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Speaker 1: We know this December is going to mark the fiftieth

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Speaker 1: anniversary of Cyclone. Tracy and a local production company is

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Speaker 1: making a short film to commemorate well the role of

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Speaker 1: the ADF and other emergency services in the evacuation and

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Speaker 1: recovery effort after the disaster. The documentary, called Cyclone Warriors,

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Speaker 1: aims to honor the unsung heroes, collating archive footage with

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Speaker 1: expert interviews and joining me on the line to tell

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Speaker 1: us a little bit more about it is the man

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Speaker 1: behind it all Ian Richards.

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Speaker 2: Good morning to you, Ian.

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Speaker 3: Good morning Katie. Nice to talk to you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, lovely to have you on the show.

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Speaker 1: Now, tell me a little bit more about the documentary

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Speaker 1: and why you decided to take this approach.

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Speaker 3: Well, what happened was doctor Tom Lewis is writing a

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Speaker 3: book about the military involvement and the the.

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Speaker 2: The recovery effort's and stuff.

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Speaker 3: The recovery efforts and everything gifts happening in front of it,

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Speaker 3: and he approached us and he said, what, what do

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Speaker 3: you think this would make a good documentary. And we've

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Speaker 3: worked with Tom before on a few local documentaries. All

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Speaker 3: that documentaries are local. We always concentrate on stuff in

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Speaker 3: the territory and we we had a look at it

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Speaker 3: and we thought, yeah, this is different. It's we've all

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Speaker 3: we've all seen, you know, some of the sad stories

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Speaker 3: and heartbreaking stuff. But this is a slightly different approach

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Speaker 3: where it concentrates more on the rescue efforts and and

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Speaker 3: what the rescuers went through themselves. And while some of

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Speaker 3: them were sort of out helping and rescuing people, they

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Speaker 3: had families that were that were suffering and needed help themselves.

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Speaker 3: So that stuff hasn't been told. Also, we're going to

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Speaker 3: you know, nothing, nothing really has ever been talked about

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Speaker 3: our Aboriginal community. What happened to them? You know, many

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Speaker 3: of them had never left, yes, and all of a sudden,

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Speaker 3: you know, they're uprooted and put into a big city

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Speaker 3: and don't know anybody or anything. And then they come

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Speaker 3: back and there's like there's no landmarks to recognize anything.

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Speaker 3: And it's just like, yeah, so we're going to Delvin.

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Speaker 3: We're going into areas that haven't been covered before that

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Speaker 3: need to be covered.

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Speaker 1: It's a great idea and something that so many people

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Speaker 1: are going to be really keen to watch. And I

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Speaker 1: think it is going to focus like you said, on

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Speaker 1: something that hasn't really been covered before. But I've no

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Speaker 1: doubt that there are some incredible human interest stories as

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Speaker 1: you start getting those interviews underway.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, look, so we've got Greg Granger. Now. Greg

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Speaker 3: Granger was a fairly young reporter of the Channel nine

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Speaker 3: at the time. He's a Logi Award winner. He was

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Speaker 3: flying into Darwin on a Hercules this is the day

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Speaker 3: after and the pilot called him into the cabin and goes, mate,

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Speaker 3: can you give us a bit of a hand. We

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Speaker 3: can't find a year thought, so they didn't know where

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Speaker 3: to land. Wow, you know. So and and he's got

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Speaker 3: lots of lots of stories, like there was cues and

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Speaker 3: you know, I haven't sort of heard this before this,

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Speaker 3: and it was like he came across this queue of

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Speaker 3: people and they're all there with their dogs and they're

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Speaker 3: all going to be euthanized. Oh oh, you know, just

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Speaker 3: just heartbreaking stuff that you're yeah, it's the beggars belief. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: what people went.

