This video was made possible by Skillshare. Learn with Skillshare for free for two months
by being one of the first 500 to sign up at the link below. Hey, remember the British Empire? It was pretty cool for a very small and select
number of individuals. In 1943, Australia was part of it… and so
was India… and Pakistan… and Sri Lanka which was then called Ceylon… and sort of
Singapore too. The British had plenty of territories all
around the world because, remember, the sun never sets on the British Empire… unless
the year is 2018. Back in 1943, though, there was a small disagreement
going on between Germany, Italy (but not really), and Japan and the rest of the world…ish. Just like Dre, Kony, and New Zealand, people
sometimes seem to forget that World War Two didn’t just exist in Europe. Japan was actually really good at killing
and other war things and they quickly swallowed up huge amounts of territory. Soon the Japanese got to Singapore which was
neither crazy, rich, or really Asian at the time since it too was part of the British
Empire… except not anymore. It was Japanese now. To this the Australians went “crikey,”
since they were sure they were next since the country was far to large to successfully
defend. To this the Japanese went, “bakana no”
since they assumed that Australia was far too large to successfully invade. Their plan was rather to cut off Australia
from its sugar daddy, the US, by advancing eastwards into the Pacific, but the fall of
Singapore also meant that Australia was then cut off from the UK and vice versa as that’s
where the planes of the time, which had tiny ranges compared to those of today, stopped
to refuel. This meant that the fastest mail could move,
which was a crucial means of communications, was by boat which would take months between
the two sides of the world. So, in summary, all of this area was occupied
by Japan, this area was getting invaded by Japan, this area was nothing, and this area
was a slightly lesser degree of nothing so where were they supposed to go? To spac… actually, no. They’d go this way. It was figured that planes could just barely
reach the southern tip of Sri Lanka, then a British territory, thereby reconnecting
the route between Australia and the UK. It was a stretch, though. Over 4,000 miles separated Perth, the only
major city in Western Australia, from Sri Lanka. The Cocos Islands, between Australia and Sri
Lanka did successfully exist at the time and they were part of the Empire, like absolute
everything, but the Brits sort of wanted Japan to forget about them. The islands were where the telegraph line
from Australia to the UK went through and they really needed the telegraph line in order
to send funny gifs and military orders so they decided not to draw attention to the
islands by having the passenger flights stop there—it could get very bomb-y if they did. The decision was therefore made to fly the
4,000 miles between Perth and Sri Lanka non-stop even though this was hundreds of miles longer
than the longest non-stop flight at the time. The aircraft that Qantas would use to make
the trip were PBY Catalinas—small seaplanes that normally could not fly 4,000 miles non-stop
but, by taking out all but essential equipment and adding in auxiliary fuel tanks it could
just barely make the trip. However, because of how much all this fuel
weighed, they could only take three passengers and 152 pounds of mail on each trip. These planes could fly no faster than 140
miles per hour so the trips were long. Being designed for far more passengers the
planes were spacious enough but exceedingly noisy and they were at risk to be shot down
at any moment so the trip probably wasn’t the most relaxing. For much of the flight, the plane was within
the range of Japanese warplanes based in occupied Indonesia so they scheduled the fight very
carefully. It would take off from Perth in the early
morning, before sunrise, fly north throughout the day, then it would enter into the area
that could be reached by Japanese planes as the sun set so they could sneak through in
the cover of darkness before landing in Sri Lanka the next morning after, at best, 28
hours in the air. Because those on this flight would witness
two sunrises while in the air it earned the nickname of, “the Double Sunrise flight.” From Sri Lanka, the passengers and cargo would
travel overland to Karachi where they would board BOAC planes for the rest of the journey
to London. Throughout the war, 271 Double Sunrise flights
were made carrying 648 passengers and almost 40,000 pounds of mail and cargo without incident. On one of these flights, unfavorable winds
meant that that the trip took a full 32 hours and 9 minutes which entered that record books
as the longest duration commercial flight ever—a record that still stands today. If World War Three erupts, all modern passenger
planes are destroyed, and we go back to using Catalinas to link Australia to Sri Lanka you’re
going to have to deal with a lot of difficulties the most significant of which will be the
fact that Catalinas have no in-flight entertainment or wifi. Calm down, it’s ok, though, because Skillshare’s
iOS and Android apps allow you to download any of their more than 20,000 classes offline. If there’s something you want to learn Skillshare
probably has a class on it. For the impending post-war nuclear wasteland,
you can learn things like how to make fire, give CPR, and make enchiladas. They also have courses on things more applicable
for today’s world like the course on “How to Make an Animated YouTube Video” by the
great YouTuber PolyMatter. Just because Skillshare loves you so much,
the first 500 people to sign up at skl.sh/hai17 will get to learn for free for their first
two months so get learning today at skl.sh/hai17.
