Introduction to Jack Faulkner - Radio Operator of the S.S. Durour 1937

Introduction

Jack Faulkner was born in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1913. As a teenager, he learnt to use radios after joining the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in the Wireless Branch as a wireless telegraphist. He was an active ham radio operator and won a Morse cup in the local club with 37 words per minute all in legible handwriting. While in New Zealand he enrolled in a girls commercial school for a course in touch typing as he realised this would be the way for the future after learning that all American operators used a typewriter to take down the messages sent in Morse. He was laid off work in New Zealand so emigrated to Australia at the age of 19 to try his luck.  He secured various jobs as a radio operator on fishing trawlers mostly out of Sydney.

Aged 24, Jack secured a position as a Radio Operator employed by W.R. Carpenter & Co. Ltd and was sent to New Guinea on the S.S. Montoro in January 1937. He worked on the S.S. Duranbah for four months then on the S.S. Durour. Jack Faulkner had been the Radio Operator on the ship for 10 days when told she was to go into drydock.. She was ready to be put back in the water on Friday 28th May 1937 but the Chief Officer would not order it because Captain Parry was in Rabaul. A volcano erupted out of the harbour just near the drydock on the following afternoon, Saturday 29th May 1937. The ship is still buried under the pumice to this day.
Most of the photos in his eye witness account were taken by Jack Faulkner himself and the descriptions are as he has written them. Only a few pictures were taken from magazines and newspaper articles which he kept all his life. During the eruption, Jack went back to the ship to retrieve his precious camera. This action, however, probably saved his life, as the other people who were in the launch with him ran for the beach and were never seen or heard of again and were presumed to have perished. He managed to get his camera but no film or clothes which were in another cabin, where he had locked them while the ship was under repair. He managed to purchase some film a few days later and was able to take photos just after the major eruption.