E.G. (Tom) Kruse MBE

Esmond Gerald (Tom) Kruse was born on August 28th 1914. He is the tenth of Ida and Harry (Henry) Kruse's twelve children. His father was a blacksmith at Waterloo north of Adelaide.

Tom left school in 1927 and did various labouring jobs in the district including working in his father's blacksmith shop where he lost a finger as a result of an accident. After a few years he moved to Yunta in the pastoral northeast to work in a small garage owned by his older brother Snow.

Tom's truck driving career started in 1932 working for Yunta storekeeper and postmaster John Penna. Tom was eighteen years old. In 1934, pioneering outback transport operator and mail contractor Harry Ding moved his operation from Olary to Yunta. He bought out Snow's garage and John Penna's business and offered Tom a job.

The expanding Ding enterprise won the tough and potentially lucrative Birdsville Track mail contract. On January 1st 1936, in searing 45-degree heat, Tom drove his first Marree to Birdsville mail run. Mail, fuel, supplies and the occasional passenger had to get through and Tom did battle with sand hills, dust storms, flies and floods, swollen rivers and creeks along the Birdsville Track every fortnight. Round trips between Marree and Birdsville normally took seven days but when the Cooper flooded across the track, it could take as long as six weeks.

Some other well-known Birdsville Track mailmen include Dave and Monty Scobie, Ken and Allan Crombie, Fred Teague, Tommy Robinson and Max Bowden. In 1939 Tom helped transporting supplies for Dr. Cecil Madigan, the first European to cross the Simpson Desert by camel.

After his marriage to Valma Fuller in 1942, the newly weds settled at Marree and became more or less branch managers for Harry Ding at Marree and Lyndhurst.

In late 1947 Tom bought the Marree based part of the Ding operation. Harry had moved to Wilcannia in western NSW in 1944. On January 1st 1948, twelve years to the day since he drove his first Marree to Birdsville mail run, Tom took over the Birdsville mail contract for 396 pounds a year. Tom held it for 15 years and sold it in 1963.

In early 1951 Tom stopped doing regular trips along the track. He had started an earthmoving and dam sinking business in the pastoral north. Through late 1951 and 1952, director with the Shell Film Unit John Heyer shot The Back of Beyond. Tom, his offsider William Henry Butler and the Leyland Badger were recalled to play themselves, delivering mail and supplies along the Birdsville Track. The Back of Beyond became an international award winning Australian classic. Tom Kruse and the Badger were immortalised.

In the 1955 New Year's Honours list, Tom was awarded an MBE for 'services to the community in the outback risking his life on many occasions'. Lady Slim, wife of the Governor-General, flew to Birdsville on Monday July 18th as part of an outback tour to present the MBE. Tom didn't make it to the investiture. He got stranded in the Cooper, cut off by floodwaters. Tom finally received his decoration from Sir William Slim at Government House in Adelaide in April 1956.

His best recognised mail truck, a Leyland Badger, was built in the UK in 1936. It was sold by Crawford's (later CMV) to Harry Ding and then purchased from Harry in 1949. It finally broke down and was abandoned in 1957 on Pandie Pandie Station near Birdsville. The Badger was rescued from the desert in 1986 during the Jubilee Mail Run re-enactment and fully restored at Northfield in Adelaide by Tom and a group of enthusiasts led by Neil Weidenbach between 1996 and 1999.

The Mail Truck's Last Run re-enactment in October 1999 from Birdsville to Birdwood had Tom and the Badger deliver more than 7000 letters from all over the world and resulted in the documentary Last Mail from Birdsville - the Story of Tom Kruse.

In 2000 Tom was inducted into the National Transport Hall of Fame in Alice Springs. In 2003 he was officially recognised as an Outback Legend by Australian Geographic and both he and the Badger were nominated South Australian icons by the National Trust.

The Badger is now housed at the National Motor Museum at Birdwood in the Adelaide Hills. In his 90th year in 2004, Tom and his wife Valma are enjoying good health in their retirement in Adelaide with their family and a growing number of grand children and great grand children.

HARRY DING

The Leyland Badger was bought new by that other outback mail and livestock freight contractor, Harry Ding. Harry originally lived in Yunta, South Australia and served the outback. The name H. E. Ding - Yunta is affectionately remembered with gratitude from the Diamantina around Birdsville through the trackless sand and gibber country of Sturt's Stony Desert. Harry was educated as a youth around camp fires by Sir Douglas Mawson, Sir Edgeworth David and Dr Cecil Madigan. Harry worked with Alf Traeger, the pioneer of the pedal radio, to equip mail trucks with two way radios linked to his base station at Yunta. Harry sold the Marree to Birdsville mail run and the Leyland Badger to Tom in 1947. Harry Ding died in 1976.

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