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Emergency Landing at the Balnarring Aerodrome
By Ilma Hackett - Balnarring & District Historical Society
In the late summer of 1935, newspapers from Townsville to Tasmania carried the story of the emergency landing of a plane at the “Balnarring aerodrome”.
The plane, Holyman’s Airways the ‘Golden West’, was on the mail flight from Launceston to Melbourne via Flinders Island and had run into bad weather. This might not have caused so much interest had not one of the company’s planes gone missing, just three months prior, over the ocean near Wilsons Promontory, with the loss of all aboard.
The future is in aircraft
William Holyman, the founder of the shipping firm Holyman & Sons, had bought his first ship in 1861. With his three sons, Thomas, William Jnr and James, he built up the shipping line which moved passengers and goods between coastal Tasmanian towns and Bass Strait islands. The firm operated out of Devonport, then later Launceston. It was later extended across the strait to the Australian mainland. By 1931 the company had nine steam ships plying the seas.
Victor and Ivan Holyman were two of the thirteen children of William Jnr. Both sons intended entering the family shipping company but Victor saw the potential of air transport after having learnt to fly during the years of World War 1 when he served with the aerial wing of the Royal Navy. He was described as “an airman with rare ability.” (Younger brother Ivan enlisted in 1914 and served at Gallipoli and the Western Front where he was promoted to Captain and awarded the Military Cross.) After a rival competitor started an air link between Flinders Island and the Tasmanian mainland, the Holyman brothers bought their first plane in 1932. ‘Miss Currie’ was a three-passenger de Havilland DH83 Fox Moth which flew the old sea routes between Flinders Island and Launceston. Victor’s wife, Hazel Holyman, met the passengers and drove them to the airport at Launceston where she gave them blankets, biscuits and a warm drink for their flight. She has sometimes been called the first flight hostess although she never left the ground.
In 1933 the two rival companies merged to form Tasmanian Aerial Services. A new de Havilland DH 84 Dragon was acquired to make the run three times a week between Launceston and Melbourne .
A tragic accident
In November of the that year, 1933, the Commonwealth Government called for tenders for a subsidized airmail service as part of the Empire Air Mail Scheme and in July, 1934 Holyman’s Airways Pty Ltd was registered. The company was successful in its bid for the mail contract and two new aircraft, de Havilland DH86s, were bought. These aircraft had been specially developed for the mail route and hurried into use. They were four-engine, single-control models with the pilot seated in the nose of the aircraft and the co-pilot in the seat behind. This made changing seats awkward and was considered one possible cause of an accident that later occurred.
The first run was made on 3 October, 1934.
On 19th October one of their two airliners, ‘Miss Hobart’, described by the Burnie ‘Advocate’ as “the largest and most luxuriously appointed aeroplane at present in Australia”, went down near Wilson’s Promontory. Ten passengers, including a fivemonth-old baby and the two crew members, lost their lives. Victor Holyman had been the co-pilot. An extensive sea, air and land search for the aircraft was finally called off after five days and there was much speculation as to why the plane had disappeared.
Captain Ivan Holyman, took over management of the company. A second-hand de Havilland DH84 was purchased to replace the missing aircraft and this was named the ‘Golden West’.
An Emergency Landing
On the morning of 9th February, 1935, the ‘Golden West’, flown by Pilot Paterson, was carrying the mail and four passengers. When it left Launceston at 9.00 a.m. weather conditions had been excellent but misty rain, which greatly reduced visibility, had moved in before the plane reached Flinders Island an hour later. Newspapers had reported the pilot had radioed “running into rain; visibility ahead bad; due Flinders Island 10.10 a.m.” shortly before landing. There the pilot received news that Wilson’s Promontory was fog-bound and damage to the plane’s wireless aerial was also discovered. Thus, it was unable to receive or transmit messages during the remainder of the flight. However, the ‘Golden West’ left on time to continue its flight to Melbourne. Conditions worsened and visibility was extremely poor when the plane flew over Western Port and, as it proceeded towards Port Philip, the land fog became denser. Visibility was “almost nil”. Pilot Paterson made the decision to turn back to Balnarring East (Somers, to give it its new name) where he landed the plane without incident. About an hour and a half later, after having waited in vain for conditions to improve, the plane took off again for Melbourne. By hugging the coast where visibility was relatively good, Pilot Paterson landed the ‘Golden West’ at Laverton at 3.25 in the afternoon after a flight he later described as “one of the most unpleasant flights” he had made. The company had two planes, one that left from Launceston and one that left from Melbourne on the same day. Both flew via Flinders Island. The other plane, the ‘Loina’, had “battled her way through rain and fog” after a delayed start from Melbourne and had remained at Flinders Island until conditions improved before completing the final leg.
