Learn how the Torres Strait Islands played a part of Australia's first line of defence in WW2, and about the culture and customs of the Torres Strait Islands.
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Learn how the Torres Strait Islands played a part of Australia's first line of defence in WW2, and about the culture and customs of the Torres Strait Islands.
Subscribe to the podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/roadshow-and-tell/id1666756225
Follow us on Instagram to see photos of stuff mentioned in this episode: @roadshowandtellpodcast
they all go away gobsmacked with how much Horn Island and the Torres Strait had to do with World War II By the end of that same year, 5,000 were stationed here
Kate:Welcome to Roadshow and tell a podcast for people hoping to improve their pub trivia team score. I'm your host, Kate, and I'll visit museums so you can learn things you never knew you wanted to. In this episode, we're going to the tippy tippy top of Australia, even further than Cape York, to a place so far north that a slice of it reaches into Papua New Guinea. We're in the Torres Strait Islands, an archipelago of almost 300 small islands in the Torres Strait waterway that separates Queensland from Papua New Guinea. There are 16 inhabited islands which are home to a population of just over 4, 000 people according to the most recent census with a further 61, 000 people identifying as Torres Strait Islanders and living on the Australian mainland. Each island or community has a distinct culture, though there are similarities across them as well as connections to both Australian Aboriginal culture and Papuan culture. Today we're visiting a museum in Horn Island, which is nestled next to the most populous island in the Torres Strait, Thursday Island. Despite its tiny population, horn Island has a really fascinating history. It begins with the indigenous Kararag people. Then, when World War II rolls around, the island came into prominence as Australia's northernmost frontier, standing tall through eight Japanese air raids. We'll be exploring the military history today with Horn Island local, Vanessa Seakey, who runs World War II history tours on the island. She'll share some stories that have formed the fabric of this remarkable place and show us remnants of wartime buildings and battles that serve as a reminder of the vital role that this area played. So today I'll be talking with the curator of the Torres Strait Heritage Museum and Designer of World War II tours on Horn Island. Vanessa Seekee. Vanessa, welcome to the podcast.
Vanessa:Yeah, thanks Kate for having me.
Kate:And Vanessa, whose land are we on today?
Vanessa:We're on the lands of the, the Kaurareg, the Kaurareg Nation.
Kate:Wonderful, thank you. And so how did these tours start?
Vanessa:II so I arrived here, oh, I've been here nearly 30 years. So when I first got here, I started to walk around in the bush and you'd find things, so there'd be underground rooms and trenches and planes and concrete, and, and no one knew what these relics were or who was here, what they'd done. And I thought it was sad that people had, had been here and done something like joined the army of the Air Force in World War II, served here, some had died here, no one knew anything about'em. So that's how we really started with the research and then developed the tours cause I thought people might like to come and see where these ladies and fellows had served.
Kate:And how long has the tour been going for?
Vanessa:So we started very small in 98. Really very small, but we got the buses in 99, so we've been doing it since then, really. See it's been going for a good while, but yeah, it's, it's great to see people coming to see something they didn't realize was here. So they all go away gobsmacked with how much Horn Island and the Torres Strait and the people had to do with World War Two.
Kate:And what's the history of the museum? How did that come to
Vanessa:be? It came about similar to the World War II tour. I thought after seeing the sights, people might wanna see their faces. So they might wanna see who was in these sites and they might wanna read more about them. So that's how the World War II side came about. I started with one veteran Mr. Ball in Sydney, and he knew five other mates that served here. Then they knew five other mates. And so I just spread out a tree and we, we've interviewed about 350 veterans who served up here over the years. So that's how it started. But then I thought, People might wanna balance, they just probably won't wanna see all World War ii. So half the museum is World War II with photographs and maps and diaries and stories and artwork, et cetera. And the other side is Pearling, Torres Strait Myths and Legends. There's artwork in there as well. There's cultural artifacts. So it's a bit of a mix. It's a, it's a balance.
Kate:What's the most popular part of the museum?
