O’Reilly’s At Green Mountains (Part 5)

Posted on Sun 09/06/2009 by TonyfromOz

BERNARD O’REILLY AND THE STINSON RESCUE. (Part 3)

Stinson Model A Passenger Cabin. Image courtesy Queensland State Government Archives.

The image at left is of the cabin inside the Stinson. Click on the image to open it in a new and larger window. Proud, Binstead and Westray were seated on the left (Port) side. The aircraft impacted the trees slightly nose down and to Starboard, the impact killing the two crew and both passengers on that right side. The crew were visible to the passengers through the window in the door at the front of the cabin.

In the two earlier posts, I detailed the lead up to the loss of the Stinson, the search, and then the dramatic rescue, and, as is always the case, this was not the end of it all, and in this post, I’ll mention some of the things that followed from that story, and woven deeply into most aspects of that is Bernard O’Reilly himself.

The media of the time turned him into a hero, and for the sake of newspaper copy, a lot of things were said in an effort to make it sound as dramatic as possible. O’Reilly was a quiet unassuming man, and treated it in almost a matter of fact way, downplaying what he did, and in fact saying that when looking for the real heroes, they should not be looking in his direction, but at the others who played such a large part. O’Reilly specifically pointed to Jim Westray, Joe Binstead, Doctor Lawlor, and John Buchanan, and even John Proud, so let’s look at those men first.

Buchanan was the man who organised the rescue, after O’Reilly told him of the news. Buchanan in a slow, reasoned and rational approach accomplished in a matter of hours a plan that years later still proved flawless. His knowledge of that specific area was instrumental in the rescue. Two parties were sent, one, with O’Reilly to take the most direct route back to the site, and the second to cut a way through the bush by an easier route so the men could be brought out, considering they would be on stretchers. They pored over maps for a short time. O’Reilly naturally was still in the adrenalin rush of coming down the Mountain, and Buchanan’s coolness gave the search purpose, and direction, and all this in the middle of the night.

Doctor Lawlor went in the first party with O’Reilly, who arrived back at the scene first with Bob Stephens, the Doctor and the rest arriving a little later. Lawlor’s coolness at the scene was further instrumental in saving the life of those two men, Proud especially. O’Reilly’s rationale was speed, because he realised that Proud was close to death, and even though with a basic bushman’s need for some medical knowledge, he still thought that Proud would lose his leg, and told the Doctor that he might even need to do that ‘in the field’. Lawlor not only saved the lives of the two men, but also saved Proud’s leg. As it transpired, both Proud and Binstead tried to keep the wound covered and free of the ubiquitous flies so prevalent in the area. The bone was through the skin, and wound was quite large. Three days after the crash, it had started to worsen, and the flies were so bad, and the wound so awful, it was badly infected and becoming gangrenous. Doctor Lawlor, in a lull at the top of the mountain before the second party arrived told O’Reilly that the fly larvae, the maggots, had kept the wound clean by feeding off the gangrenous flesh, and this is what saved the leg.

Joe Binstead. He was in his fifties, and not particularly fit. He was the least wounded of the three original survivors. He could have taken the easy option and attempted to walk out of that jungle, and that’s easier said than done. In doing that, he would have deserted Proud, who could not move from the scene. He elected to stay there with Proud. There was a small creek at the base of the mountain, and Joe Binstead scrambled up and down that mountain for water with a small thermos retrieved from the wrecked plane. During those 9 days prior to O’Reilly’s arrival, those trips through the thick jungle had virtually ripped away all his clothing. In fact, the last trip down for water and then back up again had taken him 5 hours, and O’Reilly actually had the thought that he would not have been able to do it again. At one time he even found some Berries, not nourishing for a feed, but enough to keep your mouth damp. Water was no problem, especially in a rain forest.

What of Jim Westray then. He was the youngest, in his twenties. He was a fit sportsman, having played cricket for Warwickshire County back in his home Country, England. His decision on the morning after the crash to size up the situation, and realise that he was the only one able to try and walk out to get help was also the act of a very brave man. O’Reilly tracked him in the early stage of his own descent, and the only mistake he made was to miscalculate the strength of the plants growing from the rock crevices near the waterfall. They caved in and he fell to the rocks, as O’Reilly found. The fact that he then dragged himself a further 2 miles or more with a smashed ankle and other injuries was testament to the will of a young man trying desperately to get help. When O’Reilly found him, he had the stub of a half burnt cigarette still in his fingers. He had what amounted to a small fortune in his wallet, for the time, an insurance assessor for his father’s business back in England. O’Reilly saw that this wallet was entrusted to the telephone operator at the Post Office in Lamington, again in the middle of the night, and later returned to his family.