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Speaker 1: Through, And that's you know, that is such an important

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Speaker 1: story I think to tell like some of that stuff

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Speaker 1: that people don't even realize or unless you were living

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Speaker 1: here at the time, and unless you were part of

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Speaker 1: it that you really have no idea, and I think

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Speaker 1: it just goes to show you what a resilient bunch

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Speaker 1: we are here in the Northern Territory as well.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, look at you hear all the you know,

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Speaker 3: at the moment we're hearing all these horror stories. But

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Speaker 3: at the end of the day, you know, Darwin is

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Speaker 3: about the people, and my god, you know, people really

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Speaker 3: really stood up, you know when in the time of needs.

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Speaker 3: So and you know, we intend to highlight this in

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Speaker 3: the story. Highlight that in the story.

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Speaker 1: Now, tell me, you know, in terms of the aftermath,

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Speaker 1: then for the adf after the cyclone, talk us through

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Speaker 1: a little bit of what you've sort of learned, you

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Speaker 1: know from some of the research you've done so far.

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Speaker 3: Well, well, the research is ongoing, but we're starting to

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Speaker 3: film in June, but we've managed to do an interview

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Speaker 3: with Bob and Christine Dagworthy. Now Bob was the captain

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Speaker 3: of the HMS Arrow now that's sunk in the harbor.

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Speaker 3: They were told, you know that the rule back in

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Speaker 3: the day was go out to a cyclone boy and

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Speaker 3: tied of that and just and just ride out the cyclone. Anyway,

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Speaker 3: the cyclone was so big it snapped the cyclone boy

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Speaker 3: and he ended up losing two sailors. And when you

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Speaker 3: talk to him today, it's like it happened to you yesterday.

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Speaker 3: He's so emotional about it and so devastated about it.

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Speaker 3: And so he's telling us his story, and then and

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Speaker 3: then we start talking to his wife, and unbeknownens to us,

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Speaker 3: his wife was in Darwin at the time, and she's

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Speaker 3: sitting in a house under a table with the roofs

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Speaker 3: blowing off. She's got two kids in her arm, and

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Speaker 3: she's and she can feel the wind trying to suck, suck,

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Speaker 3: suck one of the kids out of her arms, and

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Speaker 3: she's going, oh my god, I'm going to have to

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Speaker 3: decide what did I let go? Unbelievable, you know, And

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Speaker 3: and the thing is, so it's almost fifty years on.

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Speaker 3: They hadn't spoken to each other about it until just

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Speaker 3: a few months ago when someone asked him to write

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Speaker 3: an article that's all us inside themselves. They hadn't spoken

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Speaker 3: about it. They just every Christmas they'd been you know,

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Speaker 3: do feel sad and a bit silent, And they hadn't

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Speaker 3: sort of opened up to each other what they went

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Speaker 3: through it's just like that biggest belief.

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Speaker 2: It does.

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Speaker 3: And every time and you know, as soon as there's

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Speaker 3: a big wind, you know, around Christmas time, they you know,

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Speaker 3: they feel a bit of trepidation.

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Speaker 2: You would your.

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Speaker 1: Whole life would have changed, you know, in such a

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Speaker 1: momentous and unbelievable way, and you would, you'd feel genuinely

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Speaker 1: scared whenever you hear those threats of cyclones coming back

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Speaker 1: to Darwin as well.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And we've interviewed, we've interviewed Sir Peter

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Speaker 3: Cosgrove and what a fantastic bloke he is. He's just

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Speaker 3: a good round blokes and he's got you know, some

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Speaker 3: some you know, crystal clear memories of flying into Darw

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Speaker 3: and and he goes, you know, all he could relate

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Speaker 3: it to was Hiroshima. It just looked like it had

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Speaker 3: been hit by a nuclear bomb. Wow, so wide and

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Speaker 3: so fast bread you so you couldn't recognize it as

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Speaker 3: a down and it was all there was some talk

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Speaker 3: of not even rebuilding the town. They were just going

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Speaker 3: to abandon it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and look at us now, you know, look at

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Speaker 1: us now, like it does go to show you, like

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Speaker 1: you touched on just a moment ago. And I think

