Hear an incredible story of a 12-year-old boy who managed to get to Australia in 1946 by hiding underneath an aeroplane.


MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: The launch of a new air service between Darwin and Kupang, provincial capital of West Timor, is a reminder of the links that have long existed between the two cities.

Guest of honour, Bas Wie, is now in his 70s.

For him, this is a reminder of a remarkable escape from Kupang to Darwin nearly 60 years ago.

BAS WIE: I didn't know there was any other country out there, really, at my age, you know.

MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: Once in Darwin, Bas Wie struck up a friendship with Ted Egan who's now the Northern Territory's administrator.

Bas Wie used to live at Government House as a teenager, and Ted Egan's invited him back to celebrate a great survival story.

Bas Wie grew up on the tiny island of Savu, west of Timor.

He was 12 years old in August 1946 when he stowed away on a Dutch Air Force DC-3 aeroplane on a flight from Kupang to Darwin.

Bas Wie was taken in by the Northern Territory administrator of the day, and was later befriended by a young Ted Egan who'd come to Darwin for work and adventure.

TED EGAN: I would've first met Bas while he was living at Government House.

And he had a good whimsical sense of humour, which he still has, and he fitted in perfectly.

The only distinguishing factor about him were the immense scars on his back.

MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: Those immense scars were incurred during the 3-hour flight to Darwin.

Bas Wie, desperate to flee postwar Timor, had squeezed into the wheel well of the DC-3 while it was parked on the ground at Kupang.

BAS WIE: Nobody looking, I just climb up there and hang on.

They took off and the wheel start to come up and I'm running out of room, the room is getting smaller and smaller -- nothing there.

And I was was trying to scream and I thought it a waste of time because they can't hear me anyway.

MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: It was dark by the time the DC-3 landed at RAAF base Darwin.

As the duty officer that night, Jim Fleming checked out the plane for its overnight stop.

JIM FLEMING: I just put the torch up and had a look and there was a body, pushed up against the bulk head.

He'd been burnt very badly on one side around his back from the exhaust of the aeroplane where he was, and frozen on the other side.

But he was completely unconscious. His eyes had rolled back so they were two white orbs looking at us, and I thought he was dead.

MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: Bas Wie's life story is now written into Northern Territory history.

An educational display at his old home, Government House in Darwin, describes his escape to a new life.

And it's a constant reminder of an old mate for the Territory's new administrator.