Hero of Tasman Bridge disaster, Royse Davies, was spurred to action by Hollywood movie star

Royse Davies was awarded a Bravery Medal for saving the lives of his mates when the SS Lake Illawarra collided with the Tasman Bridge. A movie star also played a part in his heroism.

Royse Rowe Davies was given a bravery award after he helped rescue crew from the Lake Illawarra after it crashed into the Tasman Bridge on January 5, 1975. The entry cards for the ceremony where Queen Elizabeth II presented the award at Government House in Canberra.

One of the heroes of the Tasman Bridge disaster, the late Royse Davies, believed two things saved his life that fateful night – Hollywood movie star Dean Martin and one sharp intake of breath.

A marine engineer from Lake Macquarie, Royse received a Bravery Medal from Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of a courageous act which saw him venture down to the engine room of the sinking SS Lake Illawarra to alert his mates to the danger they were in.

Had he not made the effort, four of his colleagues would likely have perished.

Royse Rowe Davies was given a bravery award after he helped rescue crew from the Lake Illawarra after it crashed into the Tasman Bridge on January 5, 1975.

Royse’s daughter Joanne Davies, of Newcastle, said her father simply did what felt natural in the moment and he didn’t set out to be a hero.

And if it wasn’t for a famous crooner, he may not even have made it out of the wreck alive.

“The anecdotal story is that Dean Martin … saved my Dad’s life. That’s what Dad always said because he never watched a lot of television and he would normally have been sound asleep in his cabin at 9.30pm because his shift started at midnight,” Joanne told the Sunday Tasmanian.

PICTURES: The Tasman Bridge disaster gallery

“But this particular night on the TV, there was a Dean Martin movie on, so he changed his routine and had gone up to the smoking room to watch the movie and so he was wide awake.”

Joanne, who was 11 when the catastrophe occurred, never learned the name of the movie that was playing and said the men who were gathered around the television got a shock when they began to hear loud bumping noises outside.

Royse Rowe Davies was given a bravery award after he helped rescue crew from the Lake Illawarra after it crashed into the Tasman Bridge on January 5, 1975. Pictured is his wife Joyce and daughter Joanne viewing a telegram telling him of his award.

It was 9.27pm on January 5, 1975. The ship, which was carrying zinc concentrate, had struck pylon 19 of the Tasman Bridge.

“The men that Dad was watching the movie with ran out to the deck and realised something serious was happening,” Joanne said. “And Dad said his immediate thought and discussion with somebody was the men in the engine room. There’d been no warning sound to warn them that the ship was sinking.”

“So he thought, ‘I’ve got to let them know’. He ran back to his cabin to grab a torch because he thought the lights were going to go out and he needed to get around in the dark.”

As Royse bolted to the engine room, a life jacket he was carrying got caught on a hand railing in the corridor. After a few frantic seconds trying to prise it free, he gave up and continued on his way, determined to bring word to his friends.

“He yelled out at the top of his voice, ‘Get out! She’s sinking. Get out!’ He said it about four times … and tried to make eye contact with the men. And then he turned around and ran off,” Joanne said.

Royse Davies and daughter Joanne at an investiture ceremony at Government House in Canberra in 1976, where he was awarded a Bravery Medal for his courageous act during the Tasman Bridge disaster. Picture: Supplied

“He said he turned back and looked and they were following him. And they all survived.

“They would have thought [the bumps] were just [the ship hitting] tugs and probably would have delayed doing anything and that might have made it impossible for them to get out had they been there much longer.”

When the ship went down, Royse and the other 41 crew members of the Lake Illawarra were plunged into the frigid waters of the River Derwent, where they fought for their lives.

“Dad said to me he knew there was a twin engine [on the ship] and that there’d be two implosions and they would get sucked down twice,” Joanne said.

“He got sucked down and he remembered quite well trying to swim back up after that and getting one breath … before he got sucked down again. So the two things he said that saved his life were Dean Martin and that one breath that was enough to sustain him for the next time he was submerged.”

