The Diamond Dakota Mystery Read online

  There were no recorded casualties among Australian

  servicemen or the civilian population of Broome.

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  Leaving behind carnage, bewilderment, fear and misery, the Japanese squadron was returning triumphantly along the north coast when three of the Zeroes intercepted a Dutch DC-3

  approaching the Western Australian coastline near Carnot Bay, some eighty kilometres north of Broome.

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  The weather had eased but the high altitude brought freezing temperatures for the passengers on board Smirnoff ’s Douglas DC-3 Dakota. As the passengers and crew dozed, the captain kept his blue eyes narrowed in concentration, ever watchful at the controls. He refused to rely on automatic pilot, arguing that such a device was designed to react the split second after something happened. To be safe, a pilot must act the split second before.

  The sun rose, reflecting myriad colours across the rippled clouds. It was beautiful, but Smirnoff could not enjoy the sight, aware as he was that the aircraft was no longer camouflaged by the dark of night.

  An irregular stroke on the horizon emerged, wedged between the pale sky and the blue of the sea. Smirnoff smiled: the coast of Australia—a haven away from the carnage that ripped through 42

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  his new homeland. Glancing around he noted Maria van Tuyn was still dozing, but the eyes of all other passengers were fixed on the distant coastline.

  Sergeant Leon Vanderburg held Maria’s little boy, Jo, on his knee in the back of the plane and was pointing out animal shapes in the clouds. The boy was enthusiastically identifying imaginary creatures of his own. Vanderburg had a boyish warm smile with gappy teeth, sticking-out ears and a slightly raised eyebrow which gave him a quizzical, friendly look. Maria van Tuyn awoke and Vanderburg passed the boy to his mother.

  Sharper and sharper the coastline emerged until they could clearly see the sands of the beaches and the dunes against the break of the waves. The red of the Kimberley unfolded below, the vast rippled landscape cut with vein-like rivers which wove down to the sandy shores, spilling milky debris into the brilliant waters of the ocean. Reefs and islands lay scattered offshore.

  Sand, mangrove and mud created abstract patterns along the river deltas and, further down the coast, the land became flatter as the Great Sandy Desert reached out to the sea.

  If everything went well, they would be landing in Broome

  in three quarters of an hour and taking on fuel for the rest of their journey.

  Smirnoff saw what looked like smoke on the horizon in the distance around the location of Broome. He turned to the radio operator, who had his earphones on and was listening intently.

  ‘Look at that!’

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  Muller craned his neck and looked through the cockpit

  window. The eyes of passengers and crew followed his worried gaze. Even though it was still far away, it was clear from the blossoming cloud of smoke it was an oil fire.

  ‘Is there any signal coming from Broome?’ Smirnoff asked

  Muller.

  ‘The safe signal’s on,’ Muller replied with a puzzled look on his face. There was a sense of growing uneasiness among the occupants of the plane. Muller requested radio contact with the tower, hoping they would explain why the safe signal was on when there was smoke over the town; there was no answer. It was clear to everyone on board that something was very wrong.

  ‘I don’t like it,’ Smirnoff muttered, ‘I don’t like it at all.’ He immediately changed course, but it was too late. A shadow overhead confirmed their worst fears. Seconds later, the shattering staccato of machine-gun and cannon fire came out of the blue as the silver fighters dived from above, showering the DC-3

  with bullets. The Dakota had flown directly into the path of three top-cover Japanese Zeroes returning from the Broome air raid. Coming in from high altitude, they attacked first from the port side.

  Smirnoff yelled, ‘Down, down on the floor, everybody. Hold on tight!’ A trail of splintering fragments flew from the ceiling near the tail end of the plane, finishing up in a crash of breaking glass in the wireless compartment.

  Maria van Tuyn stood up and shouted, ‘My baby! My baby!’

  She was hit in the back by the first barrage and another bullet

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  almost severed her left leg above the knee. She fell with her child. Among the passengers rolling helplessly on the floor was Sergeant Leon Vanderburg, who moments earlier had been

  showing the little boy shapes in the clouds. He had crawled to the front of the plane behind an empty reserve fuel tank. He reached forward and grabbed the child, holding him under his body as the bullets sprayed along the roof. Several bullets pierced Vanderburg’s hip and thigh and one blasted into the boy’s foot.

  The stunned child was silent for a few seconds, then he began to scream hysterically. His mother was crying as the blood from her stomach and leg seeped across the floor.

  The other two Zeroes joined in the attack. Diving from

  behind they strafed as they swept past, firing at the DC-3 again and again. Smirnoff felt a stinging pain in his left arm; seconds later his right arm was hit, and then his thigh. But the one-time fighter pilot who had shot down eleven German planes maintained control and flung the plane into evasive manoeuvres, ducking and weaving the cumbersome unarmed craft away from his attackers. Blood dripped from Smirnoff ’s elbows as the tracers danced by his window and bullets pierced the fuselage, but he continued to grip the joystick firmly with both hands.

