An old man looks out from his home in Wales, thinking about his life.
At this age, it’s easy to look back on a lifetime of adventures.
But his life may have been a bit more adventurous than most.
At one point, it involved three continents and a daring mission that made nearly him
an international incident.
And it all started back in 1965.
Brian Robson was a 19-year-old lad from Cardiff when he decided to embark on an adventure
halfway across the world.
Victorian Railways was offering an assisted immigration program in Australia for those
who wanted to work there, but there was one catch - once you signed on, the Australian
government paid your way there and you committed to spending two years in the country.
But Australia didn’t live up to the hype for Brian, he was staying in a dingy hostel
filled with rats, and he soon became deeply homesick.
He would give anything to return home to Wales, but to quit early he would have to pay the
government 800 pounds back and then pay his own way home.
And Brian was flat broke.
With a salary of only thirty pounds a month, he wasn’t earning his way out of Australia
early.
He was quickly becoming desperate, and that led him to a risky move - stowing away on
a cargo ship out of Melbourne.
This was a common tactic, and the crew knew to look.
Brian was quickly caught and sentenced to three months in jail.
He turned 19 in an Australian cell and was more determined than ever to make his way
back to Great Britain.
And inspiration struck when he was looking at an advertisement.
Pickfords, a moving company, had advertised its ability to ship large weights.
They boasted that they could move anything anywhere - and Mr. Robson realized that he
was something.
But he couldn’t very well put himself in a box and get himself to the airport - that
would involve a lot of flipping the box over, and would probably arouse some attention,
because Brian didn’t live in a cartoon.
Fortunately, while he might have been lonely in Australia, he wasn’t totally alone.
He had made a few friends while working for Victoria Railways.
Like a pair of Irishmen named Paul and John, who were skeptical about Brian’s crazy plan.
After all, they were about to commit international shipping fraud.
John was quickly sold on the idea, but Paul was skeptical.
Brian agreed to keep their names out of it if he was caught, and the plan was on.
First step - buy a crate.
They needed one that was big enough for Brian to survive, but not so big it would arouse
attention.
They chose a model that was around the size of a small refrigerator - just big enough
for Brian to crouch in without even being able to stand up, and to bring a small suitcase
with essential supplies.
He would bring a pillow, a flashlight, a book, a water bottle, a bottle to pee in, and a
hammer to open the box from the inside.
But there was one thing he wouldn’t bring.
The journey would take Brian from Melbourne to London.
And while he would be hydrated, Brian intended to abstain from eating for the duration of
his journey - an extreme fast that most people would never contemplate.
But there was a good reason for that - few things could make staying in a box for an
extended period worse than needing to go number two.
Finally, the day was here - and there was no turning back.
Brian packed himself in the crate with his supplies, and Paul and John sealed it up.
A truck was called, and the box was loaded on labeled as a mainframe computer.
This was large and heavy enough that no one would think twice about inspecting it, and
it would also make it likely to be treated more gently as a valuable item - in theory.
While the box had been labeled “This Side Up”, there was no guarantee that the workers
at the airports would care about that.
But Brian’s journey was about to take a terrifying twist.
The crate was loaded on the plane, but Brian had no way of knowing that the freight airline
had made a potentially fatal decision.
The plane was too full, and they re-routed his crate to a connecting flight to Sydney.
He was loaded on and off the plane, and then to a connecting flight.
What was supposed to be a thirty-six hour flight was about to get a lot longer, and
that wasn’t the only wrinkle.
As soon as he spent a few hours in the crate, his body started to cramp up and he found
himself in agonizing pain.
And as soon as he arrived in Sydney, a careless worker flipped the crate upside down and left
it in holding.
Brian’s discomfort was about to become a battle to survive.
From the moment Brian was placed in the cargo hold, the oxygen in the box started to decrease.
He found it increasingly hard to breathe.
After all, cargo planes weren’t designed for human cargo.
But as soon as the crate was flipped upside down, Brian found himself in much worse shape.
Unable to flip himself over, he was putting a lot of pressure on his neck and head, and
soon found himself lightheaded with all the blood rushing to his head.
His head started throbbing, and he found himself blacking out.
If he had been left in that position much longer, it could have been fatal - but thankfully
the next airport worker flipped the box over properly.
It was time for the next leg of Brian’s journey - with a surprise at the end.
Brian soon realized it had been much longer than thirty-six hours, and he still hadn’t
apparently been unloaded at his destination.
After five days cramped in a box, he was starting to panic.
His arms were stiff, and he tried to grab his flashlight and look out of the box.
But he dropped it, and it created a loud sound in the box - that happened to get the attention
of two people.
They started talking about where the sound came from, and Brian realized something disturbing.
