Inside story: When the Undertakers and Iroquois bikie gangs went to war at Port Gawler
Two warring bikie gangs set just two rules before they set out to settle their scores – no guns and no knives. Now for the first time one combatant has revealed how the shooting started anyway.
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The only rule of their gentlemen’s agreement was simple – fight without guns or knives.
Instead, about 100 men used chunks of wood studded with nails, spiked balls on chains, nunchucks, pick axe handles and iron pipes during South Australia’s largest organised bikie brawl.
Street gangs rallied to fight for the Undertakers or Iroquois motorcycle clubs as the outfits went to war to settle a long-running feud.
But, at Port Gawler beach on June 7, 1974, not everyone played by the rules.
For the first time, a former Undertaker bikie has spoken about the infamous brawl more than four decades ago, revealing to The Advertiser how the showdown was set up on a sandy battleground.
The man, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the Undertakers were caught in a surprise attack when they arrived in the area about 9pm.
“We couldn’t get in there with motorbikes, so we went there with cars and (Iroquois and Reapers members) were all waiting for us in an ambush,” the man, now in his 60s, said.
“The first thing they did was smash the car headlights and it was already black with no street lights.
“At the time I was driving a Mini Cooper and two guys go flying over the car. There was fists being thrown everywhere.”
Iroquois and Reapers members hid their motorcycles and used saltbushes as camouflage before launching the attack, secretly watching the Undertakers – supported by the Mandamas Motorcycle Club – arrive in a 12-car convoy.
There was no warning of a trap when the Undertakers confronted the Iroquois at the Old Spot Hotel, Salisbury Heights, a week earlier.
“We had a confrontation and we discussed it and said: ‘Well, you want to fight it out? Let’s have a fight’,” the man said.
“At that stage it was civil. There was no punches exchanged. We said: ‘No guns or knives, but everything else went’.
“When you’re young you don’t think (about consequences). You’re heated up, ready to go. They pissed you off so let’s have it out and be done with it.”
But as the Friday night bash drew closer, word spread about the confrontation at Port Gawler – an isolated location used mostly by crabbers and illegal dumpers at the time.
“We heard that some of the Reapers are going to be there (to help the Iroquois), so we recruited a few more fellas to come and help us,” the man said.
“We had the Mandamas Motorcycle Club with us. The Undertakers had about 35 members. It could’ve been 60 or 70 on our side. There were about 100 people at the fight.”
When they did arrive that night, rocks rained down on their windscreens and a car was flipped as members scrambled to escape their vehicles.
“We finally got out of our cars with clubs and chains and got stuck into each other,” the man said.
The mob of armed men slung weapons back and forwards as the brawl spilt towards the water. Then shots were fired.
A man fell to the ground with, what police later estimated to be, 70 shotgun pellets in his body. Several others were sprayed by rogue pellets.
“It was a quick wham bam thank you ma’am, get out of there,” the man said.
“There was a few shots fired around the place and then we got the word the cops were there, so we got out of there.
“(One Undertaker) got a shotgun pellet in the head and chest but he was okay.”
The man peppered with multiple pellets was rushed by friends to a nearby farmhouse on Port Gawler Rd, where a woman opened her door to a bloody group of men.
In a report about the incident the following day in The Advertiser, the woman told reporter Mike O’Reilly the bikies “were actually very nice”.
While most retreated from the area to escape police, up to 40 bikies guarded the farmhouse waiting for paramedics to arrive.
The man was treated for wounds to his chest and neck. He, and another man with a fractured skull, was taken to the Royal Adelaide Hospital.
About the same time, Senior Constable Peter Marr was the first policeman to arrive on the scene.
“I just drove the car and parked it on this little bridge that went across a drain, stopping the bikies from leaving the area,” Mr Marr said.
“I secretly stuck the keys down my leg and told everybody I lost them.
“I tried to do everything to stop them from leaving so we had to let them out one at a time, checking registration and all sorts.”
As bikies found other ways to flee the area, Mr Marr said he caught a “flash of light” out the corner of his eye in a nearby paddock.
“I could see there was people hiding on the ground. I had my gun out and they came out with their hands up,” he said.
“Over this fence, where some of them must have come in, we saw all this stuff on the ground. “There was knuckledusters, knives and firearms. It was terrible stuff we found. There were some cars burning upside down, like they’d been hit by a grenade.”
About 20 people were arrested on the night. Police found shotguns and rifles in the area.
Another 60 people were later arrested.
Hulking detective and professional wrestler Sam Bass attended the scene. He was well-known in Adelaide’s motorcycle community as a former speedway champion.
After the brawl, he joined SA Police’s inaugural ‘Bikie Squad’ – a team dedicated to stamping out gang violence.
In 1994, he told The Advertiser: “We grew long hair and beards, dressed like bikies and rode bikes. Our aim was to monitor the gangs. If they went away, we went with them,” he said.
“We ended up doing ourselves out of a job. There was no further problem (with gangs) and the Bikie Squad was disbanded in 1978.” Mr Bass died in 2018.
Less than two years later, some original members of the Undertakers left the club.
“It was changing, the dynamics were changing,” the man said.
“The younger lot were coming in and they wanted to impress. There was more fights, and fights between new members and old members.
“The same thing happened with the Iroquois. The new lot of lads came through and I thought: ‘time to go’.”
Throughout the 70s, the Reapers, Iroquois, Barbarians, Finks and Undertakers were the most active motorcylce clubs in Adelaide.
Originally published as Inside story: When the Undertakers and Iroquois bikie gangs went to war at Port Gawler
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