‘No’, insisted the Chief, ‘if you please I have new instructions. Between here and Tokyo there is only one permitted stop and that is here.’ He pointed to Katsuura on Francis’s chart. Thus began Francis’s fateful final flight.
You can quite see why the Japanese rerouted Francis to Katsuura: if Kagoshima is on the south-western tip of Japan, Katsuura is on its south-eastern tip, about 50 miles south of Tokyo. To fly from Kagoshima to Katsuura means flying the 600 miles over the sea, by and large. It suited both Francis and them: the Japanese military to keep the spy over the sea and Francis to keep the comic operaticians on the land. Moreover, it was a perfect flying day:
To be flying round the world on such a day was the perfect adventure. The sunlight was balmy; the water sparkled. The Pacific Ocean was friendly, and I skimmed the surface to be close to it. It seemed to give me strength. Life was grand; flying had become an art, and that morning I felt that I was master of it.
Sure enough, at Katsuura a welcoming party of launches was there to supervise him. Among all the officials was a middle-aged, dapper little fellow waving an umbrella. He turned out to be Suzuki-san; he had lived in the United States for twenty years; he spoke a form of English Francis could understand; he had been nominated to look after Francis; he was ‘unusually efficient’; he invited Francis to stay with him overnight. After the unpleasantness of the military company in Kagoshima it was good to be back in pleasant civilian company. Mrs Suzuki cooked them a good meal and opened up the sake. Mr Suzuki put Francis in Japanese clothes so he could show him around the town less conspicuously. This was, Francis felt, in every way more like it. Ahead lay the ice floes of north-eastern Russian and Alaska; for now he was enjoying the warm hospitality and friendship of a westernised oriental gentleman.
It was in this spirit of cooperation and friendship that the next morning Francis agreed to do something he had hitherto always refused to do: a barnstorm. But Suzuki had made a special request: ‘Will you make circles round the town? The peoples would like to see your aeroplane.’ It would have been churlish to refuse, even if it meant reversing normal policy.
Katsuura is a natural, hilly harbour with a narrow entrance out to the Western Pacific. Madame Elijah was soon skimming along the waves and airborne. Francis headed out towards the entrance to gain speed for manoeuvring. At the entrance he turned back to make a low pass over the town, then thought he needed more height. He was already higher than the harbour rim, yet still lower than the high peaks beyond that. There was no cause for even the slightest alarm as he had more than enough speed and height to deal with anything. Except, of course, an unmarked obstacle, such as seven telephone cables strung across the harbour between the peaks, ready to be turned into a catapult should an unsuspecting seaplane fly straight into them. What happened next is best left to Francis:
I pulled back the control-stick, and the seaplane began to climb sharply. I was looking at the township below me on my left, thinking what a pretty sight it was with the cluster of roofs at the base of the hill and the sunshine strong on the green harbour water beneath me, when there was a dreadful shock, and I felt a terrific impact. My sight was a blank. Slowly, a small aperture cleared, a hole for sight, and through it, far away, I saw a patch of bright green scrub on a hillside. But it was a long way off, like a tiny glimpse seen through a red telescope. Now it was a round sight, half of sparkling water and half of rooftops, straight before me. I was diving at it vertically, already doing 90 mph. I remember thinking, ‘Well, this is the end,’ and feeling intense loneliness, a vague sense of loss – of life, of friends. Then, ‘I’d better try for the water,’ I was vaguely aware of lifeless controls, but suddenly all fear was gone. The next thing I knew was a brightness above me and in front of me.
The wreck of Madame Elijah
Francis regained consciousness, remembering the brightness and taking it as a spiritual experience, that he was in heaven. Then the pain kicked in and brought him back again. He knew that, incredibly, he was alive. Flitting in and out of consciousness, he saw dozens of hands clutching at him and felt stitches being sewn into his arm. Then he was lost again, coming to in a hospital. More intense pain, then the relief of morphine and sleep, then the coming to and the dreadful thought: was he a eunuch?
