Dutch von Ehrenfried’s Memories of Carnarvon

Manfred “Dutch” von Ehrenfried visited Carnarvon in May 1964, the month before the official opening ceremony. Photo: Dutch at the Space Task Group at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. NASA photo.

I have fond memories of being part of the Test and Checkout team led by Dan Hunter in May of 1964. Included were Stu Davis, Bill Garvin, Jim Moser and I’m sure I forgot somebody.

It was an arduous trip from Houston in those days; refueled in Honolulu, Fiji, Sydney and a DC-3 flight to Perth. We drove from there to Geraldton and on dirt roads to Carnarvon. When we stopped to pee alongside the road, we were covered in flies. It seemed an even harder trip going back home.

Today it’s still a long drive from Perth to Carnarvon – but it was much more challenging in 1964!

In May 1966, PMG technician John Lambie took this photo of a Royal Mail truck bogged near Carnarvon. It gives an idea of the road conditions often encountered. Transparency scan by Colin Mackellar.

We did simulations with the new Gemini Consoles. I remember one of the gauges started to melt from the heat. I gather they changed all of them.

I remember during one of the tests, I couldn’t raise the M&O on the loop after several tries. I went into the back room and they had broke for tea!

From the experience, I wrote Handbooks and Procedures documents for other remote site Gemini flight controllers.

The Carnarvon Gemini consoles during Gemini 4. NASA flight controller John Ferry sits at the Capcom position. RAAF Flight Surgeon Bill Walsh is at the Aeromed console in the foreground at left. Medium format photo by Hamish Lindsay. 2024 negative scan by Colin Mackellar.

We stayed at the Gascoyne Hotel with one bathroom for all on the second floor [i.e. first floor in Australian parlance]. I think it was part corrugated sheet metal. The beds were like those from Army barracks.

There were three bars; one for men, one for women and one for couples. The main bar was just like the one out of the movie Crocodile Dundee and I think the same cast of characters. I saw one guy eat a beer glass and walk out the door. I have a lot of stories about that hotel and bar.

[We understand The Gascoyne Hotel is quite a nice to place to stay, these days!]

Robinson Street, Carnarvon, looking south-west, towards the Fascine in 1965. At left: Wesfarmers, grocery store, Main Roads Department, Fong’s Carnarvon Drapery. At right: BP service station, Alexandra Street, Tuckey’s Port Hotel. Photo by Hamish Lindsay. 2022 negative scan by Colin Mackellar.

The Gascoyne Hotel is on the right of frame in this aerial photo from the album presented to Station Director Lewis Wainwright at his farewell in 1968.

Low level photo by David Johns onboard NASA 421 in November 1972. The main streets of Carnarvon have now been sealed, and work is still in progress.

I vividly remember going to Shark Bay and the young Carnarvon constable diving for lobster while I held a bag to put them in up to my waist (in Shark Bay). We roasted them over the grill of the Land Rover. I also remember hunting for kangaroo and emus on two occasions.

One time we didn’t see anything so we accused you guys for just wanting to get us out of town for a while. On the second occasion, I saw a herd of emus and quickly raised my rifle up to shoot one, and it fired prematurely and put a hole in the door jamb of the rental car.

After all that, on our long way home and final night approach into Houston’s Hobby Field, we had to do an emergency “Go Around” because there was a cow on the runway! That says a lot about Texas then too.

I could go on and on, but there you have a few of my stories about Carnarvon.

Manfred “Dutch” von Ehrenfried (left) and Fight Director Gene Kranz at the Apollo 11 Flight Ops reunion in Houston, July 2018. Gene is holding Dutch’s just-published book, Apollo Mission Control – The making of a National Historic Landmark (Springer, 2018). With a degree in Physics from University of Richmond Virginia, “Dutch” von Ehrenfried joined the Space Task Group at NASA’s Langley Research Center in 1961. He trained as a flight controller in the Mission Control Center for Project Mercury and went to support the Gemini and Apollo Programs. He was also an Apollo Pressure Suit Test Subject and crewman on the NASA high altitude RB-57F. Dutch has written many books on aviation and space, including Apollo Mission Control and The Birth of NASA – The Work of the Space Task Group, America’s First True Space Pioneers (Springer, 2016.). Photo courtesy Manned Spaceflight Operations Association.