Matt Keogh received a bravery medal after he risked his life to save his colleagues and boat people during the Siev 36 incident in 2009. Source: Supplied
IN this second extract from Too Bold To Die: The Making of Australian War Heroes by News Corp Australia's national defence writer Ian McPhedran chronicles the bravery of Matt Keogh who led a boarding party on to the ill-fated "Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel'' 36 in 2009.
BURNING BRIDGES
Matt Keogh understood just how dangerous his situation on the deck of the burning vessel was, but he also knew that he had to be sure everyone was safely off the boat that would later make headlines as SIEV 36.
The leading seaman and his crewmates on board the navy's Armidale Class patrol boat HMAS Childers were in a deep sleep after a long boarding operation on a foreign fishing vessel near Ashmore Reef in the Timor Sea when the boat's alarm sounded action stations.
Childers was due to take over the towing of the latest Indonesian fishing vessel from HMAS Albany at 6am, to deliver a load of desperate asylum seekers to Australian shores. But the alarm meant that something had gone seriously wrong.
Ian McPhedran's Too Bold To Die features the story of Matt Keogh and many other unsung heroes of our armed forces.
As Keogh shook off the fatigue and made his way on deck, the Childers' executive officer briefed him on what was going on with the fishing boat, officially known as Suspected Irregular Entry Vessel (SIEV) Number 36 for 2009.
Once on deck he saw a small boat about 30 metres away jam-packed with people. The boarding officer from the Albany was standing on top of the fishing boat's wheelhouse trying to calm a very agitated crowd. Keogh assembled his own boarding team and launched one of his patrol boat's two powerful rigid hull inflatable boats (RHIBs).
As the RHIB sped towards SIEV 36, the Albany's boarding officer briefed him by radio. He wanted Keogh's team to try to quell the Afghan passengers, who had been told by a ringleader that the navy was going to turn them around and send them back to Indonesia. There had already been one incident involving threats by an asylum seeker to set the boat alight with a cigarette lighter. With petrol fumes seeping from every crack in the vessel, the situation was worsening by the second.
Fully kitted out with side arms, helmets, body armour and life jackets, Keogh's team boarded the boat on the starboard side.
Just 90 seconds after they scrambled onto the rickety, overcrowded vessel and begun trying to calm the situation, a huge explosion occurred. He remembers seeing the whole deck pop up and immense flames come straight out of it, then hearing a big bang.
"It was kind of a big whoosh,' he says. 'We got the shock of the actual explosion as well; I remember ducking away from it. I felt like I'd been horse-kicked. Lucky I was wearing [body armour], because I probably would have cracked a rib from the blast."
Leading Seaman Boatswains Mate Matt Keogh, Ardent Four, wears full boarding party kit whilst in HMAS Childers' Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat (RHIB).
Keogh describes the scene as utter bedlam. The water was littered with debris, burning fuel, and drowning and panicking people.
"It was phenomenal: the amount of debris and screams was intense, absolutely intense."
One man emerged from the wheelhouse engulfed in flames from head to toe before he jumped into the water.
"I remember looking out in the water and there was shit everywhere, absolutely everywhere, and there was fire on the water and people screaming, people splashing. And I remember an old guy that I couldn't save, he drowned in front of me," he says.
"There was a whole heap of people around him and they basically took him under. I was trying to move him away and ripped the chair out of the wheelhouse that was on fire and gave it to him, but that kind of just melted off my hand. I was kicking the boat, trying to break off some wood to give him something to hold on to."
As the fire took hold that night in the Timor Sea, Keogh was sure that most of his boarding party, and all 44 of the fishing boat's passengers and crew, were now in the water. Only he and two of his shipmates remained on board.
His immediate concern was for his two shipmates. One was on fire, so he helped him into the water, and the second was in a lot of pain from a broken ankle. Fortunately Keogh himself was not badly injured. He managed to jump into one of the RHIBs, then he accounted for all the boarding team and set about conducting the rescue.
"Once it [SIEV 36] exploded, there was nothing. The whole fucking boat was gone, it was just flames mainly, ten to 15 feet high," Keogh says.
The navy sailors were criticised during the subsequent coronial inquiry for helping their shipmates first, but that is what they are trained to do. It is also instinctive to assist your friends first and that is precisely what the sailors would do if confronted with the same scenario again.
"You've got to remember they are your family at sea and anyone that goes through that stuff, you just automatically do it. You've got to look after your mates. I was happy to take a hit for that if anything came out of it."
Fortunately nothing did and after some initial criticism from lawyers and the media the sailors received universal praise for the way they handled the initial response.
The criticism had included some reports that sailors had kicked away Afghan asylum seekers as they attempted to save their shipmates. Keogh says that definitely happened, but if it hadn't, then some sailors would almost certainly have been drowned by groups of panicked boat people who could not swim and were not wearing life jackets.
Many of the victims had drifted towards the Childers and the patrol boat's crew were also using ropes and rafts to get people out of the water. "I remember the XO [executive officer] telling me he tried to pull one guy out of the water and his whole skin came off his arms," he says.
