The Australian War Memorial Collection. Test site
Portrait of Sergeant Arie Albert Smelt, service no. 75164, coxswain, of the Royal Australian Air Force Marine Section, 45 Operational Base Unit. He is wearing a slouch hat and smoking a cigarette. Dargie noted:
"This airman had served for a period of 12 months in this area, the launch operating at sea and up rivers within a radius of 60 miles of Pt Moresby. This is one of the typical jobs of the section:- A message was received from 5th Air Force that a Douglas had crash-landed in a swampy jungle near Mena Mena, crashed airmen showing them their approximate location and directing them to make an attempt to reach the river bank about 3000 yards distant, where the party from the launch would pick them up. However when the launch reached the mouth of the river it was found to be unnavigable by such a large craft, so the rescue party transferred to a small "chris-craft", and even in this they sometimes found that the river was so narrow and overgrown with the jungle that they had to jack their way through, being guided all the way by a spotter plane. When they reached the point on the river where they had expected to see the airman, there was no sign of the party; but they knew the men must be somewhere some point in the jungle at right angles to the position of the rescue craft to the river. Accordingly the rescuers set off to hack their way inland through the swamp and jungle. After a while one of the party fired a shot from a pistol, and they heard an answering shot in the distance. The airman was finally located about 1000 yards from the river, and hopelessly lost. Their first words were "Buddy, we sure are glad to see you". They were assisted back to the river, and brought back to hospital at Moresby.
During the period this air-sea rescue launch had been operating, the crew have saved about a dozen crashed airmen. Even if they find that the pilot had died before they can reach the scene of the crash, they always attempt to retrieve the body, and bring it back for burial in Moresby. But sometimes, and particularly if the place has crashed in the sea, all their efforts are fruitless: all they discover is a large oil slick on the surface of the water".
This painting depicts a "spotter" plane dropping a message to a RAAF Air Sea Rescue Launch carrying out a rescue in an inland Papuan river. A plant with colourful red flowers appears down the right ed
Four RAAF nursing sisters and three male medical orderlies from the RAAF hospital, Butterworth Malaya, participated in a realistic exercise in air-sea rescue as part of their training. Using a crash l
A view onto the Auro River in New Guinea, showing an RAAF salvage launch. A young New Guinea boy is pictured in the foregrond. This work was created when Dargie spent 16 days in December 1942 with t
Triangular cotton pennant as flown by Royal Air Force Air-Sea Rescue Launches during the Second World War. The light blue pennant features a printed dark blue vertical stripe with narrow red borders.
This crash boat was the Air-Sea Rescue craft of Royal Australian Air Force Marine Section, Port Moresby. Over a period of six months the unit had saved many people within a radius of 63 kilometres of
The finished products in their official colours waiting to go out on tests. The Fairmil (background) is a submarine chaser and the other craft are Air-sea rescue craft of the Royal Australian Air Forc