This Day in History: 1942-03-03

On 3 March 1942, Douglas DC-3 PK-AFV “Pelikaan” of the KNILM (Netherlands East Indies KLM) left Bandung in Java headed for Australia with evacuees and a box of diamonds worth approximately £300,000. This was the last allied flight out of Java, escaping just 3 days before the Japanese took the Bandung area. At about 1:00 am, while the Dakota’s engines were being warmed up, the Captain of the Dakota, Ivan “Turc” Smirnoff was handed a sealed cigar-box sized container by Mr. Wisse, the manager of Andir airfield at Bandung. The box was wrapped in brown paper and sealed in many places. Smirnoff was not aware of the contents of the box but was told “Take good care of this, it is quite valuable”. He was told that an Australian Bank would take delivery of the box on arrival in Australia. Smirnoff threw the box into the Dakota’s First Aid box, taxied the Dakota out to the runway and took off at about 1:15 am local time. Smirnoff had flown several of these evacuation flights to Australia in early 1942, carrying KNILM office staff, ground personnel, some civilians and service personnel. His co-pilot for this flight was Johan “Neef” Hoffman and his radio operator was John “Jo” Muller. Amongst his passengers were five NEI-AF pilots and four civilians, one of which was an 18 month old baby. As they approached Broome just after sunrise, the Dakota’s radio officer received a short reply from Broome airfield “Airstrip is okay for the time being” which puzzled the crew of the Dakota. By that time they had reached the Australian coastline north of Broome. As they followed the beaches towards Broome, they observed large black clouds of smoke when they were still about 80 kilometres north of Broome. They had unfortunately arrived at Broome just after a Japanese raid by nine Japanese Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero fighter aircraft and a single Mitsubishi C5M2 Babs command reconnaissance and navigational aircraft of the 3rd Kokutai, IJNAF. Three of the Zeros had stayed at a higher altitude during the raid to act as “top cover” for the other Zeros. As these “top cover” Zeros followed the coastline on the first section of their return flight towards Timor, they encountered the slow-flying Dutch Dakota. The Zeros first attacked the Dakota from the port side, setting the port engine on fire. Captain Smirnoff was wounded several times in his arms and hip. Several passengers were also injured. Smirnoff managed to put the Dakota into a steep spiral dive with the Zeros in pursuit, and landed the aircraft in one piece on the sand at Carnot Bay. Four passengers died from their injuries. The survivors were rescued a week after their crash. The box of diamonds may have been retrieved by local beachcomber Jack Palmer several weeks after the crash. Sources: Aviation Heritage Volume 31 Number 3 September 2000; Pacific Wrecks website; Ozatwar.com website; warhistory online website