BEN CARLIN & HALF SAFE
Our most
famous
adventurer:
Ben Carlin
and the
Half Safe
One of the School’s most famous sons, Ben Carlin, was a true pioneer
and adventurer, and the first and only person to circumnavigate the
world in an amphibious vehicle – the now famous Half Safe.
Having lost his mother when he was
four, Ben found himself boarding at the
Preparatory School in 1923. While at the
Preparatory School, Ben won a General Work
Prize in Form 1. Ben found examinations
easy and passed six subjects for his Junior
Certificate in 1927 and four subjects for
his Leaving Certificate in 1928. Despite his
disdain for study, Ben won the Government
Exhibition for Classics to the University of WA
for Greek and Latin and always credited the
School with giving him a good start in life.
His school friend, Ian Bessell-Browne
(Stirling 1923-1926), described him as, “a
wild boy. If he didn’t like a subject he’d
just as likely not turn up - he’d be walking
around somewhere, dreaming. He was not a
run-of-the-mill character. He used to drive his
masters up the wall.”
After leaving school, Ben was an articled law
clerk for some time. He then found work
fencing on farms and studied engineering
at the Kalgoorlie School of Mines, before
vanishing to a coalmine in China in 1939.
It was there he met and married his first
wife, Gertrude Plath, who had been living in
China with her aunt and uncle. The couple
wed on 20 April 1940 at Tientsin, although
they separated before the end of the war.
8
The more he thought about the idea the
more he liked it. The trip would only take 12
months, he thought, would earn him a few
bob and be a last flutter before the inevitable
relapse into domesticity.
Ben at Guildford Grammar Preparatory
School, 1923.
Holding the rank of Major in the Royal
Indian Engineers, Ben dedicated himself to
the construction of a long chain of chainless
latrines from Calcutta to Cassino via the
Khyber Pass, Karachi and Cairo. Sometimes
it was cookhouses and airstrips but mainly
latrines. His major interest however, was
getting out of the Army and going home.
Close to the end of his tour, while inspecting
installations, a battered Ford amphibian jeep
caught his eye. After 15 minutes around,
over and under this oddity which he had
never seen before he mused, “You know
with a bit of titivation you could go around
the world in one of these things”.
After demobilisation in August 1946, Ben
embarked at Bombay for San Francisco.
While in Hong Kong he met up with Elinore
Arone, who he had met in India as an
American Red Cross girl. Ben had written
to her that he was going to the States but
had not explained why. Now