72 jaar oud mysterie ontrafeld

[Nick-NZ]

Ik heb nu de onderstaande E-mail ontvangen van de heer Phil Fabre, Vice President of the Civil Aviation Historical Society & Airways Museum, Essendon Airport, Victoria, Australie:

Hello Nick,

Thanks for your email. There is quite a lot of inaccurate information on
the web concerning Circe!

As you will see from the attached copy of a page from a file in the
Australian Archives, there were 16 passengers in total aboard Circe, of
whom 10 were Dutch. The list gives their names and, where applicable,
positions. The 'Commander Murphy' referred to has been established to be
Commander Joseph A. Murphy USN and it seems that he was definitely aboard
as he was posted missing the following day. The reason more people were
not carried was twofold: firstly, the Tjilatjap-Broome flight was at the
limit of the range of the Empire flying boats, even with extra tankage,
and thus payload was limited; secondly, Circe was carrying a significant
amount of Qantas engineering stores and paperwork that had been evacuated
from the Qantas base at Sourabaya.

This passenger list was compiled by Malcolm Millar, formerly the Qantas
agent in Singapore. After the fall of Singapore, Millar escaped to the
Netherlands East Indies where he was eventually responsible for overseeing
the loading of the Qantas flying boats at Tjilatjap. Millar was to
evacuate Java aboard the flying boat going over from Broome on 28
February, but this aircraft was recalled on the orders of the Australian
Department of Civil Aviation. Millar and the remaining one or two staff
then made their way to Bandoeng, from where they were flown to Broome
aboard a USAAF B-17.

It has been my intention to write to the Dutch authorities in Australia
concerning the new information about Circe, but I have not yet been able
to do so. Any information your contacts can dig up about any of these
people would be most welcome.

Regards,

Phil

Ik heb de passagierslijst bijgevoegd als een bijlage. Hopelijk komt dat ook goed over.

Groeten, Nick-NZ