The men were talking with American accents.
One of the men looked into a hole in the box, and he and Brian caught each other eye to
eye.
The workers panicked, thinking there was a dead person in the box, and soon the cargo
shed was swarming with government agents, airport security, and emergency workers.
They cracked open the box, and pulled Brian out - barely able to move and in agonizing
pain.
And as he was taken to the hospital, he learned the truth.
He hadn’t flown to London.
He was in Los Angeles.
The cargo flight had been detoured across the Atlantic ocean, and he had survived the
journey.
But he wasn’t in good shape.
The five-day journey had left his limbs stiff and barely able to move due to being stuck
in unnatural positions, and he spent several days in the hospital recovering before he
could move normally.
And word started to spread around the world of Brian Robson’s spectacular escape.
Robson had potentially angered three different countries, and now they would decide his fate.
He had barely made it to America.
Now would he be able to get out?
American authorities originally considered charges of unlawful entry against Brian, but
dropped them once they found out he was a British national.
Australia wasn’t quite so forgiving, with the repeat offender’s second attempted flight
out of the country raising multiple politicians’ ire.
One legislator even called him a “useless young man” and called for prosecution, but
the government didn’t proceed with charges.
The only question left was where to send him next.
The first plan was to send him back to Australia - but there were no flights there immediately.
There was, however, a flight to Britain.
And so, Brian Robson completed his journey back to the United Kingdom, this time in far
more comfort than the previous legs.
He flew in the cabin, free of charge in a first class seat, and landed in Britain to
international renown.
Television cameras were waiting for him, and his story was known across Britain - which
meant when he made it home to Cardiff, he would have to explain the whole affair to
his angry mom and dad.
Physically, Brian recovered fully, but he was haunted by night terrors and flashbacks
to his terrible journey for years afterwards.
But as stowaways go, Brian got off easily.
Over a hundred and twenty-five people have tried to hitch a ride on an airplane since
1947, but less than a quarter of them make their way to the end of their destination
alive.
There are many dangers along the way, including extreme cold or heat, turbulence, and lack
of oxygen.
And many stowaways take an even more dangerous approach to stowing away than Brian did - they
hide in the wheel well of the plane.
That means holding on to the equipment, with the constant risk of falling.
And when the wheel goes in as the plane lands, being a tiny bit out of place could mean being
crushed to death.
While Brian’s approach eliminated some of those dangers, a particularly brutal bout
of turbulence could have easily tossed him in the wrong way in his box and broken his
neck.
So what drives modern stowaways to risk their lives?
Many are refugees from war-torn or poverty-filled countries, hoping for a free ride to the US
or a European nation where they can avoid detection once they land.
Of course, there are others, like Brian, who had very different motivations.
In 1928, teenage Clarence Tehrune was known for his habit of stowing away on trains and
crashing sports events.
But when his brother in law made him a bet, he couldn’t refuse.
He snuck onto the maiden flight of the Graf Zeppelin, and stowed away all the way from
New Jersey to Germany.
Sure, he was arrested when he landed, but he had won bragging rights in his family for
the rest of his life.
But for Brian Robson, he had quite enough of adventure.
Back in Britain and free of any criminal charges, he had a brief time as a local celebrity.
He wanted to escape the spotlight and get back to living his life, but his legacy now
spanned the globe.
Australia even discussed putting in tougher scanning of cargo using a geiger counter to
check for stowaways, although nothing came of it in the 1960s.
Brian’s thoughts often went back to the two friends who helped his crazy escape from
Australia, but while he sent letters down under, he never heard back.
Time moved on, but he never forgot.
Brain went on to enjoy life in Wales, get married, and start a career and a family.
But even decades later, he never forgot the five terrifying days he spent in that crate
not knowing when - or how - the end of his journey would come.
Flashbacks to the coffin-like conditions he experienced stuck with him, and he never forgot
John and Paul.
Then, many decades later, he decided to do something about it.
It was over fifty-five years after his mad escape from Australia that Brian Robson found
himself in the news again.
This time, the now-seventy something Welshman had sought out the papers to help him put
the word out - he wanted to reunite with John and Paul.
He said he wanted to buy them a pint and thank them for their help, while apologizing for
any trouble he caused them, but it would also make a fantastic conclusion to the story.
That’s because Brian had written a book about his adventure, titled “The Crate Escape”,
and his story was now being scouted by documentary filmmakers.
He reportedly found one in Australia and the other much closer to home in Ireland.
And when the three reunite over half a century later, who knows what scheme they’ll come
up with next?
For more on daring stowaways, watch “What Happens When You Hide In The Landing Gear
Of A Plane”, or check out “Death Row Inmates Escape Before Execution” for another of
history’s greatest escapes.