Saturday news

By tk
Saturday, June 14, 2003

*After a week of plowing through pluff mud and pulling seines through Kiawah River creeks, scientist Whit Gibbons hasn't found many diamondback terrapins
-Charleston Post and Courier, 6-14-03

*Sea turtles have been nesting on Hilton Head Island beaches in greater numbers than expected this year
-Hilton Head Island Packet Online, 6-14-03

*Tybee Lighthouse stamp issued
-Savannah Morning News, 6-14-03

This 10,000 mile journey was undertaken in a DeHavilland DH - 50A aircraft fitted with with a float undercarriage. Source: George Odger's "Air Force Australia." 4th. Edition. McIntyre Field was set up at Tocumwal by the US Air Force in 1940 as a main air base in preparation for the expected Japanese invasion of Northern Australia. With the tides of war changing and the Japanese advance being slowly stopped, Tocomwal was abandoned by the USAF and they moved to Queensland. The base was handed over to the RAAF, and No.7 Operational Training Unit operated B - 24 Liberators there in WW2.

Sportavia Soaring Centre.
At Tocomwal this International Gliding Centre operates as one of the largest gliding clubs world wide, one of the original huge hanhars is used to store both gliders and air tugs. I was informed that the gliding centre operates in the main over the September/March period, with many visitors from Europe and particularly from South Africa.

My ambition to glide.
I have long nursed an unfilled ambition to go gliding, I have flown in a microlite aircraft out of Zambia, at less than a 1,000 feet over the mighty Victoria Falls, and watched elephants whilst they swam in the Zambesi River. I have been ballooning, I have flown off and landed on an Aircraft Carrier in a helicopter, and even been in the back seat of a Navy Firefly aircraft to be squirted off the catapult, to reland on the deck and be stopped by the arrestor wires. But Glide, no! I have now been promised that if I return to Tocomwal in the gliding season, I will be taken up to cover that last flight I have yet to achieve.

I returned to Melbourne by the 0715 ( 7.15 AM ) bus out of Tocumwal on Friday the 13th, arriving at Spencer Street at 1115 ( 11.15 AM ) to be collected by Denise. It had been a very happy and satisfying visit to see Kevin.

Bob Brown's account of building and operating McIntyre Field in WW2.
Bob's account now follows.