John Proud himself, although badly injured was not just a helpless bystander in all this. He was the first to come to following the impact, and crawled through a window as the fire started to take hold. Then, with a badly smashed leg, he helped drag Joe Binstead out the same window, and then hearing a groan and seeing a hand, he dragged out Jim Westray. After Westray went for help the two remaining men hatched a communication plan. Joe would make the trek down and up the mountain for water, and to keep in contact, Proud would call Coo-ee, and Binstead would answer with Ahoy, and that way when together any sound would definitely be from the hoped for rescuers. Proud also kept a sort of diary, scratching out a short message each day, the last on the morning they were discovered, the stark ‘Hope fading’.

These two were relatively calm when O’Reilly walked in, understandable as O’Reilly must have been pretty shocked by the sight. Half an hour with the men, and then off for help, the abiding fear that he had to hurry and take chances, fearing they would be dead before he got back. His promise of a doctor and a hundred men kept them going for another day,

There was a full inquest, and those original records are, quite remarkably so, in their original form at the Queensland Government archives, available at this link. They are worth reading for the actual witness statements taken at the time, and with the benefit of hindsight, and from that hindsight, take into account what O’Reilly said at the time.

It was found that the pilot Captain Rex Boyden may have been flying too low, so let’s then look at exactly what O’Reilly said about that, and said this at the time, and said all this in 1937. That very last person who saw the plane flying into the low fluffy cloud with the boiling cloud above and behind that was also a pilot. (Incidentally, that last sighting was at a point only four minutes flying time from the impact site.) He said that the plane was flying normally, and he estimated the altitude at at around 5000 feet, which is 2000 feet higher than the highest peak in that area. The engines were going hard, further indicating that the plane was climbing. O’Reilly stated that the mountain of the impact point (which incidentally was only 200 yards below that final summit) was not the highest peak the plane flew over, and that two of the previous peaks were actually higher.

Now, go back to the Friday evening when O’Reilly hatched his plan. He knew that the strong winds, estimated at around 80 to 100 MPH, were coming from the South, and that he would be looking for anything on the North facing slopes.

Why would he say that so matter of factly?

Again, having lived here for 26 years, he knew the bush, and of necessity, he also had to know the weather. He knew of the cyclonic winds in the area. They roar up the face of the mountain on the Southern side, roll over the top, and then intensify on the way down, but now actually away from the side of the mountain, which is virtually in calm. He KNEW this because on the facing side the trees were disturbed and smashed by the weather, while at the top, there was virtually not a leaf out of place, which was also on the same on that down side. Then, when that fierce wind hit the bottom of the ravine, the trees and underbrush were all smashed again. All this he knew in 1937.

Scroll forwards now to 2007 and this recent article from a flight magazine indicating exactly that. (This is a HTML web page image of the much better pdf document linked to at the top of this article, and for those with pdf readers, it is a better reading of this article with images). Also, here is a further link to an Australian Government Page detailing the threat of mountain wave turbulence, and this dated 2005.

Both witness statements from Binstead and Proud indicated that there really seemed nothing amiss and that they only noticed the trees and how low they were seconds prior to impact, and they both said the engines were under full power, and not just the cruising power. With that hindsight now, it is feasible that Rex Boyden was climbing, as the engines were under full power. In actual fact, he was not flying low at all. He was being sucked into the side of the mountain, almost at the top where that down draft would have been the strongest. Rex Boyden was in at the dawn of civil aviation in Australia. He served at Gallipoli with the AIF, and later joined the Air Force as a pilot flying fighter biplanes in that conflict, and he would have been one of the most experienced pilots in all of Australia.

Rex Boyden, co pilot Bev Shepherd and the two passengers Bill Fountain, and Jim Graham were buried at the site, and Jim Westray was buried near where he died at Christmas Creek, and a stone Monument was later erected at his burial site in remembrance.

The Airline.

Airlines of Australia (AoA) who operated the Stinson, also lost another of their Stinsons in a later crash, and now, with their fleet halved, they merged with Australian National Airways, (ANA) and the AoA name finally disappeared in 1942. ANA later came under the banner of an even larger airline, Ansett, becoming Ansett ANA, and then Ansett, one of the big two internal airlines in Australia, before Ansett itself folded.

The Stinson.

