A true story

February 1942 with Java only days from invasion by the Japanese, a vast aerial shuttle service was set up to ferry Dutch refugees out from the Dutch East Indies to Australia.  The Dutch colony on what would later become Indonesia would not survive the war. 

 

The remote Australian pearling port of Broome on the West Australian coastline  would be  their first Australian port of call but most would not find sanctuary here. 

 

When the Japanese reconnaissance flight flew over Broome on March 2 there were only three flying boats in the harbour. When the fighter planes returned the next day, a bonanza lay below, fifteen  flying boats sat on the Bay and another seven aircraft at the airport including a two USAAF Liberators and two US ‘Flying Fortress” bombers. Aboard the flying boats on Roebuck Bay were military personnel and Dutch refugees crammed into the metal hulks.

 

Screams could be heard from the shore as the planes went up in balls of fire on the water. Women and children leapt into the water but that too was on fire as oil spilled from the tanks. 22 allied aircraft were destroyed as a direct result of the attack and almost one hundred people are believed to have died, though only thirty bodies were recovered.

 

Three top-cover Japanese Zeroes returning from the Broome raid intercepted a Dutch DC-3 near Carnot Bay. The plane was piloted by Captain Ivan Smirnoff one of Imperial Russia’s greatest fliers and one of the most decorated of the Tsar’s forces during the Great War. Tall, blue eyed with a shock of dusty brown hair he later became a naturalised Dutch citizen and a famous international pilot for KLM Dutch airlines, breaking world aviation records in the pioneering days of fight.

 

The Zeroes attacked again and again. Captain Smirnoff was shot in the arms and hip, yet the one time fighter pilot who had shot down 12 German planes maintained control and flung the airliner into evasive manoeuvres, ducking and weaving the cumbersome unarmed craft away from his attackers. A woman, Maria Van Tuyn sat alongside the Captain. She was critically injured while another passenger grabbed her baby and tried to shield it from the bullets. The cockpit windows were shattered and the wind was roaring through them as the plane filled with acrid smoke. A pilot on board later described the following seconds as “the greatest show of flying anybody in the world will ever see.” The port engine burst into flames, the fire could spread to the fuel tanks and explode. Equally hazardous was the possibility of an in-flight structural failure of the wing.  There only chance was a hasty beach landing. For more than fifty kilometres he had dodged and weaved through the barrage of bullets and relentless attack when the end came in sight – the sand dunes of Carnot Bay.Smirnoff brought the plane down in a tight spiral pushing the control column forward and sideslipping close to the dunes. As the Dakota rolled to a stop it lurched into the surf on the right dousing the burning engine. The zeroes circled above. Another passenger, pilot Daan Hendriksz was also critically injured.

The strafing continued with another man, Joop Blaauw hit trying to make the beach between raids.

 

The survivors set up camp on the remote beach battling heat, thirst and starvation as they watched critically injured passengers die one by one.  Four of the party  set out hoping to find help.

 

Lacking water and injured, the remaining  men struggled to care for 18 month old, Johannes Van Tuyn.  The little boy would die moments before a rescue party arrived. 

 

Dedicated to the memory of:

 

Joop Blaauw

Daan Hendriksz

Maria Van Tuyn

Johannes Van Tuyn

 

Who died at Carnot Beach 1942

 

Do you have any information about Maria and Johannes Van Tuyn - Please email the author: juliet.wills@gmail.com