When he next saw daylight he still seemed to be alive. Daylight was only a sheet of light, nothing defined. He asked the room about his sight. Suzuki-san answered. He had been with Francis all night. ‘The sights can be saved’, he said, now by the bed. Then Francis asked ‘the only question that mattered to me at that moment; was I a eunuch?’ Suzuki stole a look; all was well with the undercarriage. For Francis, ‘That was one of the greatest moments of my life, and I put everything I could into the effort to get well again quickly’.
As he recovered, Suzuki-san told him what had happened: ‘You have wonderful good luck. The wires cut up your plane. Nobody understands. They rush to pull you out before the fire catches. You must be dead. Great is their wonder to find you still alive. It was terrible a sight. I am nearly sick. Everybodies is so sorry for you. Everybodies prays to God for you. The doctor thinks you do not live for ten, twenty minutes.
‘We decided to send you to Dr Hama’s hospital at Shingu 10 miles away. All young men carry you to train, very careful. They carry you all way one hour train journey.’
As he recovered, Francis took stock. Overwhelmed, he remembered the nightmare he had had so many dozens of times, of flying blind, waiting for the inevitable crash. He counted thirteen bone breaks or fractures. Not surprisingly, the damage to his back was the most long-lasting; it would eventually take ten years to make a complete recovery.
Francis’s crash, survival and repair were enormous news in Japan and he was now something of a local attraction. Group after group came to visit him, all with the usual deluge of politeness and kindness, so much so that Francis feared that
the Japanese kindness would make me mad. They were immensely sorry about the accident, and sympathetic with the foreign birdman who had come to grief. Thousands came from near and far to visit me. All day they passed through my room at the end of my bed. If Suzuki were there he would introduce them to me: ‘This is directors of the ice factory at Katsuura; they pray to God for you, and send you ice every day.’
If putting on a show of being alive was tiresome, there were moments of relief and genuine kindness, such as the letter from Hayashi-san, his interpreter at Kagoshima:
Sir,
Receiving the report of the mishap I have profound regret which never could be forgotten.
I expected you will success as I said you, I hope you will success, when bid farewell on the beach.
I hope you will buy fresh eggs with money that I present to you (I enclose a money order, ten yen, which you must ask for post office) and take them to make you healthy.
Your truly,
Hayashi.
The Nichi Nichi Shimbun, a major circulation Japanese daily newspaper, wrote about the crash. They printed a letter from a lieutenant of the Naval Air Force that said:
We had been hoping that he would not encounter an accident when taking off at Katsuura. Kitsugura Bay is about 2,000 metres in diameter, flanked by rocks 100 metres high. The outlet of the bay is narrow, and just in front of it is an island. It is an ideal port of refuge, but a very dangerous place for seaplanes to come and go.
Aviators Amy Johnson and Jack Humphries visiting Francis in hospital
Being Francis, his thoughts soon turned to completing the journey, even as his broken bones rendered him helpless. He thought about writing a book from his bed and with the money buying a Katsuura fishing boat to enable him to keep going, a seaplane being beyond all hope of a budget.
A month later, still bed-bound but now in Suzuki-san’s house and being nursed by Mrs Suzuki, he wrote left-handed, the only way he could write: ‘Every flight is moulded into a perfect short story; for you begin – and you are bound to lead up to a climax.’
It was to be five years befo
re the broken Francis would fly again, to start another short story. It was the quietest five years of his life; the only quiet five years of his life.
Francis chose to recuperate in Devon and set off for the family home in Shirwell. This visit was no more successful than the last one; less so, in many ways. Whereas before he had been the brash and cocky prodigal son with his rough colonial outlook, now he was broken, physically and mentally, and not too well financially either – and Shirwell did not do nurture and repair.
Luckily help was at hand, both to his broken body and broken spirit. The body was rescued by his cousins in nearby Instow, who found him lodgings on the estate. There he spent nine months in repair, a physically imposed exile that gave him time to write Seaplane Solo, his book about the flight from Sydney to the telephone wires in Katsuura.
