JIM WESTRAY

Born in 1911, James Guthrie Westray was only ten when his father died. Because of the new Company which had been formed immediately after the death of Thomas Renshaw Westray, no reservation had been made for any further Westray holding in the Company and there was no direct facility for his entry, while the family had no further financial interest in it.

This last member of the Westray line was educated at Repton School at the time when the Headmaster was Geoffrey Fisher, who later became Archbishop of Canterbury.

Jim Westray, as he was generally known, was an unusual character, naughty as a child, better at games than at work and popular amongst his friends. He had the Westray confidence and an adventurous look in his eyes which made him an attractive personality. One might wonder whether he had in him some of the characteristics of his great-uncle George. Soon after leaving school, he was accepted into the Company as an ordinary junior member of the insurance department. Not allowed nor seeking any privilege which, as grandson of the founder, his name might have assumed, he worked well and began to make his mark as a broker at Lloyd's and to acquire a good foundation knowledge and experience in insurance affairs. He became an underwriting member of a Lloyd's Syndicate.

In I936, he married Joyce Pugh and the same year was given the opportunity of visiting New Zealand. The insurance business with New Zealand was growing. There was an obvious opportunity and need for an experienced representation 'm the Dominion which an agent could not completely satisfy, while the long distance from headquarters and from Lloyd's made the transaction of business difficult, especially when the consideration was new business or new risks. There was a growing interest 'm the use of Lloyd's for underwriting cover and the field was open for further insurance in this respect, beyond the business which was mainly held by the New Zealand tariff companies.

Jim Westray was sent to New Zealand so that he could discover for the Company what business was available and to what extent it could be catered for, with the possibility of a New Zealand company being formed to deal with it. He was young, keen and able, with sufficient knowledge and experience to make enquiries and establish contacts, while acting directly for business which was open to immediate negotiation.

As soon as he arrived in New Zealand, he started work in an energetic fashion, as is revealed by his cables and letters back to the Company advising them of the progress he was making and asking for rates of premium for new business, and presenting many new problems to Lloyd's, which was only represented in New Zealand in a small way.

After several months of this work, Jim Westray was told to go to Australia and follow up contacts in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. He was conscious of having paid small attention during this time to his wife, who had accompanied him to New Zealand, and arranged to have a short holiday with her before planning to travel to Australia. They were eventually to travel home by sea in time to be present at the Coronation which was to take place that year. Sydney was in a heat wave and he left his wife there while he travelled to Brisbane to make several 'business calls.

After a little while in Brisbane, he was booked to fly back to Sydney in a 'plane which called at Rockhampton and Archerfield en route. This 'plane took the air on the 19th February, I937. It was a Stinson monoplane, one imported from America, capable of a speed of i65 miles an hour, with accommodation for eight passengers. The flight carried only five passengers together with the pilot and a relief pilot. The four passengers who accompanied Jim Westray on the final stage of the journey were Mr. W. Fountain, an American architect, and three Australians, Mr. J. Binstead, Mr. Roland Graham and Mr. Proud.

After leaving the Archerfield Aerodrome the aircraft disappeared. The weather was bad, with a strong southerly wind-especially along the coast-and it was probable that the 'plane would have encountered violent storms. Cyclonic conditions prevailed along a narrow strip adjacent to the coastline. The 'plane left a few minutes after 1 o'clock on this fateful Tuesday. When it did not arrive at dusk it was registered as overdue and floodlights were switched on at the aerodrome and full scale enquiries were instituted all along the route. Members of the public reported hearing the y plane shortly after leaving the last calling point, but there was no confirmation which could allow its actual route to be plotted. The very bad weather and the dangerous country over which the 'plane must have flown raised immediate doubt and fear, while general anxiety was felt as soon as the first news was published. Many eyewitnesses gave reports which did little more than confuse the issue, but there was a strong suggestion that the 'plane must have flown out to sea in order to avoid the difficult land conditions and had finished in the ocean, leaving no trace. The captain of a ship claimed to have seen an aircraft flying low out to sea, battling with heavy weather.

Air Lines of Australia, who ran the service, sent up planes to search and after this first effort proved fruitless, aircraft from many other sources were introduced and during the next few days twenty to thirty aircraft were combing the countryside but no sign whatever of the missing 'plane was reported for nine days. A famous pilot, Miss jean Batten, joined in the search, flying low over the ground scanning for any unusual sight. Rewards were offered in order to spur on fresh search and the country on each side of the likely route was covered meticulously. Clues of various kinds were raised but every time hopes were dashed as no real sign of the disaster was forthcoming. Meanwhile, the weather continued bad and with low cloud and constant rain the search on land or in the air was most difficult. Hundreds of miles of bad country with extensive hill country interspersed by gorge and precipice provided a haystack of very large dimensions in which a very doubtful needle was lost.