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Speaker 1: this is such an important point to make because, as

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Speaker 1: you said, we hear some real horror stories across the

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Speaker 1: Northern Territory at the moment, and I'm not diminishing from

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Speaker 1: those in any way. But when you look at the

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Speaker 1: Northern Territories history, when you look at what we have

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Speaker 1: been through, when you look at the people that live here,

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Speaker 1: we are such a resilient bunch.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean we've done we did

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Speaker 3: some stories on the bombing of Darwin, and we did

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Speaker 3: a documentary about Albert Morale a VC and then which

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Speaker 3: is World War One, and then World War Two, and

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Speaker 3: then there were sidelines before and we always seemed, we

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Speaker 3: always seem to bounce back from anything that seems to

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Speaker 3: hit us. So I'm sure we're going to ounce back here.

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Speaker 2: I reckon, we are too.

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Speaker 3: Ian.

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Speaker 1: Tell me in terms of the work that you've got

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Speaker 1: underway at the moment, I understand you've created a gofund

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Speaker 1: me page to help with some of the cost of

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Speaker 1: the project.

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Speaker 2: How much you're hoping to.

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Speaker 3: Raise, Well, we are. We are actually thanks to people

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Speaker 3: like Spring Territory and a few private donors, we are

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Speaker 3: pretty much covered. Also, what it will do. It'll enable

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Speaker 3: us to take it to the next level, which is

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Speaker 3: which is what we want to do with this. I

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Speaker 3: think this thing, you know, we want this to be

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Speaker 3: something that comes out in another fifty years and people go,

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Speaker 3: oh my god.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I still reckon that.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot of people in Australia that have you know,

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Speaker 1: they've got a fair idea of sort of what happened,

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Speaker 1: but a lot of that and even people that live

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Speaker 1: here right now really don't know just the degree of

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Speaker 1: how bad it was.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, so I'm sure you've been to the Coeo

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Speaker 3: Stadium would have set at maximum capacity yep, So imagine

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Speaker 3: that three times full and that's the amount of people

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Speaker 3: that were evacuated.

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Speaker 2: It's just while it's unbelievable.

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Speaker 3: Isn't it beggars belief?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it truly does.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, we're sitting here now in beautiful air conditioned

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Speaker 3: homes and everything, but it must have been just horrific.

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Speaker 3: And you know, of course you had rotting meat and

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Speaker 3: fridges because everybody had all their Christmas dinners and all

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Speaker 3: the spies and that was just all like trash. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: and out in the heat and.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, olik, I agree with you.

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Speaker 1: And we've I know, we've got so many long term

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Speaker 1: territorians that listen to this show, so I know that

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Speaker 1: there's going to be a lot of them listening this

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Speaker 1: morning that have probably got their own stories and their

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Speaker 1: own history, you know from Cyclone Tracy that they're thinking

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Speaker 1: about is we're talking today. But I know that there's

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Speaker 1: also going to be a lot of people that would

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Speaker 1: like to support this project. So if they go to

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Speaker 1: go and fund me, can they just search Cyclone Warriors

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Speaker 1: or what's the best way for.

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Speaker 2: Them to find us warriors?

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Speaker 3: Or catch us up on Facebook Cyclone Warriors at Facebook

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Speaker 3: on Facebook. That'll get us as well well.

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Speaker 1: Ian, Let's catch up again as you as the project progresses.

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Speaker 1: I'm really keen to, you know, to catch up with

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Speaker 1: you and talk to you about them again. I think

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Speaker 1: it's something that's so interesting. It's such a huge part

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Speaker 1: of the Northern Territories history and something that does need

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Speaker 1: to be documented in this visual way. What a fantastic

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Speaker 1: thing that you guys are doing.

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Speaker 3: We will be happy to cappy to keep you updated. Katie.

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Speaker 2: Good on you.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, Ian, lovely to talk to you this morning.

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Speaker 1: I appreciate it. Cheers mate,