Vanessa:I think the most popular part is other stories of the veterans and the myths and legends. I think that's an equal cuz people have seen a lot about first Nations on the mainland and their dreamtime stories and things. I think they've seen more than the Torres Strait Islander myths and legends. So they are different. So I think people love to see them in the artwork. But also the stories of the veterans cause it makes'em more personable. You're not just looking at a, a lump of concrete or something, you're able to see the man or the woman who served there or built this or something happened there so you can read their stories.
Kate:Do you have a favorite story that you've uncovered through your research?
Vanessa:I think stories about when families come back to see where their World War II veterans. Families serve, but their grandfathers and great grandfathers. There was one lady, she rang me from Sydney, and her brother had been killed up here in a kittyhawk, but the family had never known where he was killed or anything. So I did some research. We actually found out roughly where the plane went down, so she came up from Sydney and we took her and her sister in a chopper out to the site. So they were able to get down low enough to lay a wreath on the water and so they could see where he met his demise, because they'd never known before. So that's, it's just one. We have a lot of families that come up and a lot of veterans used to bring their families up. But these days the veterans have largely gone now. So this year we had our first World War II reunion with no veterans. It was all families this year. I used to have a World War II reunion every year for veterans that served here. And we, yeah, we don't do them anyway of this year was the first year cuz they've all gone largely or they're a hundred, they're beyond traveling.
Kate:And why should people come here and visit the museum and go and one of the tours?
Vanessa:Because it's a little known part. You hear about Broome and Darwin and Townsville a lot but people have hardly ever heard of Horn Island, and it's the second most attacked location in Australia next to Darwin. And it is a time capsule for World War II because we haven't been developed upon like a city and we haven't been blown away by cyclones. So everything is still out there. And the tour is not just facts and figures and archival, it's also a mix of all the veterans stories that we've heard over the years. So you mix of veterans stories with archival and you get a better overall picture, and it makes it more, it's humorous in places too, and serious in others, but yeah, it's a better blend, a better, better narrative, better narrative.
Kate:So, we board the bus and start the tour with Vanessa. While we drive to our first stop, we're treated to a bit of the history of Horn Island and the Kararag people.
Vanessa:so this is where we all live on Horn Island. Population here is about 600 people. Thursday Island about three and a half thousand. But land wise we've got 56 square kilometers of land here, and Thursday Island's about three and a half. So we're a lot bigger in size, but we're smaller in population. Now here on Horn Island, our traditional population are the Kaurareg. So the Kaurareg have been living here since well before Europeans started to pop up in the area. First European visitor was a Spanish fellow called De Torres. Now he came through in 1606, and that's how we got the name: Torres Strai t. So the Kaurareg are quite happy living on Horn Island. They start to see a few explorers enter the area. However, in 1877, we had a bit of a change. That's when a fellow by the name of Henry Larger Banks, Chester, arrived onto ti. Now Henry would be TI's first police magistrate. And he settled the island for European and Asian races. Now the Kaurareg watched the settlement of TI take off. They then saw the pearling industry develop around Thursday Island. But 1922, the Queensland government and the Catholic church put their heads together, decided that in the best interest of the Kaurareg, they should be removed from Horn Island and sent to an island called MOA, up on the northeast.
Kate:So the Kararik people were forcibly removed from Horn Island to Moa Island in 1922.
Vanessa:Now the years at Moa were not very happy ones, and in 1946, they decided to come back to Horn Island. What prompted their decision to come back was the fact that during the second World War, Just about every man in the Kaurareg had volunteered and served in the Australian army. The Army gave them an education, training, skills they would not get as civilians and having served their country, they felt they had the right to live in it where they wanted to. So they came back home. And as of May, 2001, the Kaurareg have been granted native title over Horn Island, entrance Island and Prince of Wales Island. So it means for us who are non-Kaurareg, we can buy houses and land inside the village area only. We can't buy a block of land, say, out here or on the other side of the island.
Kate:Now we are rounding the Horn Island Airport, a tiny airport with just two runways. The airport started as an advanced operational airbase during the Second War. So let's go back. The year was 1939 and Australia was starting to see war descend over Europe.