  The cockpit windows were shattered and the wind roared

  through them as the plane filled with acrid smoke. The passengers sheltered as best they could under suitcases and boxes. Dutch pilot Pieter Cramerus, who had escaped the clutches of the Japanese only the day before, later described the seconds that

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  followed as ‘the greatest show of flying anybody in the world will ever see’.

  Like a swarm of hornets the attackers moved quickly, diving at the plane, continuing the relentless fire. From the cabin the heartrending cries of the wounded rang out. Co-pilot Johan Hoffman shouted to Smirnoff that Maria van Tuyn was dying.

  Smirnoff said nothing. At that moment, every life on the aircraft lay in his hands.

  The port engine burst into flames and Smirnoff knew there was a risk that this fire would spread to the fuel tanks and explode. Equally hazardous was the possibility of a structural failure of the wing. He could not outrun the Zeroes, so their only chance was a hasty beach landing before the plane fell from the sky. Before him lay sand dunes and a narrow strip of beach.

  Smirnoff brought the plane down in a tight spiral, pushing the control column forward. With a Zero close on his tail still firing, he plummeted towards the earth then, at the last moment, pulled the nose up no more than sixty metres above the sand dunes, trying to get the aircraft horizontal. Loops of fire enveloped the left engine, threatening to explode the whole aircraft. At Smirnoff ’s signal, Jo Muller reached forward, pulling on the lever that released the landing gear and activated the brake system. The landing gear was locked into position but the right-hand tyre was hit by a bullet and exploded with a loud bang. The Douglas sideslipped close to the dunes, rolling to a stop, sending the nose into the edge of the surf, at the

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  same time effectively dousing the burning engine. It was a remarkab
le landing. The Zeroes circled above and then started to strafe the beached plane, tormenting their stricken prey.

  Daan Hendriksz and Maria van Tuyn were bleeding badly

  and were both unconscious. Crawling back through the dim

  cabin, Captain Smirnoff ordered those who were able to try to get out and under the plane, where the water might offer some protection. They would have to time each exit exactly between the strafing runs of the Zeroes.

  In the smoke-filled fuselage, mechanic Joop Blaauw pushed the cabin door open and, for a fraction of a second, stood silhouetted against the opening of the doorway as he waited for the right moment to jump—but there wasn’t one. The

  Zeroes were there again before Blaauw had time to duck. The passengers watched horrified as he crumpled into the sea, one knee completely blown away, the other shattered. Jo Muller tried to pull Blaauw back on board but his legs were like elastic bands, both badly broken, and he slipped into the sea, his face white with shock. Still conscious, he used his hands to stay afloat, ducking under the water when the aircraft returned.

  The bullets continued to rip through the fuselage of the

  Douglas. Leon Vanderburg jumped out after Blaauw, getting safely under the water. When he surfaced, Vanderburg swam for his life in the direction of the beach, but his high flying boots dragged him down, making progress difficult. Again

  and again he dived down under the water, holding his breath as the Japanese swooped in low, firing relentlessly. Timing was

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  crucial; while the water dramatically slowed the propulsion of the bullets, rising at the wrong second would be fatal. He fell onto the beach only to see bullets kicking up sand centimetres away from him. Miraculously the bullets missed.

  Smirnoff tried to leave the plane but fell back, only now aware of the pain of his injuries. Carefully regaining his footing, he waited for the sound of the three Zeroes’ engines to dull before sliding down into the water. Unable to swim to shore, he sheltered beneath the tail end of the plane with some of the injured passengers. The blood was drying on his hand so he concluded he was not likely to bleed to death. He did not realise until later that the hot stickiness he felt down one leg was a bleeding wound—he had been shot clean through the thigh.

  Maria van Tuyn, Daan Hendriksz and the little boy remained in the plane. Those outside could hear the boy crying but couldn’t get to him. The Japanese planes remained above,

  shooting belt after belt of ammunition. Those agonising minutes when the Zeroes refused to leave seemed like an eternity. Finally they swooped down triumphantly without firing, before disappearing into the sunlight.

  The terrified group waited for a while, fearing the return of the planes, but now the only sound they heard was that of the ocean crashing against the shore. Their circumstances were dire—seven of them critically injured, with little food, water or medicine, stranded in a totally deserted location somewhere on the remote Australian coastline, surrounded by the sea on

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  one side and sand dunes backed by inhospitable country on the other.

  Of the twelve who had boarded the Pelikaan in Java, Maria van Tuyn and Daan Hendriksz were unconscious, Joop Blaauw had had his kneecaps blown off and was moaning in agony,

  and Smirnoff had been shot in the arms and thigh. Pilot Leon Vanderburg had been shot in the hip, leg and side; Pieter Cramerus had wounds to his head and back, and the baby’s

  foot had been shattered. They desperately needed urgent medical attention but had no hope of getting it. The other five men on board—Dick Brinkman, Hendrick van Romondt, Jo Muller,

  Johan Hoffman and Heinrick Gerrits—had escaped injury.

