8 OCTOBER 1944
CRASH OF A BEAUFORT
AT ROCKHAMPTON, QLD

Beaufort bomber

On 8 October 1944, RAAF Beaufort A9-289, crashed on takeoff at Rockhampton, in Queensland.

Bob Mullins remembers visiting most of the crashes in the Rockhampton area that I have listed on my web pages. He had a piece of propeller blade from the Spitfire and last year donated it to the Caloundra Aircraft Museum. On the propeller blade he had painted the date and details of the crash. This would be available from the Caloundra Museum. He remembers the Liberator, Spitfire, Beaufighter and Kittyhawk crashes. There was a C-47 Dakota also which overshot the runway and spent some weeks on Canoona Road where the local kids managed to obtain many bits and pieces. Bob had the perspex from the toilet window of the C-47 to make brooches and his friend Bert Cairns (now deceased who eventually joined the RAAF) had the wheel from the joystick and other bits and pieces. After the Coral Sea battle a B-17 landed at Connor Park all shot up and lost a propeller on its landing approach, with the propeller landing in the mud on the edge of the Fitzroy River. Unfortunately 12 year old kids did not keep diaries so Bob has no specific dates.

NOTE:- The above information was passed on to me by Ross McNeill (RossMcN@aol.com) of Worcestershire, UK, who is a  researcher specialising in sea losses of Allied aircraft 1939-45.  His Beaufort data comes from the RAF 800 movement cards held at the RAF Museum, Hendon. Ross spent a few months transcribing the info in about 1997.

I also received information on the above crash from a list of aircraft crashes compiled by Bruce Stewart from a series of books called "Aircraft in Australian Service" by Stewart Wilson.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I'd like to thank Bob Mullins who as a boy lived near Connor Park airfield in Rockhampton.

REFERENCE BOOK

"Aircraft and Markings of the RAAF 1939 - 1945"
By Geoffrey Pentland

Can anyone help me with more information on this crash?

"Australia @ War" WWII Research Products

This page first produced 25 April 1999

This page last updated 02 February 2020