Vanessa:Now the Department of Defense started to envisage Japan entering the conflict, but on the side of Germany. Now, if that happened, we were going to need all the defenses we could get. We'd be faced with a war on the Pacific and in Europe, so they started to look for places to put advanced operational air bases, especially around the north. Now, they chose Horn Island as Australia's most advanced air base site because she's big enough, flat enough and had the possibility for a good wharf to be built. So the Main Roads Commission and Civilian Construction Corps or CCC came here in 1940 and they built to all purpose and back then they were gravel runways.
Kate:From there, the Australian Air Force and United States Army Air Forces used it as a base for operations in the Pacific Theatre for the rest of the war. Now Vanessa tells us about the very first air raid at Horn Island. which happened on the 14th of March 1942 at 12. 30pm and struck like a bolt from the blue. The Japanese rolled in with their beddy bombers and zero planes. Now remember, this was pretty early on in the Pacific War, so there were only about 20 men stationed on the ground at that stage. And between them, the mightiest weapon that they could muster was a trusty 303 rifle. And that's not particularly helpful in an air raid.
Vanessa:But by an absolute fluke chance, sitting on the runways was a visiting group of eight American kitty hawks just back from patrol, found themselves in the middle of an air raid. So they took off and engaged the zeros in the skies above us and above Thursday Island or ti. First zero in Queensland was shot down by Lieutenant House. Cadet Iwasaki crashed onto Hammond Island
Kate:Hammond Island is another small island close by to Thursday and Horne Islands.
Vanessa:So Iwasaki zero still on Hammond today. The next zero didn't get shot down. Captain Morrisey was up the lead. He's got a zero coming right up his tailpipe. House, saw what was about to happen. Tried to shoot the zero like he had done the first one, but this time his guns jammed up on him. So in a split second decision house, put his plane into a dive and sliced the right wing of his kitty hawk into the cockpit of the zero. Now it's killed, or if he fell to the water, Maurice's life was saved. House then looked across to the right hand side of his own plane and realized he had a small problem. Half his right wing was working. So every time he slowed up to land here, the plane tried to flip over on him. It was no longer balanced. So he screams in at 150 miles an hour, lands under the strip skids off into the dust and dirt. 21 years of age. That's his first combat mission. But he would fly over 400 missions in his career as a combat fighter Pilot. Retired with the rank of Colonel and has since passed away in Florida. And Morrissey whose life he saved that day had one son before the war. He went back after the war and had 12 more kids. Same woman too.
Kate:We stop at a trailhead to go on our next excursion.
Vanessa:We're going to hop out and have a look at what was once home to the 34th Australian heavy anti-aircraft battery. These blokes came straight out of Melbourne and Country Victoria arrived in October 42, just as the heat starts to pick up. They were given pick and shovel on arrival and told to start digging. But there's also a grave here. So Roy passed away in 2002, but it was his wish to be buried where he had served as a young soldier. So his old mates and his family brought him back and he got his wish. He's buried where he served. Now Roy's the only non-Kaurareg person buried on horn. The Kaurareg said yes to Roy because Roy served here and so did they. And you got that bond. His family came up here this year for Anzac Week, for the first time since he was in turn. So they've laid some reefs and some flags there. Okay, now it's a 3.7 inch anti-aircraft gun.
Kate:So, what we see is like a round pit with a huge metal anti aircraft gun in the middle
Vanessa:They are as rare as hen's teeth. It's about only 26 of them left in the country. The reason they're rare is because they're 10 tonne of solid metal. So largely at the end of the war, they were melted down. Now this one we finally found in Darwin. So firstly, the big bays around us held the ammunition shells. So to give you an idea of where you are, if you picture a circle in your mind, the outside edge of the circle are four massive 3.7 inch anti-aircraft guns. So there's two that way. Two that way. This is the middle of the circle, like the hub of the wheel. So all the decisions for the guns come from the command post here.
Kate:As Vanessa explains, there are many separate operations that make this work. And there are ten men to a crew.
Vanessa:So they've all got different tasks, different jobs, and they used to drill continuously. So they all knew it'll work like a well oil machine. So the Japanese come in from the north two blokes in the middle pit on the telescope. They'll spot'em. Three fellows in this pit are on the heightened range finder, but it's the six blokes in the far pit. They're on your predictor.