His spirits were restored by being awarded the Johnston Memorial Trophy by the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators. Now that navigation can be done by mobile phones, GAPAN has become The Honourable Company of Air Pilots, the largest livery company in the City – and very helpful in the writing of this book. Francis was presented with the trophy by the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII, for his navigation across the Tasman Sea. The award was a tremendous honour and big news in Devon, but even this failed to move the stony hearts at the Old Rectory, Shirwell.
After writing his book and receiving the award, a mended Francis made his way back to New Zealand. In his autobiography he passes over the next four years in two sentences: ‘For four years I led an easy life. In the fishing season, I used to go off every evening after work to fish dry-fly for brown trout.’ There’s nothing much to add to that, except that he and Geoffrey Goodwin tried their best to make the land pay again, which it did to a reasonable extent, if not like the gold rush days before the Crash.
It is likely that Francis would have stayed happily enough in New Zealand for the rest of his life had he not met a sheep farmer, Frank Herrick. Frank was bored of counting sheep and falling asleep, was looking for adventure and floated the idea of himself and Francis flying a Puss Moth to England – and maybe back again. Francis would be the pilot and navigator, Frank the passenger and paymaster. Francis agreed, the Puss Moth was shipped to Sydney and two months later they set off.
What the flight showed above all else was how much aviation had evolved in the seven years since Madame Elijah and Francis had left London on his first great adventure. The Puss Moth itself was an advanced Gipsy Moth, now a monoplane capable of cruising at 100 mph, offering the comfort of a proper cabin. On the ground, too, aviation had evolved: Francis could put away his sextant and rely on the simplicity of radio beacons. The arrival of a light aircraft no longer caused the sensation – and frequent aggravation – that it once had. The Imperial Airways route now stretched all the way from London to Sydney. Pioneering was a forgotten art, a redundant science.
Theirs was strictly a tourist excursion. The original plan was to fly back across Siberia, but after reaching Peking via Singapore and Hong Kong they found the Russian overflight permission refused and decided to go back the old Empire way across southern Asia. In Peking Francis had one of the few diversions on the trip. He met ‘an enchanting young lady … so small that my two hands could meet round her waist. I visited her in the old walled city, although I was told that I was taking a big risk travelling through it at night by myself in a rickshaw’.
De Havilland Puss Moth
Other diversions were not so diverting. In Persia they were surrounded by guards with fixed bayonets, assuming that he was Lawrence of Arabia disguised with a beard, and proposing to proceed up-country to start a revolt. In Baghdad Frank managed to walk into the rotating prop in the dark, breaking an arm – and he was lucky at that. By Cairo they had had enough and flew back to Brooklands, old-Francis-style, in under thirty hours.
Thus back at his home base at Brooklands, Francis’s sevenyear flying career came to a satisfactory conclusion. Apart from towards the end of the coming war he would never fly himself again – but he would navigate, which to him was largely the point of flying. He repaired to Devon for one last attempt with his family. There he met Sheila. And Hitler invaded Poland.
NOTES:
12. After whom tennis’s Davis Cup is named.
It’s clear to me that God is an Englishman. Don’t mention that to Sheila. There’d be a frightful rumpus.
CHAPTER 6
Sheila and the War
IN HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY Francis has a chapter titled ‘Sheila and the War’. No doubt he meant it chronologically as they were married just before the Second World War, but to me it reads more generically, for Sheila was – shall we say – combative. You would want her on your side, undoubtedly. Today we are used to feminine assertiveness and it ruffles few feathers unless demonstrably strident but in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s women were supposed to be demur – and if they had any opinions to keep them to themselves, not, as the leading man in the black and white movie would say, to worry their pretty little heads about things.
Brusque would have been Sheila’s reaction to such patrimony, for she had little time for purposeless chit-chat, idle chirping or reactionary opinions. In disregarding the expected feminine role, she was decades ahead of her time and her assertiveness found a willing correspondent in Francis, who didn’t care much for frivolity either. Francis was a tough and wiry bird, a man’s man with no feminine side to him at all; Sheila didn’t have much of a feminine side to her either; thus the two chums had a long, happy and humour-filled marriage and friendship.
