Book Description

Spitfire pilot Ross Smith Stagg was one of 33 Allied airmen to defend Darwin against Japanese invasion on May 2, 1943. As one of 14 pilots shot down or experience mechanical failure in the ensuing battle, he parachuted into the sea 18 km from land, 100 km southwest of Darwin in the Fogg Bay area. He reached the shore in a dinghy. For the next 15 days he trudged through inhospitable country in a futile attempt to return to Strauss airbase. What should have been a few days walk turned into his worst possible nightmare as he stumbled aimlessly through mosquito and crocodile infested swamps. "It was almost six days I'd been without sleep, apart from a short period of unconsciousness and those few moments before I fell out of that tree," he said. " I became demented by the cavalcade of mosquitoes and hallucinating badly". His experience was only to worsen - he waded halfway across a tidal river to be confronted by a large saltie. Darwin historian John Haslett help Stagg map the original route by retracing his steps, even managing to relocate an American Kittyhawk Stagg found crashed in the middle of nowhere.