A Day at the Catalina Festival (nothing to do with Pontiacs)

[RHB785]

, Today I attended the annual Catalina Festival at the former wartime RAAF Base at Rathmines on Lake Macquarie near my home town of Newcastle representing St. John Ambulance, a uniformed volunteer first aid organization that Canadian members here on the forum would know well. Rathmines was a flying boat base and home to about 40 Catalinas, 5 Dornier Do-24s (former Netherland East Indies Air Force aircraft handed over to the RAAF, the other one was attacked by Zeros and sunk on take off in Broome Harbnour Western Australia on departure for Rathmines,) and a squadron of Vought-Sikorsky Kingfishers (also taken over from the Dutch.) This year we had for the first time in 31 years a real live Catalina; no not a Pontiac Catalina, a Consolidated one with 2 Pratt and Whitney engines.

I didn't see any Pontiacs there this year, there have been in the past but I was talking to a man who has a 1927 Pontiac tourer with Holden body. It's the only one now in existence. Another survivor that was there was a 1939 Oldsmobile Convertible, one of 10 built by Holden in 1939 and also the only one in existence. This car is the same colour as my Sloper and had the dickie seat in the boot, sorry trunk. I had my cousins 12 year old grandson (who is a member of the Maitland Squadron of the Australian Air League of which I'm also an officer and am interested in the history of Rathmnes, hence my presence in the first aid role every year for the last 3 years) with me and he asked me why the back seat was in the boot. I had to laugh and then explain to him that some cars were built that way back in those days as Mum and Dad didn't want to hear the kids fighting in the back seat.

On the subject of seaplanes there were besides the Black Cat, numerous Seareys, Petrel biplanes, a Lake Buccaneer and a Renegade and a couple of Cessna floatplanes as well as various marching bands and brass bands, (here there is a difference between the two,) military and pipe bands and vocal performers. I guess you could say it's like a carnival or fair right on the waters's edge. It was a lovely cool cloudy day although my bald pate did get somewhat sunburnt as I forgot to take my uniform hat. The amphibians landed on the lake and taxied up the wartime ramp to park on the hardstand where the Cat's were serviced all those years ago. Once the Cat had landed and taxied up and shut down the crowd were allowed to get up close and personal with her and she was open to the public for the next 5 hours. Also on display was a David Brown tractor that was used at Rathmines in its heyday. This was used by one of the ground crew who came with the Cat to turn her around at the end of the day. I'll post some pics when I've sorted them out.

Regards,
Ross.

[Larry]

It seems that old cars and old airplanes go together. Over this side of things, it has been popular to have the old Ford Tri-Motors giving rides at many of the car shows (well, those held near an airport, that is). The "Confederate Air Force" has also been involved with some of the bigger shows. I remember when they used to stop over at Wright-Patterson AFB. Ohio when I worked on the flightline in the early '70s. What a bunch of super cool guys! And beautiful old airplanes.

I wonder how many know of all the military history around Australia. While it has seemed sort of tucked out of the way in light of actual battles (WWII through Viet Nam), it is just that which made it such a valuable location during these conflicts. Did Australia see much actual combat attack? You mention a plane being shot down on takeoff there by Zeros.

Look forward to some photos.

[RHB785]

,Hi Larry and everyone,
Yes there is quite a lot of military history WW2-Vietnam here. We were bombed and strafed and attacked by submarines. Darwin was bombed 186 times in 1942 (ie 186 separate raids), Sydney had 2 miniature subs get into the harbour and were torpedoing for an American cruiser in the harbour but instead got the wrong target sinking a RAN workboat called the Kutabul which was a converted old ferry. Something like 30 sailors were killed in that attack. Both those mini subs were sunk in the harbour so the captain of the mother boat put his cranky pants on, deiselled to Newcastle and dumped about 30 shells on the city. His main target was the BHP steelworks here but his gunners were just as hopeless as the mini sub crews and lobbed shells all over the place. Fortunately only 4 or 5 exploded only killing 1 or 2 people. We also had coastal shipping attacked off the coast of Newcastle. One of the local radio stations here was shutdown for the duration supposedly for being in collaboration with the Japanese. In those days, most of the BHP ore carriers had "Blue" in their names. It was thought that this station was playing songs with the word blue in them at the sailing times of the BHP ships so the Japs would just sit off the coast over the horizon a bit and wait for them to come out of Newcastle Harbour and then sink them. It was the way a number of BHP ships were sunk off Newcastle. Coastal colliers (the sixty milers) were also the victims of such attacks.

Middle of the night recce flights were tracked on radar right up the Hunter Valley, although they avoided Williamtown fighter base and for some reason no fighters were able to find the enemy aircraft. Townsville was also bombed by Mavis long range flying boats and there was also evidence of a land recce party having landed on the West Australian coast. It's thought they were looking for a secret air base but they were fortunately only about 100 miles out. As in the US at that time, all Japanese residents were interned. There were many Japanese pearl divers up the WA coast so they were all put into camps. There was a POW camp at a place called Cowra in NSW where one Sunday night the prisoners broke out of the camp with the intention of returning to Japan. Cowra is about 200 miles inland and many of them were shot dead by the Australian guards or police, and the rest who survived lived in self imposed shame until the end of the war. Some of those committed suicide on the way back to Japan. Our Pacific air force, although relatively small, was the 4th largest in existence at the end of the war with 9,000 odd aircraft on charge. 1 in every 7 Australians at that time was in uniform, 1 million out of 7 million. There were RAAF Bases and Army Camps and Navy Bases all over Australia. Every civilian airfield was taken over by the RAAF. There were Army camps in the most unlikely places; Wondeccla in the Atherton Valley in North Queensland being one. The road into the camp descended 1200' in 12 miles and the were 600 switchback bends in those 12 miles. They used to allow traffic up the hill for one hour, then down for one hour and this went on 24/7.

