Rock and Tempest: Surviving Cyclone Tracy and its Aftermath

by Patricia Collins

When Cyclone Tracy flattened Darwin on Christmas Day 1974, it was the worst natural disaster Australians had ever experienced. Stationed in the city with the Women's Royal Australian Naval Service, Patricia Collins not only lived through Tracy but was part of the massive clean-up effort. This is her extraordinary story.

The experience of living through a terrifying natural disaster is chillingly told by Collins as she recounts her own dark hours that Christmas, along with those of her contemporaries. They sat huddled in doorways and bathtubs as the winds raged, lifting off roofs, picking up cars and sinking ships. Most of the city was destroyed. Seventy-one people died.

The Navy suffered terrible losses. A patrol boat was sunk with the loss of two crewmen and another was driven onto rocks. A sailor lost his wife and two children, and another lost his young son.

In the days after Tracy, the majority of Darwin's population was evacuated interstate as the Navy's Task Force arrived to clean up and rebuild. Collins was there as a survivor of Tracy and now an integral part of the recovery.

Rock and Tempest contains astonishing first-person accounts of terror and uncertainty as well as courage and survival. It is fascinating and moving, and absolutely essential reading.

347 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 26, 2024

Reviews

[Bethany Hope · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was an interesting read, to learning not only about Tracy, but about the clean up efforts, and about the WRANS as a whole. The father of one of my childhood friends survived the cyclone and was evacuated south with his family. I thought about him a lot while reading this, and I hope he’s doing alright.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy to read, heartfelt description of how the WRANS in Darwin dealt with Cyclone Tracy in 1974 and its aftermath, as told from a personal perspective by the author.
Thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Rhonda · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that haunts for a number of reasons. I remember where I was when I first heard a radio report of Darwin being hit by a cyclone, but also, oddly, not hearing much afterwards in the days that followed, or knowing since. There was a strange silence, though it was also pre internet. Still. This work fills that gap. It is an amazing story of people struggling to deal with absolutely horrifying conditions. There is a strong emphasis on the navys involvement, understandable as it is also the record of one of the Wrans, the Womens Royal Australian Naval Service that were in Darwin in the hours leading up to Cyclone Tracey. Though references to civilian experiences takes up less of the writing the civilian presence is there through the exhaustion and the tragedy the navy men and women faced and dealt with as they raced into action not just to clean up, simutaneousy dealing with their own responses to the sheer enormity of what they had endured and the task they were now facing. The first response, as with an accident, first being to provide urgent immediate aid to the many wounded, the bodies and the uninjured mostly now homeless and needing to be safe and basic needs met. Though cleaning up did play a central role in terms of rotting food and dangerous structures. The work goes on to describe what happened to naval personnel who were there after Tracey too, which was unexpected reading, and which this work succeeds in bringing to my attention, unpleasanty, also. Overall, reading it was like watching a movie, bringing people and events to life, and providing a fly on the wall view of both the successes, moments of humour, heartbreak and horrors all Darwinians endured. I hope many read it.

[Lesley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just read this on the recommendation of a friend because of the 50th Anniversary of Cyclone Tracy. My sister and I had just attended a gathering of CT survivors and were chatting to Liz Grimes, who
Is one of the WRANS quoted throughout the book. Her parents knew our parents and apparently Liz and her mother picked their way around all the debris through a couple of suburbs to see if we were ok a day or two after the cyclone hit. (I don’t remember this, but may have been down at the local school where everyone was sheltering). My parents were both ex-navy and were also radio operators, as were many of the service men and women mentioned in the book. So we spent many weekends at Coonawarra, the naval base mentioned in the book. While my parents enjoyed catching up with old friends, the kids watched movies on a big screen and were fed copious amounts of potato chips and Cokes. This book was well written and captured so many of the emotions of service people, as well as civilians. I was amazed at the amount of information that the author had gathered about the patrol boats and how they fared on that fateful night, as well as the bases and also the huge clean up operation. It filled in a lot of gaps for me, as my mother and siblings were evacuated. My father stayed behind and (although he was with the Mines Department by now) operated a telex machine somewhere (I guess because of his experience as a radio operator with the navy and then OTC-Overseas Telecommunications).
This book was very meaningful to me and I wish my parents could have read it.

[Catherine Leung · Rating 5 out of 5]

well researched and compelling

I enjoyed reading this story. It was interesting and well told. As an ex WRAN I was not surprised to read of the comradely spirit of the RAN in pitching in to clean up. Also unsurprised that the effort was unrecognised. Dedication to duty was above and beyond.