Flying the Southern Cross

by Michael Molkentin

  Just before 2 am, Kingsford Smith spotted Maliko as ‘some pinpoints of light’ off to the port bow. He recalled how this, the first sign of life they had seen since leaving San Francisco 17 hours earlier, ‘evoked [a] friendly feeling towards this only other occupant of the vast and dark space beneath us’. Ulm took control and circled the Maliko while Kingsford Smith signaled ‘O.K.S.C.’ with a spotlight.

  Within 20 minutes Warner had pushed a note into the cockpit telling Ulm he had communicated with another vessel, the Manoa. Shortly afterwards, its lights appeared, glowing like ‘minute points of fire’ on the black void below. Although they had verified the location of several ships in the vicinity of their flight path before leaving San Francisco, these two vessels would be the only ones the crew would see during the entire flight to Australia.

  The hours between midnight and dawn passed uneventfully, though uncomfortably. As Ulm and Kingsford Smith would have recalled from nights in the trenches at Gallipoli, the cold and bleary-eyed weariness of these hours had a habit of grinding on for what seemed an eternity. To fight the biting chill the two Australians pulled on flying overalls over their suits. Their American colleagues meanwhile made do with woollen sweaters.

  The greatest hardship as those frigid hours crept by, however, was the almost unbearable desire for a cigarette. ‘One would have been the summit of earthly felicity’, admitted Ulm, though the frightening prospect of a fire in the aircraft compelled all the crew to suppress their cravings. As Southern Cross bore on through the night, Kingsford Smith and Ulm took turns stretching out in their deep wicker chairs for some ‘fitful dozing’ while Warner and Lyon did the same on the cabin floor. ‘It had not occurred to me that I might easily get a little sleep’, remembered Warner. He didn’t feel tired, though: ‘It was all too interesting’.

  At 3.37 am the night’s calm clarity ended and a rain squall closed in. Giving the engines ‘the gun’, Kingsford Smith climbed through sheets of rain, Southern Cross rocking and lurching in the disturbed air. Unable to see the horizon, he had to put complete faith in his instruments, watching them carefully to ensure he kept the lumbering aircraft above its stalling speed.

  Lyon had three traditional magnetic compasses, such as this one, to check the EIC for errors.

  At 6,000 feet they burst out into bright, clear skies above the storm. Looking down, Ulm perceived an epic cloudscape, bathed in the moonlight. ‘Moon on clouds; beautiful effect’, he recorded in the log. ‘Breaks in clouds look like rivers and canyons.’ For National Geographic’s readers, Ulm would later expand on this to provide a lyrical impression of what he beheld that night 6,000 feet above the Pacific.

  We gazed down from above into grim, grey cloud valleys, where the massive cloud cliffs glittered eerily under the moon. White cloud buttes stood out boldly like the ramparts of a giant Arctic berg. They broke into deep canyons; they hunched into mighty peaks and fell away into bewildering white foothills and plains. Down in those torturous ravines moonlight seemed to flow, scintillating like a trickling brook of melted silver. Dun cliffs crumpled, abysses closed, canyons were crushed, the silver rivers were lost, and a new cloud topography arose with every mile.

  The moon cast Southern Cross ’ shadow onto the clouds, creating a ‘ghost plane’ that, in contrast to the real aircraft’s steady course, plunged erratically into cloudy ravines and leaped up over soft, glowing peaks. In the hours before dawn, this surreal setting enthralled the four airmen. To their exhausted, chilled and noise-numbed minds, the soft white light and constantly, but almost imperceptibly, changing cloudscape gave the impression of a dream. ‘There was no world’, thought Ulm. ‘We were sailing lazily on the Milky Way.’

  The publication of Ulm’s log entries and wireless messages cultivated interest in the flight and endeared him and Kingsford Smith to the Australian public.

  ‘MAUNA KEA SIGHTED!’

  Hawaii, 1 June 1928

  After 27 hours in the air, Southern Cross lands at Wheeler Field, the United States Air Force aerodrome on Oahu, 1 June 1928.

  The crew spent the hours before dawn chilled numb, deaf from the engine noise and hovering on the edge of an exhausted daze. Eyes smarted and joints ached from cold and lack of use. Besides a smoke, everyone longed for the sun’s warmth.

  When dawn broke at 5.55 am, the epic, towering clouds they had been flying among for the last few hours vanished with the darkness, leaving a blanket of haze over the sea. As the sun came up, the crew had a breakfast of sandwiches and coffee, with, as Warner recalled, ‘a vote of thanks to the inventor of Thermos bottles’. The hot drink and the sun’s first rays did wonders for their frozen joints.

