This small island was a very important base as part the Commonwealth Military Forces Battle Zone was a small corridor covering the area between Cape York and Merauke and the Australian mainland. Area Map
We were flown early one morning from our first staging base on the Ross River Strip at Townsville to Horn Island.When we arrived on the island there was already Boomerang Squadron No 84 stationed there we did not know at the time but along with No12 Squadron we would form 72Wing. We were only there a couple of days when our own aircraft began to arrive, as there was only about thirty of us in the advance party we were kept busy servicing the aircraft.
Whilst we were on Horn Island we had our first experience of an air raid. One night in a couple of big Jap flying boats came over and dropped a few bombs however, these did land in the strip area and did very little damage. As the bombs fell, clear of strip away in the scrub however, one did land into a fuel dump away from the strip and this caused some problems until it burnt its self out.
Horn Island was bombed repeatedly and suffered many and casualties and property damage, during 1942-1943 as the Japanese advanced South. As our aircraft arrived they were serviced ready to move, the aircraft had some problems reaching this base due to bad weather between Townsville and the island. The base itself crowded as there were two Beaufort Squadrons 84 Sqn Boomerangs as permanant operators and 86 sqdn in transit. This base was the major link with Australia as all the supplies that maintained the Merauke Force were either flown in via Higgins Field Cape Yorkand Horn Island or by sea via Cairns or Townsville.
As the aircraft lined up on the tarmac a one day a Beaufort taking off slewed into the row of Kittyhawks causing a good deal of damage. This base was the major link with Australia as all the supplies that maintained the Merauke Force were either flown in via Higgins Field Cape York Horn Island of by sea via Cairns or Townsville.
One incident occured while we were on Horn Island was that we taken up by the stories of just how great, the fishing was! So we set about building a craft that would allow us to partake. Our craft was constructed of 44 gallon (198 Ltr) drums. We cut one third of the side of each drum bolting these togrther formed two hulls. We fitted a prow and an outrigger using more drums, we found an old tent fly and rigged this to the mast we were then ready to, try our hand at fishing, this was to be our first and last attemp for we had taken a rifle man with us just in case. It wasn't long before a large shark was circling our boat. Our rifle man fired and hit the shark it thrashed about its bleeding attracted more sharks. We were soon surrounded and we quick smart made sail and headed for home, the sharks followed us up a small creek where we could beach our boat and make it to dry land. Without looking back we abanded the boat to who ever wanted it.
The next major event was when we had to service and refuel the aircraft ready to leave the island. We had no idea to where this was to be. The following morning at daybreak we had to have all our equipment ready for transportation. That morning we were taken by a motor launch out to a large flying boat that was anchored in the strait it was formerly one of the Pan-American Clippers taken over by the RAAF. This aircraft had been stripped of all non-essential fitting, once our gear was loaded we sat among the cargo and this giant plane roared across the strait and was finally airborne we s till had no idea where we were going, we flew over the many islands.We soon came to what I decided must be the coast of New Guinea following the coast west we landed on a very large river which we were told was the Merauke River... Go to Merauke