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identified for a promotion course to be run in early 1965. Following the lessons learnt in the Second World
War—that gun pits in Darwin would flood during the wet season—the gun sites were prepared as raised platforms
surrounded by 44-gallon drums filled with earth. Bulldozers and graders of the 5th Airfield Construction Squadron
RAAF cleared sites and firing arcs. They held their first camp at Leanyer Swamp in May and a Mustang from
the Illawarra Flying School towed a drogue for target practice, while three RAAF ground-power units were used
to enable continuous firing of the ‘Bristolised’ Bofors throughout the day. The then Administrator, Roger Dean,
himself a former gunner Lieutenant, visited the gunners in the field and was made an Honorary Member of the
Battery.
By the end of 1965, the Citizens’ Military Force officers well understood their role and the junior NCOs were
passing their Sergeants’ examinations, and Lachie Thomson considered his Posting Order with mixed feelings.
He had the distinction of having played a significant role in Australian military history, commanding an anti-aircraft
battery in Darwin during 1964–65, potentially the most explosive years seen in the north of Australia for two
decades, with not only Konfrontasi but also an attempted Communist coup on 30 September 1965. Thomson was
posted to the RAAF School of Languages on 9 January 1966 and subsequently retired from the Army with the rank
of Colonel. He was succeeded as Battery Commander in Darwin by Major Des Ireland; a decade later, in the wake
of Cyclone Tracy, the 121st LAA Battery was disbanded.
Lachie Thomson later said of his service: ‘Raising the battery and all the drama that went with it, particularly
in the early stages, was one of the most interesting periods in my nearly 40 years of service. I learned a great deal
about the need for teamwork and above all about the unselfishness of reservists who gladly give up weekends and
holidays when others are having fun, to do a very worthwhile job for their unit and the country’.
The Army List of Officers of the Australian Military Forces, 1970; The Corps List, 1967; personal communication Lieutenant Colonel
L J Haydon MBE ED*; Colonel L A Thomson (retd), address to the Royal Australian Artillery Association (NT), 26 November 1994; personal
communication Colonel L A Thomson (retd).
PAUL ROSENZWEIG, Vol 3.
THORAK, KLAUS EBERHARD (1921–1960), soldier and veterinarian, was born in Neukolin-Berlin, Germany,
on 28 April 1921. He served as an officer in the German Army during the Second World War. He married
Edith Huttebraucker of Aaachen, Germany and they later had a son, Rolf, born in 1944. After the war, Thorak
studied veterinary science in Germany. In 1954, the Thorak family immigrated to Australia, sailing from Genoa,
Italy, on SS Surriento. The ship berthed in Fremantle, Western Australia, on 10 November 1954.
In 1955, Thorak was employed as a government veterinary officer in the Northern Territory. He and his family
moved to Darwin, where they lived in Fannie Bay. Thorak was later promoted to the position of District Veterinary
Officer, and was directly responsible for all animal health matters in the Northern Division of the Territory.
Apart from routine involvement in the pleuro pneumonia eradication program and the supervision of many small
slaughterhouses operating at the time, Thorak played an important role in the revival of the live export trade of
shipping cattle and buffalo to Hong Kong and Manila. He also treated privately owned domestic animals, the
Darwin area having no practising private veterinarian at the time.
Thorak was a popular character, highly regarded by his fellow workers and members of the community. He was
easy going but, if provoked, could use his great physical strength to solve a disagreement. In one incident, a large
waterside worker attempted to avoid the footbath, installed for quarantine reasons at the foot of the gangplank
leading to the cattle carrier moored at Stokes Hill. Confronted by Thorak, the ‘wharfie’ found himself picked
up and carried along the wharf, where he was dumped unceremoniously into the footbath. Thorak took a keen
interest in the development of the Northern Territory live cattle export trade, and travelled regularly to Manila and
Hong Kong on behalf of the Northern Territory Administration.
The Thorak family also enjoyed travel to Asian destinations. In January 1960, they planned to spend a few
days leave in Portuguese Timor. Edith Thorak did not want to make this particular trip but was persuaded by her
husband and son to join them. The Thoraks boarded a Portuguese aircraft at Darwin Airport on 26 January 1960.
The 14-seater aircraft had nine people on board. The weather off the north coast of Australia during the monsoon
season can change rapidly. About 150 kilometres north of Darwin the aeroplane struck turbulence and the pilot
reported several large thunderheads approaching. This was the last contact with the aircraft. At about the same time
residents of the Garden Point Mission on Melville Island heard an aeroplane flying low over the island. Shortly
afterwards the aeroplane is believed to have hit massive turbulence and either disintegrated or plunged into the
sea.
A massive air sea rescue was mounted for the missing aeroplane. Royal Australian Air Force aircraft joined
local aircraft in the biggest sea search operation in the Territory’s history. At one stage, there were 10 aircraft in
the air. The task was difficult, with pilots and crews having to cope with poor weather and almost nil visibility.
Two days after the crash a dinghy was sighted several kilometres off Cape Van Diemen by a searching aircraft.
The aircraft circled the dinghy until it could be picked up by the schooner Kypris and towed to Snake Bay.
The dinghy was one of the self-inflating types used on the missing aircraft and would have been the only thing to
float if the aeroplane had broken up. It was empty and there was no sign it had been used. Although hopes were
held that some survivors might have reached the shore, these hopes soon faded. Apart from some debris washed
up on Bathurst and Melville Islands, nothing of the lost aircraft and its passengers was ever found.
As a tribute to Thorak, the quarantine and holding reserve south of Darwin acquired in 1956 to hold cattle for
the live export market was named Thorak’s Reserve. The live cattle venture did not flourish and the land was used
for various trials and experiments until 1976. In 1978, the area was acquired for other purposes, part of the reserve
being proposed as a cemetery. When the cemetery was completed in the 1980s it was named Thorak Cemetery.