ABC TV WW2 and borneo doco

Mike Kelly · #1 14-01-13, 12:25

Anyone in Aust. Switch to ABC1 TV tonight at 11.30 pm

A doco on US airmen stranded on Borneo in 1945 .

I've seen this before .. its most interesting

Mike

Keith Webb · #2 14-01-13, 19:36

Did anyone here watch the first part of the doco on the mining industry in Australia called "Dirty Business"?

In the latter part of the program they dealt with the miner's strike of 1949 and showed a line of CMPs bringing soldiers in to break the strike, the closest was 133799 which was written diagonally across the front shell panel in a script font.

motto · #3 15-01-13, 01:01

Dang! Missed it Mike and it's not on iview.

Dave

Mike Kelly · #4 15-01-13, 05:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by motto

Dang! Missed it Mike and it's not on iview.

Dave

They do air it every 6 months or so .

The surviving airmen of a B24 shot down , were taken in by the natives . A UK SOE agent and team was sent into Borneo around the same time .. the airmen managed to contact him ... The English SOE Major was a eccentric character who encouraged the natives to bring in heads of the Japs ..he them paid a bounty .

The SOE team included some Australian Z force soldiers , they interviewed two of these Z force guys .

Anyway Tarakan was taken and the stranded airmen made radio contact with Allied forces there, and a Auster flew in , it landed on a strip made from bamboo flattened out .

Only one of the US airmen was still alive at the time of the doco being made , the B24 radio operator . The pilot was killed during the parachute escape in 1944 .

Amazing story all round

They accounted for around 1000 japs . The natives hated the Japs deeply as they had murdered the pre war Christian missionaries and stolen their women , one of the priests stupidly gave himself up to the Japs only to be beheaded .