The search was officially given up after five days and the passengers and the crew reported as lost. Nevertheless, the search continued and machines covered an area of 1,200 square miles, while 30,000 miles were flown in this great Australian effort to find some trace of those who had been lost. It was finally decided as useless to continue the search unless some new report was received which appeared to warrant investigation. All the occupants were listed and mourned as dead. But two great tales of rescue were yet to be unfolded.

At the northern corner of the border of New South Wales, situated in a part of Australia which is wildly beautiful, dangerous, entirely uninhabited and where most of the countryside has never been trodden by man before, lies the Queensland National Park. This heavily timbered country has a few trails entering it but never for more than a few miles. A high plateau, divided by gorges and covered by dense jungle and forest, is closed in at one end by the Macpherson Range of mountains with its highest peak 4,000 feet above sea level. Because of its grim wildness and inaccessibility it is known as the Lost World Plateau. On the edge of the uplands are a few scattered farms, but the whole area is a wilderness. On part of this edge lived Bernard O'Reilly, a man of the bush who had begun his career raising cattle and later built in the forest a hostel for tourists known as Lamington Guest Hostel.

Bernard O'Reilly was undoubtedly the most able bushman in this part of the country and the most physically capable and experienced person to perform a heroic rescue, which was the final outcome of this epic disaster. He heard by wireless the daily reports of the loss of the aircraft. He had a natural local interest and gradually formed the conclusion that if the 'plane had been forced out of its normal route, its diversion would probably require it to pass over the Macpherson Range of mountains which bordered his own territory. In the bad weather conditions it was more than probable that with the violence of winds passing down the gorges, a current of air would be set up which would prevent the 'plane rising to sufficient height to do this. O'Reilly knew better than anyone else the kind of country into which the aircraft would fall if disaster overtook it under these circumstances. There was no place for a forced landing. He imagined the possible area where this could have happened and in spite of it being the most difficult part of the whole countryside and at a time when the weather made movement in it practically impossible, he decided to make a personal investigation.

O'Reilly set out alone carrying a week's rations, unable to take with him a blanket or any other extra. He travelled on his first day as far as a horse would carry him in country where the trail was just sufficient for a track animal. The trail provided many hazards with precipices which were sheer, unexpected and covered up and a track which was floored with exposed tree roots and further hampered by undergrowth and bog. It was frequently necessary to cut away from the horse's legs the lawyer vines and undergrowth. It was the wildest country imaginable. He camped in the jungle on a Saturday night with dingoes howling around him, while a log fire was his only comfort.

The following morning at dawn, Bernard O'Reilly started again on foot, cutting his way into an untravelled wilderness where the greatest difficulty was the stinging plants, the slippery footholds and the closeness of the bush while visibility was limited to a few feet. There was no path that he did not make himself. He had planned to take a circle which would enable him to keep within sight a wide range of the area he had chosen. A constant problem calling for all his knowledge and experience of the bush was to keep a right direction. His progress was at the rate of one mile in the hour which was slow and tiring even for a strong and determined man. On one periodic investigation, from the top of a high tree his keen and practised eye spotted something unusual; a few miles away on the other side of a gorge was a small patch of brown in the bush. A limitless range of trees and peaks surrounded him, but the wooded mountainside was not a perfect panorama. This patch in such wet countryside could only have been produced by an unnatural fire, by lightning or possibly petrol. With fresh and exciting incentive, he began a further climb with the brown patch as his immediate objective. In the sticky heat, hacking and tearing his way into the jungle, now less conscious of the danger of hidden cliffs or the nuisance of flies and sweat, he reached the opposite side of the gorge with determination and expediency.

As he came close up, he paused frequently to give the Australian "coo-ee ", which will travel across many miles of bushland. In one of the expectant silences he heard an answering call, faint but indisputable. Whereas this could have been a call from another distant search party, or even from some inhuman agency, it created a hope and it was not long before O'Reilly reached the burnt-out patch of land. There he discovered the Stinson aircraft, still wedged in the trees, burnt out, while a few yards away were two live men.

