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Double jeopardy mid-air miracle: meet Len Fuller the rookie pilot hero
This week in Lost Australian history, podcaster and author Michael Adams explains the bizarre brave air crash that happened in Australia - and then describes the luckiest convict ever who was sentenced to hang but had the rope snap 3 times before the crowd demanded he be freed.
Mid-air madness over Brocklesby
Australians weren’t reading much good news in the fourth week of September 1940.
The war was going badly, with London hammered by the Blitz, German bombers unleashing hell night after night. So the aviation story that came out of the NSW Riverina on 29 September put a smile on a lot of dials – not least because it showed the mettle of the next wave of Aussie aviators who’d be taking the fight to the Nazis.
At 10.30am that day 2 RAAF Avro Anson bombers took off on a training mission from Wagga Air Training School. Both had a 2-man crew – an air cadet pilot at the controls and a cadet navigator plotting their course.
About a quarter of an hour later, the planes were 120km south-west, over the town of Brocklesby near Albury-Wodonga, at an altitude of about 1000 metres.
Pilot Len Fuller, 22, who had control of one of the Avro Ansons, realised that he couldn’t see the other plane. That was because it was directly below in his blind spot. When Fuller dipped his aircraft, it came down directly on the other one, one of his propellers slicing into the lower plane.
Horrified Brocklesby townsfolk saw the collision.
Witnesses expected to see the planes come apart and crash.
Yet the Avro Ansons flew on. The upper plane’s propeller had become stuck in the lower one’s engine. They were interlocked – Len Fuller’s aircraft piggybacking on its counterpart.
Remarkably, the 2 Avro Ansons were almost perfectly aligned and the lower plane’s engines were still working. They were stable and flying under power – at least for the moment. What was every bit as incredible was that all 4 young trainees were alive and unhurt.
With Len Fuller using his controls to keep the 2 planes steady, his navigator bailed out, as did the lower plane’s crew members.
But if Fuller bailed out, the Avro Ansons might cause civilian casualties when they crashed.
Besides, with the Battle of Britain having recently destroyed most of the RAF’s planes, every allied aircraft everywhere was precious – and the 2 under his control represented £16,000 worth of war machinery.
Fuller would try to land them. But he didn’t have time to look for an airstrip.
The lower plane’s engines were dying. Fuller banked and aimed for a paddock. Yet he had no way to deploy the lower plane’s landing gear. Five hundred feet from the dirt, its engines died. The ungainly planes were now gliding, handling like an 'elephant'. Twenty feet off the ground, they stalled and went in.
Len Fuller pulled back on his controls for a last bit of lift and to slow them. Then he came down.
The Avro Anson double-act skidded for nearly 200 metres along the paddock.
Air cadet Leonard Fuller had pulled off a perfect belly landing – and he’d made world aviation history.
Locals who rushed to help were impressed by Len’s calm as he climbed from the cockpit. His big concern was for his comrades. Those three men had all parachuted safely. Only one had minor injuries.
The stacked Avro Ansons were a remarkable sight. But the damage was relatively slight. Repairs would cost £2000 and they’d both in the air again soon.
Newspapers had a field day with the story
The Border Morning Mail’s front page picture was captioned: ‘The Brocklesby Miracle’. A witness told the paper: ‘I have never before seen such a magnificent display of courage in all my life.’ The paper continued that this man ‘added that if this was a sample of the spirit of the R.A.A.F., no enemy would have a chance in aerial combat against our man.’
Wagga Wagga’s The Daily Advertiser reckoned: ‘Air Force experts throughout Australia are amazed at the aviation feat.’ A flying boat captain told the paper: ‘Actually it sounds impossible. It is a remarkable thing in the first place, and was even more remarkable because a pupil pilot did the trick. It is the kind of thing that will be talked about for years by pilots all over the world and will just not be believed by a lot of them.’
Len Fuller would finish his training and be sent to England and then to the Middle East.
In mid-March 1942, Len was back in the news, having been awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal for an action in the Mediterranean in which his bomber sank two enemy ships and severely damaged a third.
After surviving further combat, Len returned to Australia and became a training instructor at the RAAF base in Sale. In mid-March 1944, he was back in the newspapers once again. But this time it was because hisl uck had run out in freakish circumstances. While riding a bicycle near the base, Len had been hit by a passenger bus and died of his injuries.
In 1990, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Len's heroic action, a plaque remembering the mid-air miracle was unveiled at Brocklesby.
Mind-blowing fact: An identical accident involving 2 Avro Ansons occurred in February 1941 in Canada – with the upper pilot safely landing both planes. This was less than 6 months after the Australian accident.
