Airdate: Croker Island Exodus

Next week ABC1 screens Croker Island Exodus, a documentary on an event that took place in 1941, when 95 Aboriginal children were evacuated from Darwin and travelled 3000 miles from Croker Island in the Arafura Sea to Sydney.

This will include dramatisations directed by Steven McGregor, written by Danielle MacLean & Steven McGregor from Tamarind Tree Pictures.

As the Japanese bomb Australia’s north, 95 Aboriginal children and their missionary carers make a remarkable journey to safety across the Australian continent. This ‘little’ party sets off on a journey that takes them from Croker Island through Arnhem Land to a Methodist farm at Otford on the edge of Sydney. They travel for 44 days covering 3,000 miles by foot, boat, canoe, truck and train. This is their story, in their own words: a truly heroic and untold journey.

1941, all white women and children are evacuated from Darwin. Japanese invasion is imminent. On a tiny Methodist mission on Croker Island in the Arafura Sea, the Superintendent and three Cottage mothers are responsible for 95 Aboriginal children allocated to their care by the government. The missionary women are given the option of evacuating but how could they abandon these children who have been placed in their care? However food supplies are running dangerously low and no help comes through the long wet season.

February 1942, a message by pedal radio; Darwin has been bombed, the missionaries will now have to move the children off the island themselves.

So they begin their perilous journey.

This production was produced by Anna Grieve & Danielle MacLean.

It was developed in association with CAAMA Productions, developed and produced with the assistance of National Geographic All Roads Film Project, Dept of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs Aboriginals Benefit Account.

8:30pm Tuesday November 20 ABC1.