Dr Glendon Farrow OAM FRACS

After East Timor the Australian Defence Force (ADF) remained very busy, almost always needing medical support. I worked with the Navy based at HMAS Penguin in Sydney. HMAS Manoora and Kanimbla were the Navy’s Landing Platform Amphibious ships (LPA) equipped with an operating theatre, ICU and a small ward.

For the initial deployment to the Solomon Islands in June 2003 (Operation Anode¹ ) HMAS Manoora was prepositioned offshore. As well as an operating theatre and ICU, we carried heavy machinery, supplies, medics, infantry and helicopters. While the main body of troops arrived in C130s at Henderson Field in Honiara, we sat quietly over the horizon waiting for the media frenzy to blow over.

Henderson Airfield is famous as a WWII battle site. Control was essential to success in the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942, and it changed hands several times. Fighting on land and sea was fierce. Manoora was now anchored in Iron Bottom Sound where 28 shipwrecks lay, including HMAS Canberra. To this day Royal Australian Navy ships lay wreaths when traversing these waters.

Manoora distributed troops, medics and stores around various islands while also maintaining an ICU and operating theatre on board until ground forces were established ashore—just inland from Green Beach, the site of US Marine landings in 1942. Manoora had a place in my heart. My father had returned from WWII on HMAS Manoora 1, and the family connection though tenuous, was important.

The personal impact of the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster (Banda Aceh) in 2004-5 can best be described as Rwanda without the bullets and landmines. The sights and smells of the place left indelible memories. We all watched in shock as the tsunami struck on Boxing Day. Shortly after I received a call from the Fleet Medical Officer ordering me to Sydney to prepare the health facility on Kanimbla.

This left my wife with a five-year-old, two-year-old and three-month-old to make her way back to Sydney from Melbourne with her mother helping. The stress no-notice deployments put on families is immense, especially when security means no telecoms for days or weeks.

Kanimbla left Sydney Harbour on New Years Eve, parting the fleet of spectator boats waiting to see the fireworks. It was loaded with heavy engineering equipment, supplies and a clean environment to provide health support to the contingent. The Army and Airforce teams had arrived days earlier, after initial long delays gaining clearance from the Indonesian government.

We arrived five days later to a flattened landscape, only a single mosque and telecommunications tower visible. I couldn’t get radio comms with the Army hospital contingent in Banda Aceh because apparently, they were working on a frequency our ship couldn’t use. Remembering the telecoms tower I urgently signalled Fleet Headquarters and got international roaming activated on my service mobile phone, making contact ashore shortly after. I am ashamed to say I had seen a similar trick in a Clint Eastwood movie Heartbreak Ridge from 1986. Sad, but true.

The conditions in the Banda Aceh hospital were dirty and squalid. The Army surgical facility had done its best to provide a clean environment for surgery, but there was no escaping the mud and the curious odour. Not exactly just mud but I suspect decay as well. I spent time ashore, while Army staff got a fresh shower and some sleep on the ship.

Of the many disturbing sights, the high-water mark throughout the hospital showed why many patients simply drowned, especially in the children’s ward where a jumbled pile of empty cots lay in the corner. Their remains were collected by the ADF including an Airforce doctor I met. He gave a grim acknowledgment of the task but pushed on. He had been due for discharge in early 2005 but was called back for the disaster response. He had already seen enough in his career, including the Bali bombing. This was the icing on the cake.

I remember a mother bringing her toddler to see me. Before the disaster her child had high level investigations for a malignant tumour of the orbit. Now, with healthcare wiped out she pleaded for help. I rang a paediatric oncologist in Sydney to confirm what I already knew. Nothing could be done. Yet another child I had to walk away from, over many deployments. 

I got to know the Kanimbla aircrew well, including the Sea King pilot, his copilot and loadmaster. I remember the pilot telling me he had just moved in with his girlfriend in Canberra, and storms had dropped a tree straight through his roof, ruining a new table. As they flew us out at the end of my deployment, they deliberately ‘stalled’ the helicopter giving us all a shock, an ‘amusing’ farewell gesture. 

Some weeks later all three were killed along with six medical staff in a fiery crash on Nias Island. Kanimbla had been called back from Singapore after a second earthquake in the area. The cause of the crash were failings in the maintenance schedule—all starting from a missing split pin, allowing a nut to loosen and the steering gear to fail while landing. It’s why I’ve always taught the importance of getting the small things right. Systems won’t save you 100 per cent of the time. 

This was my last operational deployment with the ADF as I transitioned back into full time civilian life. I stayed active in the Reserve for a while, but the enthusiasm had gone. While Iraq and Afghanistan looked interesting, I didn’t volunteer, and I wasn’t asked either. Been there, done that, got the tee shirt.

I had been on the books in some way or another with the Army since 1977. My time in the Regular Army was enjoyable but challenging, physically and mentally. My Reserve service was often patchy. With the demands of surgical training and work, my little spare time was precious. I admire Reserve specialists who give their free time generously, and without whom operational medical support to the ADF would be hamstrung. 

At the same time, Regular Army service is undervalued. Careers are placed on hold, bridges burnt, and questions asked when you step off the production line of surgeons to serve your country. I was let down a couple of times by promises made about jobs on completion of my full time service. Each time I had to start again from scratch. It’s not a career pathway I would recommend.

Would I do it all over again? Hard to say. My cohort went to places like Sloane Kettering or Bristol Royal Infirmary. I went to Rwanda, Bougainville, Solomon Islands, East Timor and Banda Aceh. It was my choice. I learnt a lot, but not about surgery. The unforgiving brutality of natural disasters, the human tragedy, frustration, and sadness of being unable to save lives easily saved here, and bearing witness to the evil mankind inflicts upon itself. Thank God that’s over.

‘Goodbye, farewell and amen'² is the title of the last episode of M*A*S*H,³ still the most watched episode of television ever in the USA. I reflect now that having always wanted to be Hawkeye Pierce, I ended up Colonel Potter - grey, world weary and forever stuck at Colonel.

As someone who grew up in the 60s, I still remember the immortal words of Jack Little,⁴ “that’s all there is, there isn’t any more”.
‘Starlight. Out’⁵ .

References:

  ¹Operation Anode, Regional Assistance Mission in the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) June 2003
 ² ‘Goodbye Farewell and Amen’, Season 11 Episode 16, M*A*S*H, Feb 28th, 1983.
 ³ M*A*S*H, 20th Century Fox Television 1972-83
  ⁴Compere of ‘World Championship Wrestling’ circa 1970, GTV9 Melbourne.
  ⁵Radio speak for ‘Doctor, over and out’.