Black Sunday Rescues

It was February 6, 1938, at the height of the surfing season. People began to arrive early. As the morning wore on the trams coming down through the cutting became more and more crowded. The various paths across the vast lawn to the beachfront became busy with continuous one-way trek. Upwards of 60,000 people were crowded amid the riot of coloured beach umbrellas. Black heads dotted the two main surfing areas between the flags and spilling into the not-so-safe territory nearby. Patrolmen's whistles shrilled their warning to the careless and reckless. Lifesavers helped a steady stream of surfers who managed to get into trouble.

Inshore, a fairly wide channel had formed between the wading bathers at the water's edge and swimmers on the sandbank. Hundreds of swimmers had been out there for some time. Towards 3 o'clock, however, some swimmers who were trying to get out to the sandbank found the going too rugged and turned back. They were the lucky ones.

At 3 o'clock the outlook changed within a few moments. A giant wave swelled out of nowhere to tower ahead of the sandbank and then break over it. Surfers yelled and screamed with dismay, but at first it was in a spirit of fun rather than fear.

A second freak wave broke over the sandbank to wash more surfers into the channel. The deep water was boiling with fury now, from which scores of swimmers struggled to escape. That final blow collapsed the sandbank and left hundreds of swimmers floundering in chaos.

Lifesavers rushed into action, but before the beltman could do little more than splash into the water, 300 people were being swept out to sea by the run-out of those three giant waves. Then commenced the greatest mass rescue in history of surfing. Thirty lifesavers who had been lining up for a practice surf race dashed to the help of the men on patrol. Other surf club men came streaming from the club house, some fully dressed. North Bondi men came running from their end of the beach to help, bringing extra reels. Soon there were 80 lifesavers at work. But it was a difficult job. Beltmen reaching the struggling swimmers were mobbed from all sides and badly hampered. Weakened and sometimes panicking men and women clung to the lines between beach and beltmen.

The lifesavers worked tirelessly and without let-up, bringing in patients and battling back through the surf to look for more. One lifesaver manned a surf ski and used it to bring in patient after patient.

Throughout the rescue, anxious, often hysterical people milled about on the beach, uncertain about the fate of missing and loved ones. Among those treated by ambulance men was a young mother in a state of collapse, though it turned out later that her two children had not been in the surf and had merely been lost in confusion on the beach.

When at last the sea had been cleared of the stricken surfers, resuscitation work still went on. Forty-two people had been brought in unconscious. Of these, four men did not survive. Hours later it was established that another man was missing. During the mass rescue, radio news flashes had told of what was happening and sent hordes of local people flocking to the beach.

It was late by the time the club member's job was finished and the unfortunate dead were taken away. Exhausted lifesavers lay wearily on the sand to recuperate. Spectators marvelled at what they had witnessed.

Later, when told that Australian lifesavers were unpaid and did their great work simply as a service to the community, an American was moved to say to the newspaperman - "There are no men anywhere in the world like your lifesavers".

At an inquest into the death of the drowned men, the Coroner warmly commended the great work done on the beaches by the pick of the Australian manhood.

Of 300 people swept to sea all but one were brought back to the beach. Of the 42 who were recovered unconscious, all but four were resuscitated. It was a superb lifesaving achievement.