  Those who could walk carefully moved the wounded to the

  dunes where there was some shade. Hoffman stayed with Blaauw on the water’s edge, as the mechanic wasn’t up to being moved.

  Next to them lay Daan Hendriksz, his body riddled with bullet wounds.

  Smirnoff surveyed his surroundings. The beach was narrow, backed by small sand dunes, which were studded in parts by wooded areas, and further along there were mangroves along the water’s edge. There was no sign of civilisation in any direction, and Smirnoff had lost his bearings in the aerial chase. His small map gave no clues as to where they were.

  It was the hottest time of the year in a place where the

  daytime temperature year round rarely dipped below 30°C.

  They were on a beach on one of the most sparsely populated coastlines on Earth under a sun that beat down with stifling

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  intensity, sapping their energy, burning their skin and sucking from their bodies moisture that they were unable to replace.

  Within an hour of their lucky escape, the lack of water was felt intensely. Adding to their concerns, the rising tide appeared set to swamp the Dakota, which would cut off the survivors from the much-needed supplies on board. Heinrick Gerrits, Jo Muller and Johan Hoffman volunteered to bring what they

  could, particularly food and water, to shore.

  While they were carting supplies from the plane to the top of the beach, Smirnoff remembered the package that had been given to him on the tarmac at Bandung before he took off:

  ‘Take very good care of it. It has great value.’ Unable to do it himself, Smirnoff asked Vanderburg to retrieve the package.

  The tide was on the rise and the sea increasingly choppy.

  After an arduous swim, Vanderburg succeeded in hoisting himself into the plane. The aircraft was filled with smoke from blankets still smouldering on the floor. He located his own suitcase easily then hastily moved towards the front of the plane, using a handkerchief to cover his mouth. But the smoke was so thick that Vanderburg was unable to continue his search; half suffocated and suffering from the bullet wound in his leg, he returned to the exit and jumped into the waves. He struggled back to the beach, where he was again pulled from the water, feeling very sick. He tried to carry the suitcase across the beach to the wooded area in the dunes. The blood from his wounded leg

  dripped onto the white sand. The pain became excruciating and he collapsed halfway up the dune. Jo Muller helped him

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  over to the shade of the trees. As he sat down, Vanderburg realised that his shorts were stained red with blood and found that the bullet had travelled through his thigh and lodged itself above his knee. He could feel it just beneath the skin. Applying pressure to the wound until the blood flow eased, he bandaged his leg, which was painful and stiff.

  Using the parachutes from the aeroplane the men constructed shelters to protect the group from the ferocious heat of the sun.

  The baby’s foot was bandaged; his mother remained uncon-

  scious.

  Afterwards, one of the strongest of the men who had not

  been injured, East Indies airline employee Hendrick van

  Romondt, offered to swim out to the plane to retrieve the captain’s satchel and search the cabin for the valuable package.

  Massive tidal movements created strong currents which pulled van Romondt away from the door of the aircraft and threatened to throw him against the fuselage. He swam against the current, grabbing hold of the doorway; he hoisted himself into the cabin where hours before he had cowered in fear for his life as bullets tore through the roof and walls and cut down his fellow

  passengers. Waves splashed in through the door and broken cockpit window, dousing the interior, which was still on fire; thick smoke and fumes filled the void. He managed to wade through the water-filled cabin to the front of the plane. Opening the locker beside the captain’s seat, he retrieved Smirnoff ’s satchel and felt around
until his hands rested on the water-sodden package. He felt dizzy and nauseous as he lifted it out

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  and could only just make out the wax seals through the thick smoke.

  As he turned to leave with the satchel in one hand and the package in the other, van Romondt was overwhelmed by the

  smoke and fumes. He lost his balance and grabbed hold of a luggage rack to steady himself. The water in the cabin was up to his waist and rising. Van Romondt made it to the door of the aircraft and leapt into the sea. The air was clear and he immediately began to feel a little better. The current was sweeping him away from the shore but he was a strong swimmer and

  managed to swim against it. He saw the dark shadow of a shark not far away and swam frantically towards the shore. Running up the beach, he fell onto the sand, handing the captain his satchel. It was only then that he realised he must have dropped the package inside the plane.

  Vanderburg bound splints to Blaauw’s shattered legs then turned his attention to Smirnoff, who was also in dire need of help—

  pieces of shrapnel protruded from his arms, but removing them was so painful that Vanderburg left them there and wrapped a bandage over them.

  After the wounded had been tended to as best as possible

  the uninjured laid out the supplies—nine litres of water and some cans of meat and fruit. Enough for a day, maybe two; but who could say for how long they would be left on the

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