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Queensland while his family worked cane and dairy farms nearby. He left home in September 1922 intending to
become a seagoing radio officer, towards which he had already completed a correspondence course while working
as a grocery boy. He entered the radio school in Sydney but the aftermath of a minor breach of discipline mortified
him so much that he did not go back. Determined to go to sea, he signed on as a firemen’s peggy with the Union
Steamship Company for a round voyage.
Policing seemed a much better idea so he joined the New South Wales Police Force in July 1923 as a mounted
recruit and saw service in several country towns in the central west of the state, but was invalided out in May 1925
from the effects of a bullet in the head accidentally discharged from his own rifle. Notwithstanding this injury, he
was accepted by the Queensland Police Force in July of the same year but was discharged six months later as the
wound was again causing problems. From April 1926 to December 1927, he was a warder in Queensland prisons,
but disliking the life, he took a two-year contract with the Rabaul Town Police, which commenced in December
1927.
He remembered his time in Papua New Guinea with affection but his contract was cancelled in November 1928
after he had fallen out with the police superintendent. After his discharge, he spent a few months as supercargo
with several of W R Carpenter’s traders in the New Britain area. Among his acquaintances at this time was Erroll
Flynn, soon to become a household name as an actor in Hollywood films.
On his return to Australia, he worked on a dairy farm near his family in Queensland and then got a job as a
labourer at the BHP steelworks in Port Kembla until he was laid off when the Depression began to bite in 1930.
His next job found him selling household goods in and around the central coast of New South Wales. This position
also fell victim to the Depression so it was with considerable relief that he accepted an offer to join the Northern
Territory Police. He commenced duty on 31 June 1931 and his first few days were spent travelling from Sydney to
Adelaide and then to Alice Springs in the Ghan.
It was his years with the South West Camel Patrol, 1931 to 1934, for which he is best remembered, although
as he was later to comment, ‘until my arrival in the Centre, I was not even aware that camel-teams existed in
Australia, and I had never camped out in my life’. These patrols were, by today’s standards, mammoth efforts of
endurance. Between July and November 1934, for example, McKinnon, with two trackers and eight camels, was
away from Alice Springs for 121 days during which time they covered 3 490 kilometres dispensing justice and
looking after the well being of all within their ambit. On another patrol he went as far as the Western Australian
border, on one stretch of 400 kilometres in desert country, the camels were 10 days without a drink. On 21 February
1932, McKinnon became the first man to climb to the highest point of Mount Olga.
After his marriage in Alice Springs on 10 December 1934 to Doreen Letchford Taylor, daughter of Albertus
Martin Taylor of Adelaide, although nominally based at Alice Springs, he served at Charlotte Waters at various
times between 1935 and 1938 when that station was closed. He then opened a new station at Finke on the railway
line. During those years, he also relieved at Arltunga in 1936, Barrow Creek in 1937 and Tennant Creek in 1938
and occasionally patrolled with the North West and South West Camel Patrols.
He was first promoted in October 1941 and sent to Darwin where he was soon involved in the first bombing raid
on 19 February 1942. About his experiences in Darwin during the bombing he was later to write that at the time
he was ‘the most junior non-commissioned officer in our force. Four days after the “blitz” I was the most senior
member of the force left in Darwin with thirteen constables under me.’
He stayed in the Territory during the war seeing service at Borroloola and Katherine and in March 1944 was
transferred to Tennant Creek where his wife and child, who had been evacuated, were permitted to join him.
Back to Darwin in January 1946 he was promoted Senior Sergeant in August 1947 after the completion of his
Sergeant’s examinations, which he topped. Two years later, he was promoted to Inspector and transferred back
to Alice Springs. A further promotion to Senior Inspector followed in 1951 accompanied by a move to Darwin.
From July 1955 until he retired in June 1962, he was back in the ‘centre’.
McKinnon was a strict disciplinarian and on several occasions faced enquiries on his handling of certain
Aborigines. In May 1935, it was alleged that he had been cruel to Aboriginal prisoners during a routine patrol.
The Board of Enquiry found the offence proved with the qualification that the beating McKinnon had administered
had been at the request of a missionary at Hermannsburg. A salary increase was delayed 12 months as a result.
On another occasion in Darwin in 1946, he was charged with improper conduct in his treatment of an Aboriginal
prisoner but was exonerated.
During his career, he was involved in many incidents that made the Australian press. He was the official police
witness at the last hangings in the Northern Territory in 1952. Popular belief had it that he was the hangman, and
he was known thereafter as ‘Hanger Bill’. He points out in his memoirs, however, that an experienced hangman
from Adelaide was sent to do the job. In 1954, he led the police contingent at Darwin Airport in the rescue of
Mrs Petrov who was being forcibly removed from the country. The police were under strict orders not to resort
to violence but McKinnon, having been accused by the Acting Administrator of almost starting an international
incident, maintained that the Russian bodyguards had been about to draw their weapons.
He led the investigation into the notorious Sundown murders in December 1957 and in the same month was
the Justice of the Peace and Coroner who signed the ‘Warrant to Bury’ when the bones of Lasseter were brought
in from the desert for proper interment, at which he was also a pallbearer. In 1943 he had been Sergeant in Charge
at Borroloola when the lone survivor of a crashed United States Air Force plane was brought in, having struggled
in the remote country, his companions dying one by one, for five months.
In 1959, he received long service and good conduct medals for 29 years service. McKinnon retired on
16 June 1962 (one of the few Northern Territory policemen ever to have served until retirement age) as Senior
Inspector in Charge of the Southern Region. In 1949 he had been described by an Acting Superintendent of Police