This video was made possible by Skillshare.
Learn with Skillshare for free for two months by being one of the first 500 to sign up at
the link below.
Hey, remember the British Empire?
It was pretty cool for a very small and select number of individuals.
In 1943, Australia was part of it… and so was India… and Pakistan… and Sri Lanka
which was then called Ceylon… and sort of Singapore too.
The British had plenty of territories all around the world because, remember, the sun
never sets on the British Empire… unless the year is 2018.
Back in 1943, though, there was a small disagreement going on between Germany, Italy (but not really),
and Japan and the rest of the world…ish.
Just like Dre, Kony, and New Zealand, people sometimes seem to forget that World War Two
didn’t just exist in Europe.
Japan was actually really good at killing and other war things and they quickly swallowed
up huge amounts of territory.
Soon the Japanese got to Singapore which was neither crazy, rich, or really Asian at the
time since it too was part of the British Empire… except not anymore.
It was Japanese now.
To this the Australians went “crikey,” since they were sure they were next since
the country was far to large to successfully defend.
To this the Japanese went, “bakana no” since they assumed that Australia was far
too large to successfully invade.
Their plan was rather to cut off Australia from its sugar daddy, the US, by advancing
eastwards into the Pacific, but the fall of Singapore also meant that Australia was then
cut off from the UK and vice versa as that’s where the planes of the time, which had tiny
ranges compared to those of today, stopped to refuel.
This meant that the fastest mail could move, which was a crucial means of communications,
was by boat which would take months between the two sides of the world.
So, in summary, all of this area was occupied by Japan, this area was getting invaded by
Japan, this area was nothing, and this area was a slightly lesser degree of nothing so
where were they supposed to go?
To spac… actually, no.
They’d go this way.
It was figured that planes could just barely reach the southern tip of Sri Lanka, then
a British territory, thereby reconnecting the route between Australia and the UK.
It was a stretch, though.
Over 4,000 miles separated Perth, the only major city in Western Australia, from Sri
Lanka.
The Cocos Islands, between Australia and Sri Lanka did successfully exist at the time and
they were part of the Empire, like absolute everything, but the Brits sort of wanted Japan
to forget about them.
The islands were where the telegraph line from Australia to the UK went through and
they really needed the telegraph line in order to send funny gifs and military orders so
they decided not to draw attention to the islands by having the passenger flights stop
there—it could get very bomb-y if they did.
The decision was therefore made to fly the 4,000 miles between Perth and Sri Lanka non-stop
even though this was hundreds of miles longer than the longest non-stop flight at the time.
The aircraft that Qantas would use to make the trip were PBY Catalinas—small seaplanes
that normally could not fly 4,000 miles non-stop but, by taking out all but essential equipment
and adding in auxiliary fuel tanks it could just barely make the trip.
However, because of how much all this fuel weighed, they could only take three passengers
and 152 pounds of mail on each trip.
These planes could fly no faster than 140 miles per hour so the trips were long.
Being designed for far more passengers the planes were spacious enough but exceedingly
noisy and they were at risk to be shot down at any moment so the trip probably wasn’t
the most relaxing.
For much of the flight, the plane was within the range of Japanese warplanes based in occupied
Indonesia so they scheduled the fight very carefully.
It would take off from Perth in the early morning, before sunrise, fly north throughout
the day, then it would enter into the area that could be reached by Japanese planes as
the sun set so they could sneak through in the cover of darkness before landing in Sri
Lanka the next morning after, at best, 28 hours in the air.
Because those on this flight would witness two sunrises while in the air it earned the
nickname of, “the Double Sunrise flight.”
From Sri Lanka, the passengers and cargo would travel overland to Karachi where they would
board BOAC planes for the rest of the journey to London.
Throughout the war, 271 Double Sunrise flights were made carrying 648 passengers and almost
40,000 pounds of mail and cargo without incident.
On one of these flights, unfavorable winds meant that that the trip took a full 32 hours
and 9 minutes which entered that record books as the longest duration commercial flight
ever—a record that still stands today.
If World War Three erupts, all modern passenger planes are destroyed, and we go back to using
Catalinas to link Australia to Sri Lanka you’re going to have to deal with a lot of difficulties
the most significant of which will be the fact that Catalinas have no in-flight entertainment
or wifi.
Calm down, it’s ok, though, because Skillshare’s iOS and Android apps allow you to download
any of their more than 20,000 classes offline.
If there’s something you want to learn Skillshare probably has a class on it.
For the impending post-war nuclear wasteland, you can learn things like how to make fire,
give CPR, and make enchiladas.
They also have courses on things more applicable for today’s world like the course on “How
to Make an Animated YouTube Video” by the great YouTuber PolyMatter.
Just because Skillshare loves you so much, the first 500 people to sign up at skl.sh/hai17
will get to learn for free for their first two months so get learning today at skl.sh/hai17.