Australia's first cop killer was a convict: meet the luckiest man unhanged
On 26 September 1803, a convict named Joseph Samuels went to the gallows in Sydney. Hanging in early colonial Sydney was a primitive affair. Victims were made to stand on the back of cart under a tree branch, to which his noose was attached.
Samuels had been found guilt of burglary – a crime that, in a series of unfortunate events, had resulted in the murder of Constable Joseph Luker, the first-ever Australian police officer to be killed in the line of duty.
On the cart, about to be hanged, Samuels confessed to what he knew of the murder – pointing the finger directly at corrupt Constable Isaac Simmonds, who was present in the crowd but who was untouchable as he’d already been acquitted of the killing.
Then, his conscience clear, Samuels prayed his last. The hangman drove the cart away and the doomed man dropped…and kept dropping. The rope had broken; he hit the ground alive.
The Provost Marshall said they had to finish the execution. A new rope was obtained. The hangman drove the cart away again. The rope unravelled. Samuels was still alive when he hit the ground for the second time.
With the crowd now clamouring for his reprieve, the officials tried a third time to hang Samuels.
The rope snapped again.
The Provost Marshall raced off to tell the Governor. His Excellency commuted Samuels’ punishment to a life sentence.
Many believed they’d seen the hand of God at work in Sydney that day.
Such a tale would be unbelievable if only handed down as folklore. But these events took place within months of Australia’s first newspaper, The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, commencing publication.
Editor George Howe covered every development – from the murder and manhunt, to the trial and sensational gallows scene – over a month’s worth of issues. The story was one of the earliest Australian true crime sagas – and it remains one of the strangest.
Fun fact: In 1806 The Gazette would report that Joseph Samuels had escaped from Newcastle in a boat. He was never seen again.
The start of public transport
Eleven years after the failed hangings, a very different sort of cart was launched in Sydney. On 1 October 1814, William Highland advertised in The Sydney Gazette that ‘he has set up a Common Stage Cart, to go from Sydney every Monday at Ten in the Forenoon, through Parramatta, Baulkham Hills, etc, to Windsor and Richmond, for Passengers and Luggage, at Moderate Charges; and that every possible Care and Punctuality may be depended on.’
Fun fact: if you thought public transport was slow these days, spare a thought for those first commuters, who faced a bone-jarring 24-hour journey – with an overnight stop at Baulkham Hills – to get from Sydney to Windsor.
This train is running (5 years) late
This week in 1855 – 26 September – Sydney’s first steam train finally chugged off on its first trip. In a development that’ll surprise few, the service was running late – more than 5 years late. The first sod in the construction of the railway line from Redfern to Granville had been turned with much pomp and circumstance back in July 1850. But budget blowouts, a labour shortage due to men flocking to the gold rush and difficulty in deciding on the gauge meant the train was delayed…and delayed…and delayed. (So long in fact that Melbourne beat Sydney to the punch with Australia’s first railway opening in 1854.) On Sydney Rail’s debut day, the first locomotive – a sister engine to the one long on display at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum – was due to depart at 11. It got away 20 minutes late. The train stopped at Newtown, Ashfield, Burwood and Homebush and the one-way journey took 45 minutes.
Fun fact: More than 3500 tickets were sold that first day. It’s not recorded if anyone was fined for fare evasion.
Sydney Metro: steam edition
On 28 September 1879, Sydney’s firststeam trams – installed for the International Exhibition at the poor doomed Garden Palace – finally started running. Their city debut had been delayed by the late arrival of the steam engines from London. For the first 12 days of the service, the carriages had to be pulled by horses.
The genius on the $50 note
On 28 September 1872, David Ngunaitponi, a Ngarrindjeri man who be known as David Unaipon, was born on a mission in the Coorong region of South Australia. During his long life, Unaipon would battle prejudice and racism to make his mark as a preacher, author and inventor. With his sermons renowned for their ability to inspire, his writing about Indigenous life plagiarised and stolen, and his inventions ranging from mechanical sheep shears to a helicopter design based on the boomerang, not for nothing is he the man on our $50 note. David Unaipon was dubbed Australia’s Leonardo Da Vinci. Surely an Unaipon biopic could be Australia’s Oppenheimer.
Australia’s first postcards
The world’s first postcards were issued in Austria in 1869. With attractive decorations, they were a cheap and attractive way to send short informal messages. On 1 October 1875, postcards made their debut in Sydney. Some 12,000 were sold on that first day as colonial folk embraced the 19th century’s version of Instagram.
Fun fact: a signed 1879 postcard featuring Ned Kelly and his gang was put up for auction in 2016.
To hear a longer version of the Mid-Air Miracle and a two-part podcast about Joseph Samuels, check out the Forgotten Australia podcast. Michael Adams is the author of The Murder Squad and Hanging Ned Kelly.