Mavis

The Australian government, belatedly realising the visual acuity of young people was much sharper than their elderly presbyopic citizens, wisely decided to exploit this situation in the war zone.

Consequently, at one parade the headmaster announced that an aircraft identification class would be conducted at night at the post office for the town children, whilst instructive posters would be placed at school for those living on a farm who could not attend.

The object of this instruction was to study the outline of enemy and allied aircraft on a carefully scaled large chart which delineated their appearance both in profile and, more importantly, from beneath. Wisely, foreign names then uncommon to the public and hence difficult to pronounce were altered so that a Kawasaki, a Mitsubishi or an Aichi plane were referred to simply as a Lily, a Sonia or a Val.

On the big night the participants turned up at the post office. The postmistress presented toffee apples to the participants. While they devoured these delicacies, Sergeant Mick displayed a poster demonstrating cloud varieties found at certain altitudes, and finally ordered observers to report if they ever spotted a suspicious-looking aircraft. Mick was rather clumsy at this task, and the postmaster mused how wise he was to have excluded Mick from giving the proper names of enemy aircraft. He had discovered that, as well as suffering from flat feet, Mick was not to be trusted with unfamiliar words, when a trial attempt to pronounce Kawasaki resulted in an utterance resembling a tribal war cry.

By now the locals were familiar with all the allied warplanes, particularly the Flying Fortress based at Mareeba, as a squadron of these would often fly over the town in immaculate formation returning from a bombing mission. Further, crew members as a lark would sometimes visit their girlfriends at milking time by low-contour flying, zooming down dales and up hillsides. They would then emerge roaring over the milking shed causing the cattle to stampede, and be greeted by an angry fist-shaking cocky on one side, with his gumbooted daughters on the opposite boundary waving madly and blowing kisses.

Early in 1943 the town was alerted to the close proximity of warfare by the return of a gaggle of bombers flying in untidy formation, with stragglers having an engine or two out of commission. One aeroplane banked over town, wings riddled with jagged holes, a dead motor dangling vertically. Propellers on another were cartwheeling uselessly with the belly gunner’s turret swinging ominously in the air.

The whole town was anxious for news of this disaster but not a single jeep came to the pub that night, and we had to wait till the following evening when Joe, a popular ground crew member, managed to sneak away. He announced that fliers were not allowed to leave the aerodrome for two weeks, as they had just participated in the battle of the Bismarck Sea, accounting for the severe damage caused by heavy naval gunfire. He also explained there had been a lot of casualties, and went on to describe using fire hoses to swill out inaccessible body parts from concealed recesses in the fuselage.

The official secrecy reflected in the government’s late announcement of a victory rankled the locals. However, they were reassured by Americans that it could have been worse, for it took months for their public to be informed of the loss of the five fighting Sullivan brothers on USS Juneau in the battle of Guadalcanal. Then again, as they looked around and observed most of the Australian Army was located on a distant continent, they were grateful for Washington’s contribution of a large submarine base and the presence of approximately a million troops who passed through Queensland.

Late in the war, Sergeant Mick’s advice paid off when I was out mustering in a far paddock. I heard unusual aircraft noise, and looking up spotted a four-engine flying boat in high cumulus cloud. As we hurried to the police station we figured it was a Kawanishi Type 97 “Mavis”, a heavily-armed and dangerous aircraft, probably flying from Shortland Island off Bougainville. As well as carrying conventional weapons, Mavis possessed rockets, a large cannon, torpedoes, land and marine mines, poison gas cylinders and tinsel to conceal its whereabouts.

What it was doing late in the hostilities when Mareeba base was inactive with most of its original members in Europe or New Guinea is difficult to know. About that time our new Governor-General, the Duke of Gloucester, paid a low aerial visit to North Queensland. This thrilled the locals, but people pondered over these two events and there was a universal feeling that the Mavis was probably out to assassinate him in a blood-curdling aerial assault.