Return to Anjo: revisiting Truscott, Australia's secret WWII airbase

SPECIAL NOTE, June 2021
I am amazed and immensely gratified that this film has been viewed 40,000 times and received such a warm response from so many viewers. Thank you all so much.

The film was very much a solo effort made on a budget of close to zero dollars; in fact the only outlays were for the airfares to Truscott and fee paid to Gary Arnold from WaveTracks for the beautiful music score he created.

A couple of comments correctly noted an error that somehow slipped through re the timing of the fall of Singapore and I have now corrected that. I have gone through the whole film and made a number of small but necessary adjustments, then republished the film under a new title: Return to Anjo: revisiting Australia's secret WWII airbase - 2021 revision.

In 2019 my wife Maureen and I visited Helen Brown in Christchurch, New Zealand, in the weeks following the mosque shootings. It was a memorable visit and lovely to stay with Helen, Bob having died the year before. My Dad, Gordon, died in 1987, just three years after his visit to Anjo with his wife, Rae. In 2021 Rae is living with Alzheimer's Disease in a nursing home near Melbourne. She still remembers the trip to Anjo with great joy.

The original film is still available here.

Documentary film maker Dr David Smith and his father, searchlight operator Gordon Smith of the 67th AASL, visit RAAF Landing Ground Truscott for the 50th Anniversary of the completion of Australia’s secret World War II airbase. Truscott was a crucial departure point for heavy bombers making sorties over South-East Asia in the final months of the war. It was also critical in the defence of Australia following the extended bombing of Darwin from the 19th of February, 1942.

A grim feature of the base is the remarkably preserved wreckage of Liberator A72-160 which crashed on take-off, killing all of the crew. Pilot Frank Sismey’s wife, Enid, was pregnant at the time with their daughter, Helen. Helen Sismey, now Helen Brown, was tracked down just two weeks before the reunion and joined the more than seventy veterans and their families at the reunion in May 1994.

Remade using digital technology, Return to Anjo includes spectacular helicopter aerials and computer simulations of key events including Squadron Leader Keith ‘Bluey’ Truscott’s last flight, as well as the crashes of Liberators A72-160 and
A72-80. David and his father explore the rusty remains of the base together. Helen confronts the wreckage of the aircraft in which the father she never knew perished.

“A masterpiece of historical significance...
...destined for the Australian National Archives.”
John Westwood,
Redgum Television Productions

an imaginACTION production
Written, filmed and narrated by David Smith
© 2010 imaginACTION pty ltd
Broadcast on Channel 31 Melbourne and preserved at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra
Original Music by Gary Arnold Anjo stills courtesy George Bell, Geoff Day, Rae & Gordon Smith