohibited us from advertising our services and timetables in the media. We were also required to make a separate application to DCA for every flight. This latter requirement not only involved a lot of extra work but introduced a degree of uncertainty as there was always the feeling that for some reason an application might be refused, and the flight would have to be cancelled. Although these applications were made well in advance, we were sometimes kept in nail-biting suspense until the very last day.
Our local member of parliament wrote to the minister for civil aviation requesting a reason for the non-issue of licenses and received a surprising reply. In this the Minister said bluntly that Qantas Empire Airways was ‘the chosen instrument’ of the government for the operation of all overseas air services and would in due course serve the routes in question. When this occurred the appropriate licenses would be issued to that airline only. In the meantime, our flights could occur on an ad hoc charter basis…It seemed we had two powerful adversaries with whom to contend, the Federal Government and Qantas. (Pp 103-105)
An old friend of Monkton’s from the RAAF days, Scotty Allan, who had secured a top post as Qantas “Director of Technical Development” also bluntly warned him: “The top brass here is not going to let you continue to operate on what they regard as their routes.” (P.105)
The Loss of Qantas Catalina VH-EAX at Lord Howe Island
Hudson Fysh – Qantas: “On the 23rd June, 1949, our Catalina and one of Trans Oceanic Airways were riding at their moorings on the lagoon when in a ‘blow’ our flying boat broke her moorings and went ashore. On a previous night the TOA flying boat had broken adrift but was returned safely by the crew who had remained aboard. In the case of our Catalina, reliance had been placed on the three inch manilla rope mooring pennant, and the storm pennant of galvanised stainless steel cable, with a breaking strain of 38,960lb [17,672kg].
Mooring Buoys and pennants are the responsibility of the Department of Civil Aviation, and following the loss of VH-EAX there was a great deal of correspondence to determine the responsibility for the accident. Should we have had a crew on board? What caused the supposedly stout cable to break after the rope pennant went? The cable had been passed as fit on the 7th April by a Civil Aviation Officer and again on the 1st June. Yet on the 23rd June the steel cable had parted. The result of investigations by the Defence Research Laboratories was the finding that: ‘At the position adjacent to the fracture the inner surfaces of each strand were badly rusted; the galvanising had been completely removed from all the wires and a red corrosion product had accumulated between the strands.’ The failure had come at a point where the cable would alternatively be in and out of the water, and where corrosion could be expected”. (P.71)
Editor’s note: Again, Hudson Fysh fails to mention Qantas suspicion that the aircraft mooring had been tampered with by the TOA crew. As it happens, the forgoing quote is firmly anchored in chapter 9 of Wings to the World titled Qantas Security about the post war necessity of establishing ‘a properly constituted security staff’.
From The Boats I Flew – the TOA Perspective – Bryan Monkton
“To everyone’s astonishment, the QANTAS captain alleged that his mooring line did not break but had been cut, the obvious inference being that someone from the TOA crew had done the dastardly deed. How anyone could have got out to the mooring in those boisterous conditions was inexplicable and the accusation was so impractical and absurd that no one took it seriously – no one except the QANTAS hierarchy who, when the Captain’s radioed report reached Sydney, immediately dispatched two security officers to the Island to make investigations. Of course, nothing could be proved, but this…seemed to show that someone was ready to seize any opportunity to discredit us”. (Pp 111-112)
Editor’s note: Sabotage was clearly imputed against Phil Mathiesen, the Captain of the flying boat VH-AKO, which had arrived at Lord Howe on the same afternoon as the beached Qantas Cat. Mathiesen, however, was a man of high repute: he had flown Walrus, Dornier and Mariner flying boats for the RAAF during World War II and he later captained Sandringham flying boats for Qantas itself; Brian Monkton regarded him as “one of those solid, reliable types, and eventually I made him chief pilot, a position for which he was well suited, being a disciplinarian and good training Captain” (P.101).
What, in fact, had Mathiesen been up to on the night of the storm? Could he and/or his crew have secretly paddled over to the mooring of the QANTAS aircraft and tampered with it? Fortunately, Mathiesen has left a vivid account of the dramatic night in question in an interview with Greg Banfield, titled “Flying Boat Pilot”.
Captain Philip H. Mathiesen – TOA (From the transcript of an interview with Greg Banfield)
“Both the boats [Qantas and TOA] left Rose Bay at mid-afternoon. The Catalina, being able to operate earlier than I could, had left about half an hour before and landed 20 minutes or so ahead of me, taking the northernmost mooring on the Island. [About 70 metres out from the jetty] Then I landed on VH-AKO and took the mooring out by Rabbit Island, which had a greater depth and suited us better. It was coming on dark as we got our passengers ashore and it looked to me as if it was going to be a wild sort of night. I decided to stay aboard with First Officer, John Poate, and the engineer.
From that time on, the wind increased and with the wind, the seas across the reef. It was evident we were going to be in for quite a blow. We broke away from the mooring seven times that night and I had at least one engine going most of the night…I really didn’t know where I was half the time, with lightning flashing and then pitch dark again. What was happening was that the boat was riding back on the big swells and tearing at the steel strop on the mooring and completely snapping it.
On the bow of the flying boat there was a storm pennant [cable] attached to the keel line. I had never seen one of those broken before but ours was broken off completely. The Sunderland had a winch in the bow compartment and a chain would come in over the big bollard and down to the winch. That winch was torn completely out of the floorboards and how it didn’t kill the fellow up in the bow, I don’t know.
We would hold the boat up on the mooring with the engines while the Civil Aviation boat would attach a new pennant to the mooring. We would get that up on board and hang onto it as long as we could, until it broke again, and this was even with the engines going for help…The Civil Aviation fellows there with their boats were marvellous.
As I said, we broke away seven times that night and the only thing that saved us was that finally, after a lot of arguing over the radio, I got the Department of Civil Aviation launch to get about a hundred feet of four-inch manilla rope and attach that to the mooring….
The Sunderland had its auxiliary power unit, a little unit for topping up the batteries and normally used for starting, in the leading edge of wing where a panel folded out to make a platform. The APU got doused early in the evening and was useless. The next morning, I got the last start out of the batteries and I got four engines going. The wind was still so strong that I couldn’t turn downwind to taxi – I just had to sit there and let the aeroplane drift back. The wind was blowing dead across the lagoon and in normal times you would never think of taking off across the lagoon, there just wasn’t enough length. But I sat there with my engines idling, let her drift back until the stern was nearly on the sand [beach] and went straight across. I was airborne halfway across the lagoon”.
In a separate interview with Chris Murray, Phil Mathiesen recalled: “There were snide remarks by various people that I rowed over and cut it [the Qantas Cat] loose, but I can assure you that I had more on my mind than the Qantas Catalina…there was no crew left aboard and they lost their aeroplane!!!”
Editor’s Note: Subsequently, Phil Mathiesen received a letter from Mr Burleigh, chairman of the Board of Trans Oceanic Airways, thanking him for his outstanding effort on the night of this storm, which undoubtedly saved the Company’s aircraft. As the TOA and Qantas aircraft were on different moorings – Qantas near the jetty and TOA south of Blackburn Island – they were separated by over 1km; the Qantas Catalina survived the first stormy night, but its crew elected to remain throughout the following day, and their aircraft broke loose on the second night, about 24 hours after Phil Mathiesen had departed with VH-AKO. All these facts combine to make the sabotage theory seem absurdly improbable.
In the next episode, the sparks really start to fly when Bryan Monkton faces trial for malicious sabotage when a Qantas Catalina moored at Rose Bay is destroyed by fire.