Each day I cycle to work I ride beside a fair section of the stormwater drain running through New Lambton, Broadmeadow and Hamilton North. There’s some strange things down the drain sometimes – earlier this year I saw someone’s shiny 4WD down in the drain beside New Lambton Park, obviously a result of forgetting to put the handbrake on. But that’s nothing compared to what the residents of Broadmeadow saw on 10th August 1944.
1944
Photo from Candice Campbell’s collection on Flickr.
2015
At first I wasn’t sure that this photo I took today was the same spot, as the bridge here only has 2 supports, where the bridge in the old photo has 3. A quick check of the plaque on the bridge however shows that the bridge was rebuilt in 1957. What confirms this as the location is that in both the old and modern photo you can clearly see the distinctive outline of St Laurence O’Toole church on Broadmeadow Rd.
The star on this old map marks the approximate location of the plane crash.
Newspaper articles
| Article Date Event Date | Notes |
|---|---|
| 11 Aug 1944 10 Aug 1944 | A D.C. 47 Army transport plane, with 25 men on board, skidded 200 yards on a wet runway, hurtled through a fence and then crashed into a stormwater channel at Broadmeadow aerodrome. |
| 12 Aug 1944 10 Aug 1944 | Photo. The Douglas C47 transport plane in the stormwater channel at District Park aerodrome, Broadmeadow, where it landed in bad weather on Thursday. |
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