Keogh's RHIB delivered the injured sailors, including the boarding officer, who had been blown many metres from the roof of the wheelhouse by the explosion, back to Childers for medical attention before it joined the rescue effort with the boat's second RHIB and two from HMAS Albany, which had arrived back on the scene.
By the time the rescue was over, the sailors had 39 survivors and three bodies on board the Childers. Two of the dead could not be found.
The tiny quarterdeck of the 56-metre-long patrol boat was transformed into an overcrowded triage area, and its garbage compartment, the coolest place on board, became a makeshift morgue.
Keogh says the scene on the boat was surreal, with people crying and screaming and others in shock. The ship's medical officer, RAAF Flight Lieutenant Jo Darby, treated the most seriously injured with the assistance of medic Corporal Sharon Jager and other crew members, including Keogh, who stayed with the injured for ten hours until they were transferred onto the floating oil platform Front Puffin.
He describes the work done by Jo Darby in treating 39 injured people, including many with critical burns and fractures, with limited medical supplies, as 'absolutely outstanding'.
She received a commander's commendation for her efforts that reads, in part: "Your actions were exemplary. Individual and collective acts of courage, compassion and bravery were embedded within a gargantuan team effort in the face of overwhelming circumstances. It is a testament to your efforts that every person recovered alive from the water that morning survived."
For non-medical people such as Matt Keogh, the stench of burning flesh and the constant screams of the injured and traumatised over a ten-hour period made for a very intense experience after what they had already been through.
Another aspect of the event that amazed him was the activation of the national response. In short order a RAAF Orion aircraft was dropping vital medical and other supplies to the Childers and a Customs vessel was on the scene to render assistance.
"It was stuff you see in the movies. It was phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal, yeah. Then even Customs turned up at one stage - all these government departments just activating; it's good to see. You bitch and moan about everything, but when something happens and they all start helping it's a really good feeling."
After the injured were transferred, the Childers set course for Darwin and the 28-hour cruise back to base at HMAS Coonawarra.
That journey is a bit of a blur for Keogh, with a combination of physical and emotional exhaustion, adrenalin and dehydration knocking him and the other sailors flat.
Listening to his interview tapes and reading his statements later on, he realised that he had been virtually running on empty.
"I remember reading some of my statements from the federal police and all that, and listening to the radio; you can just hear it in your voice, you are just so shattered, you just don't even know what you are talking about," he says.
Keogh says he has no lasting ill effects from the traumatic experience with SIEV 36. He has conducted numerous boardings since and while he doesn't like to think about what happened that day, he is heartened by the response of the entire team.
"I remember one guy, an air crew man, Norton his name was, he was there for six hours holding IV drips. It's a mediocre job, but he stood there for six hours holding drips. That to me was absolutely phenomenal."
With typical modesty he even puts his own decision to stay on board the burning boat down to his training.
"There was probably a tenth of a second where I was shell-shocked and then bang, it just clicks."
Apart from training, there is no doubt that something far deeper kicks in when human beings such as Matt Keogh decide that their own safety is secondary to the greater good.
"I believe everyone's got it, I believe everyone would have done the same and I have no doubt that one of my boys would have done the same if I was hurt or if I got blown off and they knew no one else was there," he says.
"I think I made the decision because I knew I was the last one there. Someone had to stay there to make sure everyone was off, they had to make sure that all their mates were safe."
The entire crew of the Childers received the ADF Gold Group commendation for their efforts that day. Matt Keogh was singled out for his courage by being awarded the Bravery Medal, given for acts of bravery in hazardous circumstances.
"I am a very big believer that day shouldn't be highlighted by one person and I do get frustrated when they don't acknowledge other people. The rescue itself, and looking after the guys, that was horrendous. And there were young guys, actually there was one guy, a young seaman, he was from Cerberus [training college] and he'd got a ride on our boat just to come out and have a look and that was one of his first experiences. You've got to feel sorry
for someone like that."
On the positive side, the young sailor witnessed the outstanding work of Keogh and his shipmates and that was reflected in one of the many letters Matt received following his award from the navy chief, Vice-Admiral Russ Crane.
"Your efforts to calm the tense situation and avert an emergency of the kind that eventuated are an outstanding example to our junior members of the qualities we need in the most trying of circumstances," Crane wrote.
"Your courage and tireless energy in response to the explosion and over the many hours that passed until all casualties could be evacuated showed great fortitude and determination, but it is your selfless efforts to save the injured passengers in the water, while remaining on the burning boat until the end, which inspires us all."
As he stood on the tiny quarterdeck of HMAS Wollongong in Cairns Harbour in 2012, preparing for another long patrol on Operation Resolute, Matt Keogh reflected on the events of April 2009 and the impact they have had on him.
The father of three believes that his actions that day were about personal responsibility and the safety of his mates.
"I'd rather something happen to me than them, and I think I'm always that way," he says. "Sometimes you've got to take that decision and once you make that decision you have to stand by it."
Too Bold To Die By Ian McPhedran
Published: 1 September 2013
RRP: $29.99
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