“The Migrant Caper”
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Last updated 12.6.14 “The Migrant Caper” European migrant flights to Australia by charter operators 1947-1949 Compiled by Geoff Goodall The beginning: the first aircraft to carry migrants from Europe to Australia was Intercontinental Air Tours Lockheed Hudson VH-ASV Aurora Australis, parked at Camden NSW in 1947. Photo: Ed Coates collection By 1949 overseas operators with larger aircraft joined in the Australian migrant charters. Skyways International Curtiss C-46 Commando NC1648M is seen loading migrant passengers at Singapore after a refuelling stop en route from Europe to Australia. Photo via Robert Wiseman 1 “The Migrant Caper” - Contents Page Chapter 1 Introduction 3 Setting the scene 7 The Darker Side 8 DCA strikes back 10 The end of the migrant charters 12 The Operators – Australian 47 The Operators – USA 51 The Operators – International 58 Recorded Migrant Flight Movements 1947-49: SYDNEY 61 Recorded Migrant Flight Movements 1947-49: DARWIN 62 The Burma Connection 63 The Israeli Connection 71 Miscellanous Notes from the Period 72 Later Migrant flights to Australia 1950s-60s 73 The Players 102 References The title of this research paper The Migrant Caper comes from a chapter title in participating pilot Warren Penny’s unpublished autobiography. It summarizes, in the idiom of the day, the attitude of the former wartime pilots involved in this adventurous early post-war long-distance venture. An extraordinary chapter of Australia’s civil aviation history, which has gone largely unrecorded, is the early post World War Two period of ad-hoc charter flights carrying migrants from Europe to Australia. It began in 1947 with a handful of flights by Australian charter companies, flying mostly civilianised ex RAAF transports and bombers purchased from military disposals. As word spread, more and more individuals and families were prepared to pay the high prices asked to escape war-ravaged Europe and long delays waiting for shipping. At the time, the Australian government was sponsoring European migrants using occasional chartered shipping. On 12 March 1947, 786 mostly Jewish survivors of the Nazi holocaust arrived at Cairns on board the immigrant ship Johann de Wit. All were joining relatives in Australia. A Yugoslav steamer arrived in January 1948 with 808 European migrants. By the following year the numbers had increased sharply, with 27,000 migrants, of whom 18,000 came from the Great Britain, arrived by sea in the first six months of 1948. In August 1948 the Federal government stated that it would accept all the immigrants that available shipping could carry. 105, 104 A total of eight Australian air charter operators joined in the migrant trade, flying a range of aircraft, from Lockheed Hudsons and Lodestars, Douglas DC-2s, DC-3s and a DC-5, to Sunderland flying boats and even a DH.86 biplane to and from Europe. Australia’s only overseas airline on the route to European and London, Qantas Empire Airways was becoming increasingly frustrated by these migrant air charters and appealed to the Australian Department of Civil Aviation to apply restrictions. DCA concentrated on the Australian companies, inflicting maximum harassment in maintenance, crewing requirements, clearance request delays and customs inspections, until the majority were forced to abandon the lucrative trade. To the anger of these Australian airmen, few restrictions were placed on the foreign operators bringing migrants to Australia. Although seen in emotional terms at the time, punishing World War Two airmen who had flown patriotically for Australia only a few years earlier, in retrospect the DCA clamp down was reasonable on an operational level. The first-hand accounts of these migrant charter flights included below highlight the lack of maintenance support en route as well as all inadequacy of all aspects of safety including crew training, crew rest, flight planning. It was simply seat-of-the-pants flying by rugged individualists, experienced in independent flying by their military service. However the politics of the DCA restrictions are less easy to defend. The aim of protecting Qantas and BOAC’s rights to the Europe-Australia route was ruthlessly applied but it was often out of touch with reality. Despite the two airlines regularly having no seats available for varying periods, the bureaucratic lag in DCA receiving this advice ensured that the Australian charter operators were refused clearances and heavily restricted for months while the protected airlines could offer nothing. This is fully explored in the story below. By the end of 1948, only Guinea Air Traders had survived on the migrant run, while larger aircraft operated by US, Belgian, Egyptian and Philippine charter companies were carrying large numbers of migrants into Australia. Despite vague statements from DCA and the Minister for Civil Aviation to the contrary, Qantas and BOAC still did not have the seat capacity and foreign aircraft continued to ply the migrant routes into 1950. This paper sets out to detail the companies and their aircraft used on the migrant charters. Research in National Archives of Australia by fellow historian Chris O’Neill found Customs reports for overseas flights arriving at Sydney for the 1947-49 period, which has greatly expanded our knowledge of this topic. 