VH-BBY (1)
Avro 652A Anson 1
This rough, but
rare image is from Allan Tamimi and shows VH-BBY, an
Anson (ex AX505) which
was
civilianized on 7 October 1947 and chartered by the fledgling
Indonesian Airways, being (un-
officially assigned
the rego RI-003). The even grainier photo below is from Alex
Sidharta. Can
you
contemplate flying from any part
of Australia (even Darwin or Wyndham) across the
shark infested
Timor Sea to any
part of
Indonesia (say
Timor or Sumba) in an Anson?
Nevertheless,
this feat
was evidently common enough in those days.
A number of
other VH- Ansons made that crossing
from
Darwin and Wyndham to Koepang. Two were delivered to
the Portuguese Air Force on Timor,
Eric McIllree
ferried four in a formation to England for resale,
and various examples were flown to
Singapore, and
to Hong Kong for Cathay Pacific, etc., plus the two
delivered to the Indonesian rebels,
VH-BBY
and -AGX.
VH-BBY was sold in November 1946 by the
Commonwealth Disposals
Commission at RAAF Evans Head to Queensland Ambulance
Transport Brigade, Brisbane. QATB
had purchased a number of
disposals at that time, including several Tiger Moths.
Anyway,
-BBY was
sold off to Air Traders Co
and received its civil CofA in November 1947. It then departed
Archerfield
for Darwin in December on delivery/charter to the fledgling
Indonesian
Airways. The pilot was Captain
H.
Keegan, Chief Pilot of Air Traders Co. He
was aged 25 and was employed as a pilot with Aircrafts
Pty Ltd,
Archerfield.
On 9 December 1947 Keegan flew the aircraft to Singapore
where he met
Indonesian businessman Mr.
Tamini who, along with with Burmese
entrepreneur Mr. Savidge purchased
the aircraft for the Indonesian Republic. Keegan then flew
it to Sumatra and thence on to Singora, Siam
with
pilot Lt.Col. Iswahjudi, and
Vice Air Commodore Halim Perdanakusama.
At Singora, Keegan
handed the aircraft
over to the two Indonesians, and flew back to Darwin via commercial
airline. Sadly, on
the return
trip from Siam to Indonesia the Anson crashed into the sea just off a
beach on the Malayan coast,
80
miles south of Penang. The wreckage was found at low tide
and a press report says the registration
VH-BBY had been painted over. A decapitated body was found
floating in the sea, carrying the identity
card of Air
Komodor Abdul
Halim.
Keegan later reported that the Indonesian
Republicans "treated
me like a king", and from
what I saw up behind their lines, I have a great sympathy
for them. The Indon-
esians suffered a
great loss in the death of these two fliers,
they were really good lads and great airmen."
Clearly two of the
'founding fathers' of post war Indonesian aviation were
lost in the tragedy. As indicated,
VH-BBY had been allocated
the
registration RI-003 for the embryo Indonesian Airways (or Air Force,
whatever the entity was
considered).
Unfortunately the machine crashed before this registration could be
taken up, and it was assigned
to a Stinson L-5 later. At that time the Dutch were attempting to
tenaciously
hold on to their East Indies empire and, so
far as I know, ICAO never officially sanctioned the prefix RI- for
the
Republic of Indonesia
(since it was not truly a Republic at that time).
Several machines had been
acquired at that
time for use by either the newly forming airline or national air force
for the
country. They were:
two DC-3s, RI-001 (ex
VR-HEC) and RI-002, a Stinson L-5 RI-003, another Anson RI-004
(ex VH-AGX)
and
two
Catalinas, RI-005 (ex VH-BDP) and RI-006. Marco
Pennings of the Dutch Aviation Society paid
a
visit to the old Bukit Tinggi airfield site in Sumatra in 2008 and took
the shot below of the
memorial erected
to honor the dead aviators.
I imagine the 'tin' Anson was probably made
from old Piper Apache parts or some
such! Marco also
provides the
picture of Capt. Keegan at the foot of the page, taken at Bukit Tinggi
in 1947.