Historic front page of the Hobart Mercury from January 6, 1975 reporting the Tasman Bridge collapse on the evening of January 5, 1975.

After about 30 minutes in the water, Royse was picked up by a resident of the Eastern Shore in a sailing vessel.

“Dad did heap praise on the locals for coming out [onto the Derwent]. They were brave to come out in the dark to try and pick people up,” Joanne said.

Back at Lake Macquarie, Joanne and her mother, Joyce, endured an agonising hours-long wait to hear if Royse had survived.

Finally, they received a call from him in the early hours of January 6, telling them he was OK.

Mere weeks after the disaster, Royse returned to work. His daughter said his job even took him back to the site of the sinking of the Lake Illawarra, which claimed the lives of 12 of his co-workers.

JANUARY 6, 1975: Cars shown hanging over the edge of the Tasman Bridge in Hobart 06/01/75.

“Imagine if you’re down in the engine room knowing that you’re heading towards the Tasman Bridge and the other ship is still down there,” Joanne said.

In 1976, Joanne accompanied her father to an investiture ceremony at Government House in Canberra, where the Queen personally awarded him a Bravery Medal.

“It was a very, very proud moment,” she said.

Royse Davies died of cancer in 1986. He was 56.

Joanne is in Hobart to participate in the official commemorations to mark the 50th anniversary of the Tasman Bridge disaster.

“I was thrilled to hear that there was a memorial service happening and … that it’s still in people’s memories,” she said.

“For me, it’s still part of my life, even if it was 50 years ago.”

The shift a young police officer will never forget

Young Hobart police officer Pat Marshall reported for duty about 90 minutes after the Lake Illawarra hit the Tasman Bridge.

Despite the passage of 50 years, he clearly recalls the unusual duties he found himself involved in over the next 24 hours.

“The day the bridge went down, I started work at 11pm and was sent down to the morgue to take an inventory of the bodies that came in,” Mr Marshall said.

“At that stage no bodies had come in from the vehicles, only two of the crew who had drowned off the Illawarra.”

Working with the mortuary attendant, he recorded the personal effects of those initial victims of the disaster.

Pat Marshall of New Norfolk was a young police officer working on the night of the Tasman Bridge disaster on January 5, 1975. Picture: Damian Bester

The next morning, Mr Marshall was dropped off at Risdon Cove to manage the vastly increased traffic using Old Beach Rd to get to and from the city.

“I didn’t knock off after night shift, I was just taken out and dropped at the Risdon Cove bridge to do traffic duty.

“The only way by road was out via Bridgewater, and at Risdon Cove I believe it was a narrow wooden bridge that now needed traffic control,” he said.

“I think it was a one-lane bridge and that was why I was there – Old Beach Rd was still a dirt road at that stage.”

He was left on his own all day, with a police radio as his only equipment. “I was there with no lunch, and a lady in a weatherboard house on the hill sent her young daughter down with a Thermos of tea and some sandwiches.”

Police scour the waters below the collapse the day after the disaster.

Mr Marshall said he believed the family was named Williams and they had an apricot orchard. “I would like to meet them again if possible, to say thanks.”

Mr Marshall joined the police force as a 16-year-old junior constable in 1971. In an eventful final year with Tasmania Police, he had also guarded Westerway railway station for the visit of the then Prince Charles in 1974 and helped in the aftermath at the Mount St Canice explosion.

Soon after, he changed careers and served the Tasmania Fire Service as a firefighter in Hobart for 20 years. After a year off seeing Australia, he became a remote area firefighter with the Parks and Wildlife Service for a decade, and then became the Clarence City Council’s fire management officer for 20 years.

Also a successful axeman in years gone by, he now lives in retirement at New Norfolk.

- DAMAIN BESTER

Originally published as Hero of Tasman Bridge disaster, Royse Davies, was spurred to action by Hollywood movie star