The town of Young in New South Wales is well known for the production of cherries. Since 1949, Young has held a National Cherry Festival to coincide with each year’s harvest. Festival activities include a street parade, boutique markets, cultural activities and a fireworks display.

For the past 43 years, the local branch of the Fellowship of Australian Writers has conducted a writing competition in conjunction with the Festival. The competition includes categories for short stories and for poetry. I was pleased to have one of my poems Commended in the 2025 Adult Poetry section.

The competition seeks poems on any subject and my poem, titled Diamonds and Pearls, tells of an ill-fated flight in March 1942 that was evacuating eight people and a box of diamonds from the Dutch East Indies (now part of Indonesia). The DC-3 was bound for Broome in Australia’s Kimberley region when it came under attack from Japanese fighter planes.

Diamonds and Pearls

My fuselage is riddled with bullets,
the port engine’s ablaze, the pilot
and several others are bleeding;
with black smoke trailing from my wing
I roll into a spiral dive to evade the Zeros,
crash-landing, wheels down, on the beach
at Carnot Bay before swinging
into the waves to douse the fire.

. . . just like that, my flying days
are done. Here in the Kimberley
with my beak pointing out to sea
and my body sinking, inch by inch,
into the wet sand. Never again
will I feel the uplift of air beneath
my wings, never again will I know
the freedom of flight.

The grateful survivors are gathered
onshore beneath a makeshift shelter,
struggling to endure the tropical heat,
find water and tend to their wounds;
each person lost in thoughts of their own,
though not one of them seems to care
that these waters are littered
with diamonds and pearls.

The DC-3 was only 80 km from Broome when it ran into Japanese aircraft heading north after their raid on the town. Broome, which was being used as a staging point for Australian aircraft, had been an important pearling town since the 1880s.

The box of diamonds was being sent from the Netherlands to Australia for safekeeping but was lost on landing. A local beachcomber later found the diamonds and began handing them out to friends. The story of the plane, the people aboard and the diamonds makes fascinating reading. You can read all about it in this article which also includes images of the remote Australian landscape where the events took place.