It was the night of February 26, 1942, during World War II, when a Douglas C-53 Skytrooper, low on fuel and hopelessly lost, made a belly-flop landing on a salt pan in Vansittart Bay in a remote part of the Kimberley. Douglas C-53 Skytrooper wreck from World War I, Vansittart Bay, Kimberley coast. Credit: iStockphoto More than 80 years later the fuselage, wings and tail sit amid the pandanus palms like a prop from the television series Lost .
“The four crew and two passengers survived the wheels-up landing,” says our guide, Jesse Menghetti. “After a few days marooned on the beach they were rescued by a Qantas flying boat.” We are on a 10-day Kimberley expedition cruise from Broome to Darwin aboard Seabourn Pursuit, and although we expected the waterfalls, wetlands and wildlife, the human stories are a surprise.
After a Zodiac landing on the beach, a hike across the vast salt pan brings us to the wreck, now largely engulfed by greenery. We learn that the C-53 had been assisting with the transfer of Dutch citizens following the invasion of the Dutch East Indies by Japanese forces, and was on its return leg from Perth to Darwin via Broome when the pilot became disoriented in a storm. Jar Island caves.
Hearing about this wartime evacuation hits hard. My Dutch father-in-law, who was just a 14-year-old boy at the time and had been living a peaceful life with his family in Java, wasn’t so lucky. Instead, he was separated from his mother, sister and extended family and inte.