The ‘aerodrome’ at Somers ‘Balnarring aerodrome’, as some of the newspapers termed it, was rather a grandiose name for the area where the mail plane set down. This was a paddock on the west side of Camp Hill Road between the new Somers township and Sandy Point Road. The land here was flat, allowing the planes to taxi and the paddock had been marked with a big carbide ash circle. The area was used mainly for sports as the football ground was nearby. The paddock was used by the mail planes as a temporary stopover if the weather was bad. Some early Somers residents recalled the mail planes flying across the area. Ray Stone related that, as a school boy, he often saw the planes pass overhead and how occasionally they landed if the weather was bad. He stated some passengers stayed in the plane while others walked to the store for a cup of tea. On one occasion a bigger, 3-engined plane landed. Ray and his mate, Roger Thompson, were not going to miss seeing it. The two excited boys went from school but they only had one bicycle between the two of them so Roger dinked Ray to the landing strip.
Holyman’s Airways lost another plane the following year. The ‘Loina’ left Melbourne with two crew members and carrying five passengers. It was due to land on Flinders Island at 9.55am. But it did not. Nor was it sighted, although the lighthouse keeper on Wilsons Promontory had seen it pass over at nine o’clock. It is believed the plane stalled as it was gliding down to the aerodrome and plummeted into the sea. Soon after this loss all of Holyman’s aircraft were subject to rigorous safety checks.
How Holyman’s Airways became A.N.A.
The airline continued to grow, expanding its operations throughout south-eastern Australia. In 1935 it had a route from Melbourne to Sydney and to Canberra and that same year a regular airmail service commenced between Melbourne and Sydney. In 1936 Ivan Holyman approached the Adelaide Steamship company which owned Adelaide Airways. It had recently taken over Western Australian Airways. He proposed a merger and with funding from the Orient Steamship Company, the two groups amalgamated to form Australian National Airways (A.N.A.). The new company was registered in May 1936. A twice-weekly service between Melbourne and Perth was introduced. The airline was now flying the Americanbuilt Douglas DC 2 planes, the first all metal aircraft. As yet, it did not have access to Queensland routes. These were controlled by rival company Airlines of Australia (AoA). Just prior to World War 2, ANA had a controlling interest in AoA and, between them, the two airlines were flying four DC-2s and four DC-3s as well as other aircraft. When war broke out the government requisitioned all four of A.N.A.’s DC 3s however the airline was soon operating a network of services around Australia on behalf of the war effort.
Then - Ansett Airlines of Australia
Hazel Holyman had left Australia after her husband’s death and had been travelling in England and the United States where she witnessed the air hostessing service introduced by United Airlines. Ivan had approached her in 1939, asking her to return and superintend A.N.A.’s air hostesses. Hazel designed uniforms, was responsible for stores, catering and laundry and she occasionally filled in if one of the hostesses was unable to fly. The girls were in awe of her and called her “Matron”.
Post-war the Chifley Labor government established its own line, Trans-Australian Airlines (T.A.A) after failing to nationalise airlines. The two airlines, T.A.A. and A.N.A. became the major Australian airlines with routes that covered most of the continent. In 1949 A.N.A. was floated as a public company. It continued to expand with routes all over Australia and a handful of overseas destinations.
Sir Ivan Holyman died in 1957. The government declined the offer to buy the airline from the share-holders. Instead, Melbournebased Reginald Ansett bought A.N. A. for £3.3 million towards the end of that year. It merged with his smaller company, Ansett, to fly under the name Ansett – A.N.A. and was re-named Ansett Airlines of Australia in 1968. As such, it operated for 65 years until liquidation in 2002 after a financial collapse.
The “aerodrome” at Somers acted as an occasional landing place for the mail planes to Tasmania until 1940 when a new airfield was built at the nearby Flinders Naval Depot (now H.M.A.S. Cerberus) in Crib Point. By then, larger and better equipped aircraft made flying in unfavourable weather conditions less hazardous and an emergency strip, except on rare occasions, was no longer needed.
References: Contemporary newspapers; All Our Somers by Bruce Bennett, Australian Dictionary of Biography; University of Tasmania internet entry. Map: B.D.H.S. collection. Images from the internet.(Tasmanian Aviation Historical Society)