The remaining two Stinsons now operated under the ANA banner and one of them was lost at a later date, and that accident also has a place in aviation history. If you refer back to the image in this first post on the crash, you will see that each wing is supported by two struts. In this later crash the point where one of those struts joins the wing is the point that failed and in a sudden wind current, it failed, and the wing then folded, and the plane crashed with the loss of all aboard. It was proven that the failure was due to metal fatigue, and is the first recorded case where that was the finding of the investigation into the crash. Prior to this, metal fatigue was not even something that needed to be taken into account, as aircraft were just starting to move to all metal construction.

The Government.

Following this crash, there was an intense investigation into why there was no facility for radio contact, either from the ground, or from the plane, and within months of this crash, the Australian Government mandated fitment of radio capabilities to all passenger aircraft.

The O’Reilly’s.

Without question, this crash resulted in increased popularity of the destination, and one of that middle generation Peter O’Reilly (affectionately called ‘Big Pete’, Bernard’s Nephew) has no problem with attributing that popularity to Bernard O’Reilly’s wonderful search and rescue. However, having said that, O’Reilly’s has constantly evolved over the years to actually stay ‘ahead of the game’, and even counting this dramatic rescue, had they not evolved, they could not live off the reflection from this drama forever. Link to O’Reilly’s home page.

A simple plaque was erected at the site of the crash, and there is a large bronze monument at O’Reilly’s Guest House depicting the moments following O’Reilly coming across that dreadful scene, with the three men depicted in the Bronze memorial. There is now a dedicated trek from the Guest House out to the the site of the Stinson crash. It is not encouraged as a normal walk per se, as to the extremely rugged nature of the trip of nearly 25 miles. It used be a two day trip with camping at the site, but is now a one day hike with a way in to take the hikers back out. O’Reilly’s themselves counsel extreme fitness and preparedness, and all treks to the site are now guided for safety reasons. It is one of the most arduous treks in Australian walking.

Bernard O’Reilly.

Well, life went on for Bernard. He had a farm to run. He just went back and did just that. To the outside World, he was a hero. He epitomised the Australian attitude of ‘If there’s something to be done, just get out there and do it’. He had his wife Viola and ‘the little fella’, his daughter Rhelma to raise. Occasionally, he was asked to speak about his search at the Guest House, which he did, but I would suggest he was more comfortable at home than doing this. He was asked to put his search into words, and did so in his wonderful book, Green Mountains and Cullenbenbong. However, even though that book details this wonderful feat, it is just a small part, at the start of that book, and Bernard wrote more about his beloved Green Mountains, and how his large extended family turned a mountain rainforest jungle into a place where people could comfortably live, and others could visit, and see the things they all could see.

A casual observance by someone in 2009 might think that here was lucky man whose hunch paid off, but that would be wrong on both counts. As I explained earlier, this was no hunch. It was calculated, and precise. Luck did not enter into it and it was his 26 years of experience that took him to the point where he discovered Proud and Binstead. Later, he recounted how there was only one thing that horrified him in this whole episode. On the morning when he was walking back up the mountain back to where the two men were, the reality hit him. It took 8 hours to get back to the men, and the night before he traversed that same distance in just under three hours. Admitted, he was coming downhill, but he realised that he took a lot of unnecessary risks, and just one of them would also have seen his downfall as well. That scared him somewhat, and he realised that his rush to get help back to these men could have led to disaster. That was all that worried him. He wasn’t worried for himself, just for those two men.

To sum it up, Bernard said it all in his witness statement when asked what made him decide to do it on his own, O’Reilly replied:

“I have become fairly proficient in this business of exploring, and I thought I could do the job better than anybody. I have been exploring there for many years. The second reason was that there was no one available that I could have taken. I mean there was not anyone else handy who I thought could stand up to the job.”

Bernard O’Reilly passed away in 1975.

Bernard O’Reilly was an unassuming Australian hero in every sense of the word. Don’t let him hear you say that though.

UPDATE.

I used many resources for this three part series on the Bernard O’Reilly story, but the main one was his wonderful book Green Mountains And Cullenbenbong. Copies of this book are available from O’Reilly’s, and this popular book has gone through numerous reprints. In fact, the copy I have from 1981 was the 24th Impression. Peter O’Reilly, one of the two brothers from that second generation has also brought out a fine book The Spirit Of O’Reilly’s. This book further details the history of this large family and their time on the Mountain, further updating Bernard’s book. Both books are available by contacting O’Reilly’s, and the Peter O’Reilly book can be ordered at this link, by scrolling to the bottom of the page.

For a shortened timeline of the history of the O’Reilly’s on the Mountain, take this link.

O’ReillysTony