Kate:The Predictor is a machine which does just that. Predicts where the target will move to.
Vanessa:Cuz if you fire a shell at a plane dead on the pilot's back having a beer before it gets up there, you gotta put the shell where the plane's going to be, not where it is. So that screen's got the predictor, so it'll move. And so you've gotta elevate and rotate. So your little dot matches that green one. Then you're on target.
Kate:So, the point of the anti aircraft wasn't to hit the planes dead on. This weapon was trying to get the shells to explode within 80 feet of the target aircraft. The shells they used were 3.7 inch anti aircraft shells, which were 20 kilos each.
Vanessa:You watch your movies like The Battle of Britain, the big black bursts around the planes. That's what this is putting up. So they're trying to fill the sky with shrapnel and little flack, so they dunno how many went into the sea on the way home damaged full of holes.
Kate:now we get back on the bus to travel to our next excursion, while Vanessa tells us about the logistics of using Horn Island as an airbase in the war.
Vanessa:Now Horn Island here in 1942. In. The first 12 months alone, 10,000 aircraft came through this air base. Now, just about every allied aircraft type we had came through here and they all have to be refueled, but the fuel didn't come here in thousand gallon tanks. It arrived in individual 44 gallon fuel drums. If you look on the left, you'll see them see them all stacked up in there. That is just one fuel drum dispersal point. You could not put the fuel in one big lump here on the island because you'd lose the island if it was hit during an air raid. So they hid them in different spots like this one scattered all over the island. Now the young fellows used to come long, grab hold of them and scrub them out. Then they made wonderful bathtubs If you cut'em length ways, seats for the outdoor pictures, if you lay'em down, the odd one or two became a home brew kit. Long drop liners. But the biggest usage here, and I know it's hard to think of it at the moment with this drizzle, but water storage December to May, the wet can bring an enormous amount of rain, but may to December, the dry brings barely a sprinkle. So all their water was rationed. They got a canteen per person per day. So whatever water you gathered for yourself in an old fuel drum in the wet was a big bonus come July time of year.
Kate:That's not the only thing that was rationed on Horn Island. Here's a cracker of a story.
Vanessa:So have a bit of a look about, oh, the date on the base of the bottle, and don't drop her. It's a World War II beer bottle we found here. Now, ration here, they got two of those per man per week, perhaps. If you didn't drink, you were everybody else's best mate. You swap it for something else now to get'em cold. There's no lgs, no kelators, so to get'em cold, bit of a challenge. The young blokes they used to make friends with the pilots. Now take the ammunition out of the wings of a fighter plane. Put the beer bottles into the wings. Go up, fly around to test the engine or something. Land on Horn Island. Wonder of wonders. You've got chill cold beer in the wings of your plane, very commonly done, especially if there was someone coming you wanted to impress. We have heard that same story from different fighter pilots that we interviewed. Now, segueing into, what's the second longest running kids program on the abc? Mr. Squiggle. Now Mr. Squiggle is a veteran of Horn Island. Not the little puppet, the man there. Norman Hetherington is a veteran of Hornem New Guinea. He was in the concert parties, so they would do concerts to entertain everyone. His act was to do a picture of an unpopular major, flip it upside down, and it became a Buckham Mae West. So he honed his skill in the army here, and then he developed the puppets in the fifties.
Kate:So get that, Northern Hetherington, aka Mr Squiggles, very early upside down drawings were done here on Horn Island while serving in World War II. Vanessa also shares an interesting story of Basil Ramming, a veteran of Horn Island who she met with.
Vanessa:You'll see Basil ramming now Basil was 13 years and 10 months of age when he served here. I said to him, how did you get in the army at 13? He turned to me with this twinkle in his eye and said, oh, we're a big boy. I said, big? You put your age up five years to get in. So by the time he was discharged, he was 18 and a half now, legally he still couldn't buy a beer and he couldn't vote. But he still had served five years.
Kate:There weren't just officers up here in the war. They needed nurses too. In case of casualties.
