It is about the dramatic 1932 event in which the German seaplane Atlantis was forced down in the remote north-west Kimberley of Western Australia and two men endured 33 days before they were found.
Of particular Northern Territory interest is the fact that a member of the police search party was bushman Tom Ronan who became an author and Territory politician . He is buried along with his wife at Springvale homestead , near Katherine , bought in 1949. Despite Springvale's well found to be radioactive , they had 10 children
While residing at Springvale he wrote four novels , his father's biography, Deep of the Sky , and two volumes of an autobiography, Packhorse and Pearling Boat and Once There was a Swagman .
Ronan won a Commonwealth Jubilee Literary Competition in l951 with his novel Vision Splendid . His wife, Moya , who had written for radio, helped edit Tom's books , said to have provided "the most authentic and probably liveliest writing about life in the North-West river country ."
Tom left school at 14 , went droving with his father . From 1942 he spent four years as a ship's clerk and pearlshell opener at Broome . Later he helped his father and Mat Wilson run the Victoria River depot on Koonbook Station.