Of the passengers, Mr. Binstead was uninjured, while Mr. Proud was lying with a broken leg which had given him nine days of agony, his bone protruding and leg festering, while he was pestered with flies, weak from lack of nourishment and exposure. Both men had that morning written their farewell message, scratching with a penknife on a large piece of metal thrown from the burnt aircraft. Their rough diary briefly described the crash. It rained heavily and they were unable to keep the fire going after one night, although the weather cleared a little the next day. Poignant scratching recorded " long time nothing done " and " hope diminishing ". Binstead made a daily journey to the creek for water, using a half-gallon tin salvaged from the 'plane. A few small red berries was the only nourishment. The journey for water became more and more exhausting and finally Binstead was obliged to bring back for Proud a few berries carried in his mouth, so swollen, painful and useless had his hands become from the poison of thorns as he crawled through the undergrowth, slipping and scrambling to the water. He made his last visit for water fearing he would not be able to return and scratched on the metal " Binstead at creek getting water " in case rescue arrived and he was left untraced. It took him five hours to get this water from a few hundred yards away. It was fine for two days out of the nine. Binstead spent all his time trying to relieve Proud, cleaning and covering his leg with pieces of shirt and getting the water and berries. Several times the pain of Proud's broken leg sent him delirious. For many days they took it in turns to coo-ee at half-hour intervals.

The pilot, his relief and two of the passengers had been burnt in the 'plane and Jim Westray was missing. O'Reilly had found the 'plane which the previous searchers had not plotted in their imaginary placing of the journey within 200 miles of where it was actually lost. The journey had been as O'Reilly had imagined; impossible to rise above the Macpherson Range, the 'plane had been diverted and swept by gusts of wind in blinding rain and mist until it crashed into the bush, diving into the trees, breaking to pieces and immediately bursting into flames which reduced it to a tangled mass of metal. It had smashed trees and fallen nearly to the ground, being partly suspended in the trees with one engine almost intact, which had been protected by the trunk of a. tree. Four were killed immediately; Binstead was able to break a window, help to draw out Mr. Proud, who had broken a leg in the crash; lying on the wing, they together pulled out Jim Westray, who had been severely burned on his back and hands. Fire made it impossible to get to any others.

O'Reilly did what he could for the survivors, intending to return immediately with the necessary help. He could see the dire distress which they had reached and if their lives were to be saved, immediate and expert assistance must be brought to the scene of the disaster. The survivors told him that the other member of the party, Westray, had left them nine days previously, setting out for help. He had not been unduly unnerved by the crash and was so confident of obtaining help that it gave the other two fresh heart and hope. It seemed impossible that he could have survived. With no knowledge whatever of the bush, badly burned, he left his two fellow passengers, in spite of their protests, in order to make tracks for the nearest civilisation. Unaccustomed to the country and its dangers, he started working his way through the jungle and the bush with nothing but his painful hands and his indomitable will to drive him on. Soon after leaving the 'plane, he called out that he could see a farmhouse. This was either imagination or in order to give his companions an extra feeling of hope, because there was no habitation within ten miles and the surrounding hills and valleys presented nothing but thick woodland. The long, steep slopes, with dangerous crevices which frequently ended in sudden cliffs, makes it a wonder that anyone so inexperienced should have made any progress whatever, but Jim took his line from a watercourse, knowing as any bushman would do that this would lead him finally to a destination. He had passed through waterfalls, wading knee and waist deep and stumbling over slippery boulders, not knowing what was in front of him as he battled through scrub and vines, tom, wet and burnt.

Bernard O'Reilly followed his tracks, which were still plain in the mud and, himself a bushman, described the passage through the jungle to the bottom of a gorge as country which was so dangerous that it almost defied description. After following the tracks for over half a mile his passage was blocked by a cliff where the stream dropped forty feet into a black pool. Jim Westray had carefully skirted the cliff and searched for a way down. It was a death-trap. Westray had slipped on a long, sloping and slimy rock-face, obscured by clusters of insecure lilies, and fell over twenty feet onto a bed of jagged basalt rock. This should have killed him outright, but he was still preserved. He had broken his wrist; he had lost an eye; had severely damaged his head and was suffering from internal haemorrhage after this dreadful fall. With many stops for rest, dying on his feet, he struggled on in order to bring help to his travelling companions. He gave all he had. Within a mile, the searcher came upon a small clearing, where a man was sitting on a rock with his feet resting in the water, with his back slumped against a large boulder, in his hand a cigarette. Bernard O'Reilly spoke to him, but when he was a little closer he realised that the man could not answer. Jim Westray, sitting at rest, was dead.

Westray had set out because, as he explained to his companions, he was the one in the best condition for the journey. He had said that if he found anyone at the farm which he claimed to have in sight, he would not return without help. He had " coo-ed " until he was out of hearing. Entirely exhausted from his appalling journey, he had sat down to bathe his torn and bleeding feet, had lit a cigarette, putting his cigarette case alongside him on the rock. He smoked half of the cigarette but had been unable to lift his hand to finish it.

Thus died Jim Westray, after a display of courage and effort which was a story to be broadcast throughout the world as one of heroism and devotion. The gorge which he had tried to descend was Christmas Creek Gorge and it was here that he was left in a grand but lonely grave on the bank of a mountain creek surrounded by forest giants. He was 1,800 feet below the level where the 'plane had crashed.