Vanessa:So beginning of 42, we had about 20 blokes here. By the end of that same year, 5,000 were stationed here, Ozzies Americans Army Air Force, and along with 5,000 men, there were nine women. Great ratio for them. First Australian Camp Hospital Nursing staff arrived November 42 to a Canvas carpe tent for a hospital, wooden floorboards and gore sides 36 beds in the ward. And it might surprise you to know out the nine ladies, five of them met their future husbands while they were serving here. A little voice in the back says, how would you choose? Now our next stop is just up in front where the signs were.
Kate:We walk out to what are known as slit trenches. Trenches in the ground, about half a meter wide arranged in a zigzag pattern. The signal for an air raid was either a siren or three rifle shots. When this happened, the troops would either man their guns or take cover in the slit trenches.
Vanessa:So what got you was the shrapnel from the bombs. But what do you think is the silent thing that gets you in an air raid?
Kate:That's right, shockwaves, generated by explosions, lead to rapid shifts in the air pressure. This can cause severe harm, including internal injuries and blunt force trauma. The best way to minimise risks linked to shockwaves is to seek shelter during an air raid.
Vanessa:Not silent, sorry, invisible. You can't see it. Have you ever seen a movie and all the trees are bending over a shockwave? You can't see it, but it gets you. So you had to be inside a slit trench. Now usually they're dug in the dirt like this fellows. The one in here is concreted. So regardless though of dirt or concrete, you've all got to have at least one corner in them. You can't put'em in a straight line cuz whatever lands there is gonna zip straight through it. You've gotta put the corners in so you can duck around a corner. To avoid whatever's coming at you.
Kate:In 1942, some men of Torres Strait formed Australia's only Indigenous battalion ever formed, the Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion, comprised of 880 men from the Outer Islands who volunteered for service in the Army. This was the highest rate of enlistment per population in Australia at the time. However, these soldiers received one third of the wage of a non Indigenous soldier, couldn't vote, and their dependents received no allowances. In 1943 they went on strike, and the Australian government agreed to increase their pay to two thirds the wage of a non Indigenous soldier, but eventually offered full back pay to the veterans in the 1980s. Now we head back to the museum and Vanessa shows me around. The museum is split into half World War II artifacts and half Torres Strait history and culture.
Vanessa:the cabinet here. It's got some of the artifacts of the TA straits. So we've got different carvings, like there's a wire up carving there. We've also got pearling luggers on display too. This is a headdress, but it's used in the World War II dance. So Torres Strait culture is, is oral. It's handed down through music and stories and legends. So in World War ii, The fellows designed a dance that would pass on the story of what they did during World War ii, but instead of daris as headdress, they wear aircraft.
Kate:The Dari style of headdress is iconic the Torres Strait Islands, and traditionally uses white feathers of a seabird and either a pearl shell or turtle shell in the center. These specific headdresses are incredible. They are a band around the head which holding up what looks like model aircraft on top, which are intricate replicas of Kittyhawks, B 17s, Mitchells and Liberators.
Vanessa:So the, the aircraft that they saw during World War ii, they're making his headdress, and when they did the dance, they mimic the sweeping and the diving of the planes and the aircraft. That's so, it's, it's rarely done, but when you do see it, it's fantastic dance to watch.
Kate:A big part of Torres Strait history is pearling. And here we see a large pearling lugger, which is a small sailing ship with two or three masts and a lug sail on each side.
Vanessa:Between ti and Broom, we cultivate or gathered, almost half the world's pearl shell at one point. So that's why pearling, you'll see a lot of pearling history in the museum cuz it's an integral part of the European history of, of the Torres Strait. So Captain Banner in 1866 discovered shallow pearl shell in the Torres Strait and thought U Beauty because it was valued commodity and it was shallow. So he started collecting the shell and then it just drew in cultures from all over the world. So you've got a lot of Asiatic cultures, Japanese, Chinese, Malays Thais, Filipinos all coming for the pearling industry.
Kate:we also see a heavy pearling helmet on display.
Vanessa:So the diver would go down the ladder with his corset and boots and everything else, and then the helmet was screwed on and then he'd just drop into the water. Cuz they're so heavy, they didn't walk around on the deck Like you see in the movies. The far too heavy if you try and lift it, it's heavy as so you're not gonna walk around with that on your head. But yeah, it's quite claustrophobic when you put your head inside. So the divers used to go down with these baskets, and gather the shell. Then to come back up though, it would take hours cuz you had to stage to come back up. You had, they'd bring you up a little bit, then you'd just dangle there for hours like a fish on a hook because they were trying to stop the bends. Yeah. And this side of the museum, we've got all our artwork and there's myths and legends of Torres Strait as well.