Apologies for bending peoples ears, but military history (espcially Australian military history is something I'm very interested in and RAAF history in particular as I served in the RAAF in the 70s and 80s.

Regards,
Ross.

ps. I'm hoping to have the Pontiac here today or tomorrow. It should be at the Sydney depot by now.

[Larry]

Thanks for all the info. I (and probably a lot of others) had no idea of the amount of involvement Australia had in WWII. I do know Australia has been a heck-of-a-friend to the rest of the free world for a long time! Our thanks!

[RHB785]

, Thank you for the kind words Larry and it's good to know that we're so appreciated. We are indeed good friends with the USA but we do have a bit of a rebellious streak though and we don't always do as we're told. LOL. There is a well documented conversation (here in Australia) that took place in 1929 before GM-H was formed between one Innes K. Randolph, the American General Manager of General Motors Australia and Larry Hartnett, an Englishman who later took over Randolph's role. Randolph was complaining to Hartnett and said 'Amazing people these Australians, they just won't do what they're told." 4 years later Hartnett took over GM-H with orders to either turn it aorund or shut it down and he was given four years to do it. In 1935 the company made its first ever million pound profit as Hartnett saw quite a lot of ability in us rebels and was able to harness those abilities to the benefit of all involved. Another American who found that we don't always do as we're told was General MacArthur who it is said at his first meeting with John Curtin the Australian Prime Minister in 1942 demanded that horse racing be banned in Australia for the duration. Curtin is said to have looked at him, smiled dryly and said "Good luck trying to ban the Melbourne Cup General. I wouldn't even attempt that one and I'm not going to ban racing anywhere." The Melbourne Cup is called the horse race that stops a nation and it quite literally does exactly that.

On a lighter note my Pontiac arrived yesterday morning, unfortunately with a small dent in the left hand side of the roof above the door that wasn't there when I bought it. I was able to show the driver my pre purchase pics and he took pics so it could be traced back. I won't have to pay fortunately. I was going to take some pics today but I was injured at work last night in a take down of a violent and aggressive patient; I'm a Security Officer at the local hospital. This took all about 2 seconds to happen and took me all of four hours last night and this morning to fill out the paperwork and cross check with the others that were also injured in the same incident. I'll see if I can lift a small camera tomorrow and get some pics up for you all

Regards,
Ross.

[Larry]

Looking forward to some more pics and doing a "Cover" Feature article on your rare Pontiac.

WOW! Sounds like a tough work deal. Be careful. I know how quickly things can turn on you. About three weeks ago I was nursing a bump on my left knee that was getting nasty looking. No idea where it came from or how.

Well a few days later I'm in the hospital for 8 days with a MRSA infection that spread into my knee joint. They cut it open three times to flush out with antibiotics. Still taking IV at home for another month.

Everyone.... be careful!!

[RHB785]

, MRSA infection? Ouch! They're nasty virilent little blighters. When I first started at the hospital as a casual guard I did a bit of portering for the X-ray department. If we had to transport an MRSA patient from the wards down for a X-ray we had to glove, gown and mask up as did the patient and radiographers. I hope you're on the mend now Larry and be careful of that knee.

Regards,
Ross.

[Larry]

Fortunately it was just the yuck in the knee that was toxic. It makes you feel like something from the dark ages!

We had to take extra precautions as my wife just had a stem cell transplant it July (has multiple myeloma cancer) and her system isn't at peak efficiency. She is doing well and in remission, but we just had to be careful. I kept her away, and it has been cleared up already, and the knee operations healed over. They are doing a daily IV of antibiotics for another couple weeks just to kick its nasty butt real good. Fortunately it wasn't anything that was able to be passed in the air, only direct contact, and then into another wound.

We think I got a scratch while putting a new floor in one of our rental condos... guess what I'm not going to do anymore!?

Makes you afraid to poke your head out of the house anymore!

[RHB785]

, Yes I know what you mean. A few years ago I banged my knee against the corner of a desk in my boss's office and spent 8 weeks off work with a bursitis infection, one week of that in hospital. We think the infection was on the outside of my trousers and the skin was broken just enought to let the infection get into the knee. I've tried to pm you some pics of my Pontiac. I don't know if they went through or not as the pm is in my outbox but not in my sent box. Could you let me know if you've received them yet. If not I'll contact my cousin's daughter and grandson and find out what I'm doing wrong.

Regards,
Ross.

ps If you did receive them also please let me know and I'll just keep doing what I'm doing and send you some more.

[Larry]

Hi Ross,

Got the photos. WOW!! What a cool Pontiac!

For our other readers/visitors, get ready to see all about this super rare 1939 Pontiac Sloper in next month's "Cover" Car Feature in our On-Line Magazine. You will love it, as well as be amazed.