Standing on the site of the Liberator crash at 4.30 am in the predawn darkness of September 7, 2014, NX81054 Ronald Charles Bean relived the worst memories of his fi ve years of World War II. It was the 71st anniversary of the worst air disaster in Australian history and the worst day in the history of the 2/33rd Infantry Battalion.
Ron struggled with his emotions as he unveiled a plaque and a bugler played The Last Post in memory of the 60 men of the Battalion, two truck drivers and 11 U.S. airmen who died as a result of the crash on the terrible morning of September 7, 1943.
Ron had travelled to Port Moresby with his son, Russell, and grandson, Tim Bean, and other descendants for the dawn service.
Tim said later: “ I’m sure my Pop would rather have forgotten about what occurred there, and have it wiped from his memory.” However, like every other crash survivor the visions of the massive explosion, the sea of fi re and the screams of dying men haunted Ron for the rest of his life.
It was exactly 4.25am, when Ron heard the fi rst deep-throated sound of a four-engine U.S. Army Air Force B-24 Liberator bomber attempting to take off from Jackson’s airfi eld, Port Moresby. He watched in horror as the Liberator hit a tree, shearing off one wing. Ablaze and with engines roaring, the crippled aircraft speared into the convoy of 18 trucks parked at the end of the runway and carrying men of the 2/33rd Battalion waiting to be airlifted into battle to recapture Lae from the Japanese. Night turned into day as the Liberator exploded in a massive ball offire.
Standing on the site 71 years later, to the day, Ron’s memories came rushing back. He remembered the horrendous scenes as if they were yesterday. He remembered hearing the engines then seeing the bomber in trouble.
“The plane looked to me like it wasn’t going to take off. It left the runway only to skim across and collect the tops of the trees, “ he said. He watched as the Liberator crashed into the trucks just ahead of him in the convoy. Two of it bombs and tanks of aviation fuel exploded.
Ron recalled jumping out of his own vehicle and running towards four of the trucks which were almost completely destroyed. The heat was so intense he couldn’t get close enough to the back of one of the trucks where he could see men still holding onto their guns, and other equipment. He couldn’t understand why they weren’t moving. “ I thought to myself, what are they doing in there? Why aren’t they getting out? “ Ron said.
Ron never forgot seeing a man in a U.S. uniform, a member of the Liberator crew, walk out of the burning wreckage and stand to attention in front of an officer of the 2/33rd Battalion, Lieutenant Ray Whitfield, O.C. of C Company and ask: “Is there anything I can do sir?” The man dropped dead at the officer’s feet minutes later.

Two of the Liberator’s 500lb bombs that exploded on impact killed 14 of 21 men in one truck alone. A third bomb exploded minutes later, killing some of those trying to rescue victims from the inferno.
Ron recalled seeing the fourth unexploded 500-pound bomb wedged under one of the C Company trucks. It was then Ron heard one of the officers yell: “Get the bloody hell out of here. She’s going to blow!” Ron and mates trying to help the injured did just that. Luckily the bomb didn’t detonate.
Later in the day most of the survivors, including Ron, were airlifted to Nadzab ready to join the attack on Lae. “ We just had to keep on going”, he said. Ron had many other brushes with death in the heavy fighting in the months that followed in Papua, New Guinea and Borneo. Ron had joined the war as 19-year-old.
Born at Queenbeyan on December 12, 1922, he was one of two children of Augustus and Mary Ethel Bean. His sibling was older sister, Hazel. Ron never knew his father. He was only 15 months old when Augustus, a World War I veteran and a groom at the Duntroon Military College in Canberra died after being struck by a car while riding his bicycle home in the dark after a fishing trip. He was 25.
Mary remarried the following year to Canberra man Leo Stanley Harrington. They had eight children. Ron always got on well with his new stepbrothers and sisters.
He and Hazel went to school at Molongolo. At the age of 13, during the Depression years, Ron earned pocket money helping deliver milk by horse and sulky around the Red Hill area. At 17 he became an apprentice pastry cook at the Top Hat Cafe in Manuka.
He enlisted in the Army on December 13, 1941, the day after his 19th birthday. He trained at Dubbo and Bathurst before joining the 2/33rd Battalion.
Although he narrowly escaped death many times during the war, the closest he came to dying was in July 1944 when accidentally injured in a friendly football match and was taken to hospital. A nurse saved his life after he blacked out and swallowed his tongue.
Ron enlisted at Paddington. He was still in training when the 2/33rd Battalion, not long home from the Middle East after victories over the Vichy French in Syria, left for the Owen Stanleys campaign where the Battalion suffered heavy losses. He was one of 300 replacements taken by ship to Port Moresby to join the fighting at Gona, by which time the exhausted battalion had been reduced to less than a quarter of its strength after 98 days of fighting on the Kokoda Trail. However, it was withdrawn from battle the day the 300 arrived. All the troops returned to Ravenshoe for rest, rebuilding and further training.
When the battalion went into action after the Liberator crash Ron, attached to 10 Platoon B Company, was given the highly dangerous duty as a runner.

His job was to deliver important messages backwards and forwards on foot between the companies and platoons during battle, risking his life many times when having to retrace his steps through or past enemy lines, rifle in hand a pack on his back, and often with bullets whizzing around him. On one occasion he saved many men from certain death by warning their officer they were heading into a Japanese ambush.
He and other members of B Company had been walking along a dry creek bed when the Japanese opened fire on them from about 100 metres away, killing one man, NX87497 Johnny Wade.
The O.C. of B Company Major David MacDougal immediately ordered Ron to race back past enemy lines to warn the companies following that the Japanese were waiting for them.
Ron’s grandson, Tim Bean, recalled: “Pop remembered running back along the dry creek bed as fast as he could with his head down trying to avoid being seen and shot at. He heard one man call out: “Hey Beaney, Where are you going?”. Pop knew it had to be his close mate, Les Rodwell. Unfortunately, Pop wasn’t lucky enough to go unnoticed as he had enemy fire whistling past his head, left right and centre.” He finally reached the approaching companies, almost out of breath from running.
Ron himself recalled: “I sat down at the top of a hill panting, trying to give the officer the message not do go down the creek but to veer left and go around the embankment.” His bravery in relaying the message under enemy fire saved many lives. His great sense of humour in such stressful and dangerous situations was his way of hiding the hurt and bad memories of war.
After returning to his platoon that day he said: “It was the first time I had done it.”
“Done what ?” he was asked.
“It was the first time a bullet passed me twice. It passed me then I passed it,” he replied.
After nearly five years of service Ron was discharged from the Army on May 20, 1946, and returned to his former work as pastry cook at the Top Hat Cafe, where in December,1947, he met his
future wife, Evelyn May Wightman, who lived in Sydney, but was in Canberra visiting friends.
After a courtship of nearly nine months Ron still hadn’t proposed. Evelyn, boldly, took matters into her own hands while on a ferry trip on Sydney Harbour. “Do you want to marry me,” she asked. “I suppose so,” Ron replied. They married in August, 1948, in Scot’s Kirk, Mosman. They had a girl and three boys, one, Russell, is the father of 2/33rd Battalion Association committee member, Tim Bean.
After getting married Ron got tired of working indoors at the Top Hat Café bakery. He became a labourer and truck driver for a Canberra builder, and later started Canberra’s second floor-sanding and cleaning business.
He retired in 1984 after 32 years in business. One of his last jobs was sanding and polishing the floors of he National Gallery.
Ron died in 2017, aged 94