Kate:These are mostly depicted in paintings, with stories told underneath. I asked Vanessa what her favourite myth or legend was.
Vanessa:it's about Yepatu, it's about how mosquitoes came to Horn Island. So she was traveling with her basket and at one point she's fallen over and all the mozzies come out of her basket and she just happened to be on Horn Island when that happened. So that's how Horn Island got all its mozzies, but. We don't have so many mozzies anymore. The elders tell me that when they were little, like in the forties, fifties, they used to know when it was time to come home. Not because mum and dad called them, but because the mozzies came out and chased them home.
Kate:There's also a beautiful painting of a car a wreck man and a white woman. And this one, it's not a myth, it's a true story. Vanessa tells us about the story of Barbara Thompson in 1844.
Vanessa:This is not a myth and legend. This is a true story, but I think it's my favorite true story. It's about Barbara Thompson. So she was a young woman. She was 16, newly married, ship wrecked with her husband between Prince Wales and Horn Island, and the Carig rescued her. Her husband had drowned, so the car reg rescued her and she stayed with them for four or five years. So Barbara Thompson was shipwrecked in 1844 and she was rescued in 1849 by these fellows. This is the, the crew of the rattlesnake. So she had gone to Cape York with the carig to do trading with the Gudang tribe on Cape York, and the seamen were walking along the beach and they saw a white woman amongst them. So they were quite surprised. So they went up. She'd almost lost English at that point, but she could remember some of the English, and she was Scottish, so she had the lilt still with her accent. So they recognized that she was a Scotts lady. So they took her back on board and yeah, she went back to Sydney with them. So she was rescued. So Barbara gave all her information from about the carig to Oswell really. And he recorded everything in his notebook. And that became one big volume, which was how the carig were able to get the native title. Because all their history, all their traditions are in one book and they can prove that they're a culture and they've lived here thousands and thousands of years. So without her records, they wouldn't have everything recorded in one book. Actually, and last year, her family came up for the first time,because I'd been writing to them. So we took her family back to where she was camped with the carig on Lauralug and they, yeah, lots of crying in tears and stuff because the elders took them to the descendants of the people that rescued, heard their descendant, all got together at the spot where they all used to be living, so that was really nice.
Kate:Vanessa and her partner Liberty run the In Their Steps World War II Horn Island Tour as well as a museum. Entry to the museum is only 10 for adults and is open 9 5pm, 7 days a week. Tours run through the high season from May to September and can be booked online. The museum is on one flat level and accessible to wheelchairs and walking frames. The tour is mostly conducted on a bus which is accessible, however the tracks are a bit rough and may not be suitable for some mobility aids. The tours also feature Vanessa's narration and audio descriptions of each point of interest. You know what? I never would have thought that I'd end up in the Torres Strait, but it was a truly rewarding experience. The islands were incredible. They had the bluest water, some really stunning landscapes, a rich culture and really warm hospitality. Vanessa's tour felt like stepping back in time and getting a glimpse of just one chapter of the Torres Strait's really fascinating past. So if you can get up to the islands, I would entirely recommend it. I thought it was great. That's all I have for you today. Thanks for listening to Roadshow and Tell. If you enjoyed this deep dive into a specialty museum, make sure you subscribe so you don't miss an episode. We're a new podcast. So if you wanna help support us, please share it with a friend and leave a rating and review. If you are involved with or know of a regional or specialty museum that should be featured, please get in touch at roadshowandtell@gmail.com. I'm your host, Kate. Roadshow and Tell was edited and produced on the lands of the Gadigal people. I acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the various lands on which you may be listening from, and the lands that the museums featured in this podcast reside on. I also acknowledge any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people listening to this podcast. I pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging, and celebrate the diversity of Aboriginal peoples and their ongoing cultures and connections to the lands and waters of Australia.