  As the sun came up Kingsford Smith began a slow descent from 7,500 feet to get below the clouds where they could watch for land. They glided down through the overcast, hurried along by a tail wind, and levelled out at 1,250 feet above a leaden sea. Before losing sight of the last stars, Lyon took a sextant shot and calculated they were about 600 kilometres north-east of Wheeler Field, the United States Army Air Corps’ aerodrome on Oahu. Even with the tail wind’s help, they still had at least four hours’ flying. Ulm’s mind again turned to the fuel sloshing about in the tank behind them. He suspected the gauges of playing up but wasn’t sure. They might only have enough to keep the engines going for three hours, a speculation he noted and passed through to the Americans.

  Just before 9 am, exactly 24 hours after take-off, something on the horizon caught Ulm’s eye. He turned to the back of the log and scribbled a note to Kingsford Smith: ‘First sight of land?’ (see page 168).The two men gripped each other in a triumphant handshake and passed a note through to the cabin sharing the news. Peering out the port window, Lyon spotted what appeared to be a small, rocky island, something that with almost five years’ sailing in these waters he failed to recognise. Despite the muggy, tropical air, Lyon immediately went cold. ‘I began to wonder if I had passed the island of Kauai … The sensation of having missed my landfall (Molokai channel) was sickening.’ Consulting his charts, Lyon concluded that the island Ulm had spotted lay on the western edge of the Hawaiian group, putting Southern Cross some 240 kilometres beyond its destination.

  Warner, already nervous about Ulm’s latest fuel calculations, immediately discerned the bewilderment on Lyon’s face. He passed the navigator a note asking if they were lost, on which Lyon replied with an unequivocal ‘YES’. Panic gripped Warner, causing him to soil his pants. Hastily he transmitted ‘Guess we are lost’ and requested all listeners to tune in on his frequency. Land-based operators relayed the message and commercial stations began interrupting their programs with dramatic newsflashes.

  But Warner had reacted prematurely. Even as he was transmitting, Lyon was taking a sextant shot and recalculating their position. The results conformed to the course he had been plotting all night, putting them east of Hawaii and still well out of sight of any land. Perplexed, he passed a note through to the cockpit asking Kingsford Smith to change course for the island. As they did so, Warner began to consider the Dole fliers who had perished in these waters. ‘I wondered if they had become uneasy and started changing course at random, which could easily have been the case.’

  A pair of wind-driven generators powered Southern Cross’ wireless equipment. The port-side unit played up consistently, leaving Warner unable to receive transmissions for large stages of the journey.

  Twenty-two minutes after their exuberant handshake, Kingsford Smith and Ulm saw the ‘island’ suddenly dissolve before their eyes. It had been a cloud, an optical illusion accentuated by their altitude and the dull, overcast conditions. To reassure himself, Lyon asked Warner to request a confirmation of their position from Hawaiian radio stations via the bearing of Southern Cross ’ radio signal. With almost no power left for the receiver— the port generator for recharging the battery having failed—and practically deaf from the engine noise, Warner just managed to make out a transmission from Hilo station on Hawaii’s east coast. It fixed their bearing rela
tive to the station, matching Lyon’s dead reckoning to within a few kilometres. ‘It was gratifying to find out that I was right on my calculations’, explained the navigator.

  Kingsford Smith returned Southern Cross to its original course and everyone resumed their vigil, scanning the horizon for land. Over the next two hours, clouds continued to play tricks, Ulm recalling that ‘we nudged each other at least a dozen times to look at some dark shadow that appeared to be “the real thing” ’. Although the others seem to have been reassured by the vindication of Lyon’s navigational skills, Warner remained badly shaken. Contrary to Ulm’s instructions, between 10 am and 11 am he transmitted an almost constant stream of messages, painting a grim picture for radio listeners.

  Just can stay up for 4 hours more … Our ‘A’ batteries down. Can’t receive anything … These clouds everywhere we turn … only got one more hour gas now … Wonder if you’re getting me now. Tell Uncle Sammy to keep them destroyers leased … I mite have swimming exercise yet … These clouds are deceiving … stay with us.

  Warner’s son Tom believed that his father ‘began sending just anything so that several ships, or, stations, could obtain a bearing on them and then triangulate their position’. Charlie Hodge, anxiously listening from USS Omaha’s radio room agreed, attributing it to ‘keen headwork’ by Warner. Nonetheless, it appears the other crew members remained much more sanguine throughout the morning. Always eager to emphasise the diligence of their preparations and skill, Ulm and Kingsford Smith later vehemently denied they were ever ‘lost’.

  Shortly before 11 am, Kingsford Smith climbed to 4,500 feet to extend the range of their observation. As he did, Ulm spotted ