>> Go Back - page - >> List of Entriess
Hawks was one of the first to volunteer but the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) favoured his engineering rather
than his flying skills.
Hawks’ main RAAF postings were as a hydraulics specialist with Lockheed Hudson, Fairy Battles, Spitfires,
and Catalina aircraft at Laverton, Evans Heads, Port Pirie, Townsville and Archerfield. During the war he married
Melbourne born Thelma Cecelia Anderson, an Adagio dancer and skilled acrobat of Spanish descent. When
Hawks was posted from Port Pirie to Queensland, Thelma started a small clothing factory in Brisbane with about
15 employees specialising in satin stitching. Later, when discharged, Hawks did a three-month rehabilitation
course in Sydney learning to repair sewing machines.
Demand for their products expanded after the war and they purchased additional specialist machines and had
30 employees. But Hawks was uncomfortable in that work environment ‘among all those women and often not
much to do’ and he went back to sea for nine months as an engineer of a 27-metre cargo vessel plying New Guinea
waters. Within a few years the factory faced increased competition from Hungarian refugees and the Hawks
decided to sell the business and move to the Northern Territory.
With the encouragement of Colonel Rose, and on advice that a railway spur-line was being surveyed from
Newcastle Waters to Top Springs, the Hawks built a store at Top Springs in 1949–1950. Local timber was milled
with equipment they brought with them from Brisbane. Used roofing iron was obtained from the East Arm Catalina
base. Top Springs was an excellent watering hole on the stock route and in the following years up to 80 standard
mobs (1 500 cattle and a dozen hands) passed through each year. For the next decade Hawks was involved in
developing a fuel agency (Vacuum Oil, nowadays Mobil Oil) and trucking business (freight and cattle) throughout
the area servicing the pastoral industry from Katherine west and south; with occasional runs to Burketown and
Nourlangie. The store was also an agency for the Post Office and Commonwealth Bank. An airstrip was cleared,
mainly by hand, enabling weekly flights by Connellan to commence in 1954/1955. During this time Hawks held
a small and slightly profitable grazing licence at nearby Yellow Water but was denied another at Cattle Creek
as ‘unsuitable for pastoral purposes’ but which was soon after granted to Vestey. Hawks claims that the senior
government official concerned later received a year of free travel with the Vestey Blue Star shipping line!
With each cattle droving season generating 2 000 Pounds to 3 000 Pounds trade, the change from overlanding
to trucking ‘finished Top Springs as a good business’. In its heyday, Top Springs store was reported as one of the
largest rural retailers of hats, boots, shirts and trousers. Most wet seasons Hawks would travel to Melbourne to
either rebuild or purchase trucks and return with clothing supplies for the following dry season. While Hawks
concentrated on the trucking business, his wife ran the store and managed the finances. By the late 1950s Hawks
became aware of some of his wife’s unconventional accounting practices. They had for several years disagreed
over profit margins and her pursuit of outstanding accounts, but he was unaware of the transfer of funds from the
trucking business to the store account, additional bank accounts in her name, sizeable amounts of cash that she
was hoarding and/or sending to her brother Paul (The Mighty Apollo) to support his gymnasium, and the active
passbook accounts of dead drovers. Hawks and his wife parted company in 1960; he moved to Darwin and kept
trucking for 18 months while she remained at Top Springs until her death, aged 68, of asthma on 10 May 1981.
Thelma’s death later created headlines when a police officer sent to investigate her death was charged with stealing
a considerable sum of cash from the store.
After selling his trucking business to Eddie Quan Sing, Hawks assisted a friend in shipping ventures throughout
the Pacific prior to returning to Darwin. He purchased the wooden hulled MV Larrpan from the Methodist Church
in 1962 and operated a local coastal shipping service for the next seven years. During these years Hawks and
Bruce Perkins briefly formed a partnership; but this soon ended when they disagreed over finance for a barge and
the negotiation of a contract with Nabalco. Hawks sold Larrpan to Johnny Chattarton in August 1968. Following a
three month venture in Tonga and the New Hebrides, Hawks again returned to Darwin and purchased the 17-metre
steel hulled Arandel which he used for coastal shipping but mainly on contract for local and Indonesian marine
surveys.
In September 1972, Hawks was part of a syndicate that located the wreck of a large Japanese submarine sunk by
the HMAS Deloraine 40 miles north of Darwin on 23 January 1942. The I–124 had remained in good condition but
a salvage operation was beyond their resources and the group was expanded. Sporadic diving followed but most
of the action took place ashore and in the media with accusations and counter claims between the associates, and
various agencies, which culminated in the site being declared a war grave after one of the associates, Harry Baxter,
threatened to blow up the submarine.
While the owner of Larrpan Hawks met and commenced courting Thien Messakh, daughter of a high ranking
family from Roti, Indonesia. On 9 June 1972 they were married at Marauke, West Irian, while Arandel was
involved in a survey for Continental Oil. Hawks and his wife then lived aboard Arandel until it was sold in 1974.
Hawks sold Arandel in mid–1974 and moved into a Stuart Park flat. Thien was pregnant at the time and they
considered it better to be ashore with access to friends and medical support. It was in this flat that they and five
Indonesian girls sheltered during Cyclone Tracy, December 1974. On the eve of the cyclone Hawks had advised
several skippers to take their vessels up Sadgroves Creek where he had previously sheltered; however, the wreck
of one of these vessels was later found at Mandorah and two people were listed as missing presumed drowned—
though Hawks had seen five others aboard at the time of his advice. After the cyclone Hawks, his wife and the five
girls moved to the rear section of Smith/Bennett Street Commercial Bank which had been previously leased by
the Indonesian Consulate, and where Thien was employed. The next day Thien was evacuated to Victoria and on
7 January gave birth to their son James. In the weeks that followed Hawks had some trouble with looters trying
to break into the bank’s safe and with a group of men accosting the Indonesian girls thinking they were from the
‘cat house’ operating in the adjacent arcade.