2 Once the market was established by the small Australian charter companies in 1947, overseas operators joined the migrant trade to Australia and even the two domestic airlines ANA and TAA joined in. A darker side to the story concerns false identities used by some of the migrants carried, allegations of carriage of illegal goods, particularly gold bullion and narcotics as well as black market items, and transporting of individuals out of Australia. Two migrant aircraft were grounded at Darwin during 1948 with allegations of sabotage. During this period the Indonesian rebels were engaged in their war of independence from the Dutch in Netherlands East Indies. The migrant charter flights refuelled at various ports through the Indonesian archipelago, and the lines between carrying migrants and carrying supplies for the pro-Indonesian forces became sometimes blurred. Two of the Australian migrant charter aircraft were used by the Indonesian republican forces when they were retired from the migrant run. Finally, in December 1949 the Minister for Civil Aviation White announced that no more permits would be issued to itinerant aircraft carrying migrants. The announcement coincided with the arrival in Darwin of a DC-3 of the Indian airline Bharat Airways carrying Cypriot migrants, which arrived on Boxing Day 1949, giving Customs less than a day’s notice. The passengers were stranded in Darwin for some days while onward transport was found for them. After 1949 passage of migrants to Australia was mostly by shipping, scheduled airline or Government sanctioned airline charter flights. * * * * * SETTING THE SCENE This record of the itinerant migrant air charter era commences by setting the scene with a collection of direct quotes from various sources: 1. Chronicle of Australia, Chronicle-Penguin 1993. Geneva 21 July 1947: Concern has been expressed for the 200,000 Britons who have registered their desire to migrate to Australia. The Minister for immigration, Mr. Caldwell, today signed an agreement between the Australian Government and the International Refugees’ Organisation covering the migration of displaced persons. Australia will take 4,000 persons in 1947 and 12,000 yearly if the IRO will supply shipping. And there’s the rub. European refugees are prepared to travel on “sub-standard” ships, which Britons find unacceptable. So the Government may find itself assisting European migrants in spite of its declared policy to give priority to the British.” 2 Flypast, a record of aviation in Australia, N. M. Parnell and T. W. Boughton, CAA, 1988 “11 August 1947: Strong pressures for immigration to Australia were building up in the face of apparent inaction by the Australian government; claims on the use of aircraft to transport migrants were officially labelled as “impractical”, but during the following 12 months a number of small operators began to fly migrants to Australia; initially the services were tolerated, but as they expanded they were seen as a threat to scheduled services of Qantas Empire Airways and BOAC and the Department of Civil Aviation began to refuse landing applications for entry into Australia........ the restrictions were eased in August 1949 when private non-scheduled flights would be approved; 17 November 1949 Mr Drakeford introduced this new situation in response to claims that overseas operators were being permitted to carry migrants to Australia while Australian firms could not; 18 November 1949 both Guinea Air Traders and Australian National Airways Pty Ltd disputed the Minister’s statement claiming it was not in accordance with the facts; by then the Government had organised a scheme of assisted migration mainly be sea as shipping lines were re- established.” 3. Flight Magazine (UK) 4 December 1947: “Charter Flights for Immigrants There has been a rapid development of the charter business in Australia. Intercontinental Air Tours are conducting charter flights for immigrants from the UK and the Continent, and Trans-Oceanic Airways are engaged on charter flights to bring Greeks from Athens. A new company, known as European Air Transport Co has been formed to begin operations on charters between Athens and Sydney to carry the hundreds of Greeks who are endeavoring to reach Australia.” 4. Doug Fawcett, Chief Engineer of Butler Air Transport, Mascot recalls: “After two years as Butler Air Transport chief engineer at Sydney I was feeling a little restless when a Nicaraguan pilot came into the workshop and asked if I could repair his Curtiss C-46..... I spoke to Arthur Butler, who said he did not want anything to do with itinerant aeroplanes, but if I wanted to assist this gentleman after hours he would not mind. This marked the beginning of my personal business life in aviation.