It remains to finish the story by recording the rescue of the survivors. Having provided what little comfort that a cup of tea, some bread and butter and a supply of water could give to the two exhausted men lying by the wrecked aircraft, Bernard O'Reilly hurried home for help. He tore his way back through the jungle, well knowing that a few extra hours might mean that his journey of rescue had proved fruitless, and arrived at Upper Brisbane Creek, worn out, torn and filthy. Riding like mad until he was able to obtain the use of a truck he reached Lamington and a telephone, when his tremendous news was quickly flashed round the world. Immediately, a rescue party was organised and O'Reilly, after a brief respite, prepared to set out to lead the party back into the jungle. There were two parties which set out and a total of 150 men took part in this rescue operation. A small party took the shortest route in order to attend to the immediate needs of the survivors, while the majority began cutting a pathway on more level ground along which stretchers could be carried to a waiting ambulance. Heavy rain made the whole operation dangerous and slow. With the help of bush hooks and axes, they carved their way for fifteen miles, taking fresh medical stores and rations for the return of the whole party. Many of the men did not get through the whole way, while some over-stepped the route and went several miles beyond the site. They had to reach the crest of the Macpherson Range and clear a track of about seven miles along the top of the gorge in which the wreck was resting. It was first necessary to scale the mountainside with a grade of one in twelve and even the bush leaders had to slither along on hands and knees to reach the ridge 4,000 feet above them. The battle for the two lives was fought throughout the night and they arrived at dawn. Scores of men were on the point of exhaustion and straggled back to the base, while for a long time many were missing altogether. So great was the enthusiasm that some of those who went were neither experienced nor prepared, could not stay the course and had to give up, cut and bruised by the rocks, their clothes -m tatters and their footwear badly damaged.

Bernard O'Reilly, with the courage and tenacity of superb bushmanship, had done a good job. He had pitted his knowledge and skill against this rude country and succeeded in bringing life and joy to some, while uncovering a mystery that still retained its death and sadness.

It was later still before it became possible to attend to the body of Jim Westray which had necessarily been left sitting against the rock. There is no doubt that he had received his fatal injuries when he fell over the hidden cliff on to the rocks below. His end was delayed while he struggled on another mile.

He was buried in the clearing where he died and high tributes were paid to his wonderful effort in attempting to bring help to his companions. His adventure was described in Australia as the heroism of a very gallant gentleman and O'Reilly himself remarked that the real hero of the crash was Mr. Westray, and his death was the greatest part of the tragedy.

A month after Jim Westray was born, Lieutenant Oates, one of Captain Scott's companions -in his expedition to the Antarctic, walked out of the tent into the blizzard and disappeared. He had set off for the same reason, showing a similar quality of courage and self-sacrifice. " I am just going outside and may be some time."

In due course a granite obelisk was erected over Westray's grave. This memorial was given by the people of Australia after a " Westray Memorial Fund " had been opened in Brisbane and is at the gated entrance between New South Wales and Queensland below the Macpherson Range of mountains: it is inscribed, " In remembrance of a brave young Englishman, James Guthrie Westray, for gallantry and service ' when follows the record of the disaster. His mother, Mrs. George Bryant, was present at the unveiling ceremony and the obelisk was covered with the Red Cross Banner of St. George, then unveiled by Archbishop Wand, the Primate of Australia. Together with Mrs. Jim Westray, Mrs. Bryant endowed a bed at the Warnford Hospital, Leamington, as a memorial to him. It is known as the " Jim Westray Cot ". Leamington was his former home and Jim Westray had been a member of the Leamington Cricket Club, while he had married the sister of the then captain of the Club.

Two weeks after his death, a memorial service was held in the City at St. Andrews Undershaft, close by to the office, at which the Reverend E. G. jay, in referring to Jim's character and general history, said, " As we see, for him there were worse things than death that can befall a man. Rather than leave any stone unturned to help his two companions, he chose to undergo those appalling risks This aeroplane disaster was made the subject of a special broadcast on the Empire Programme in August Of 1937, a further tribute by an Australian: " Westray sleeps in a hero's grave. He gave his life for Australians. We do not forget such a deed. May England also honour his name and engrave it amongst those of her sons who have died for a friend ". A few years later, Odhams Press published a book entitled " Fifty Great Adventures that thrilled the World ", and in this, the Westray story is included under the title of " Tragedy on Lost World Plateau ". Thus he was included -m the company of such famous men as Sir Francis Drake and Cecil Rhodes. While this is a tragic story, it is one that will not be forgotten and may be closed with the simple Australian inscription which appears on the memorial which stands in the heart of that Continent, "Westray has a bushman's grave near where he died".

For more photos see  http://www.qldwalking.org.au/walks/stinson.html

Westrays at sea

Other Westrays

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