There’s no doubt that even now Sheila is remembered for being abrupt and terse. That she was large – in the sense of being big-boned, not overweight – and certainly bigger-boned than Francis, reinforced the impression of a powerful woman best left undisturbed. Researching this biography, I came across the same joke many times, all versions of ‘The only reason Francis sailed around the world was to get away from Sheila’. Like many quick quips it is not just unkind, but untrue. They were both unusual people, very unusual people, whose individual quirks suited each other perfectly. Francis sailed around the world to be with himself, ‘to intensify life’, as he put it, not to escape from Sheila. Sheila let him go, often when unwell, because she understood perfectly that free birds must fly – and that caged birds were no good to anyone, especially to her.
Kirklington Hall, Sheila’s family home – but not her home
Sheila’s autobiography starts with: ‘My father committed suicide when I was three days old’; as we would expect, this tragedy changed her life before it had really begun. This was in 1905, making her four years younger than Francis. The family on her father’s side was extremely rich: her grandfather, Thomas Craven, had made his fortune in industry and now resided in the stately Kirklington Hall in Nottinghamshire and, when not there, in ‘Millionaire’s Row’, next to the Russian Embassy in Kensington. Both residences bristled with butlers and their underlings and the extended panoply of Cravens, major and minor. Sheila was born a major, her first few days spent in Belle Eau Park, one of the grace-and-favour mansions in the parks around Kirklington. Then, for reasons not completely clear, old Thomas Craven blamed Sheila’s mother for his son’s suicide and ceased supporting her, so casting Sheila and her mother into polite penury in a small estate cottage, yet still surrounded by their enormously rich relations.
Sheila, aged 4
Sheila’s mother was one of eight sisters and the only one to have married, thus giving Sheila an early attempt at the world record of having seven maiden aunts. One such unsullied aunt was in religious orders and arranged for Sheila, by then eleven, to attend a convent school, St Mary’s, Wantage, dedicated to preserving the cult of the Virgin Mary. Like Francis a few hundred miles away, Sheila had a terrible time at the hands of perverted clergy, in this case the nuns in general and one sadistically and sexually confused nun in particular. At a reunion many years later the then current Mother Superior apologised: ‘Yes, I’m very sorry’, she told Shei
la, ‘that woman was not suitable for children’. At least Francis only had to doff his cap when the headmaster walked by at Marlborough; at St Mary’s the girls had to get down on their knees and pray out loud when the Mother Superior sailed past.
Mother, Sheila and Kathleen
Yet it was at the convent that Sheila discovered her great gift for art, particularly drawing. She won the Royal Drawing Society’s prize and was hailed in the national press as a ‘child genius’. There was talk of an art scholarship to Oxford but Sheila’s mother, as keen as Francis’s father to discourage any enthusiasm or individuality, could not imagine such a thing and refused on the grounds that men did not marry women who were too clever.
Instead Sheila was shuffled off to a more ‘ladylike’ finishing school in Paris and soon found another talent in dress design. She modelled dresses too and was offered a place at a Paris fashion house, drawing, designing and modelling. Again her mother held her back and instead, noting Sheila’s fondness for fashion, found her a job as a shop assistant in a dress shop in Bond Street, which of course Sheila loathed. I think of Sheila now mostly as an unrequited artist, a naturally creative spirit held back by an inadequate rather than a manipulative mother.
By now aged twenty one – and not unattractive, in a rather gawky way – she had her first affair, with ‘a glamorous young man I had met at a ball in the south of France. He had brown and white shoes and a car and a chauffeur, which seems to be the last word elegance.’ In those days an affair meant that an offer of marriage was expected fairly promptly, as we shall see with Francis’s courtship of her. She was jilted by the handsome lothario with the car and chauffeur and rebounded into a long affair with a married man in the Canary Islands, as she herself said, ‘old enough to be my father’ and which left her mother ‘frightfully upset’, written as if that was a satisfying part of the affair.
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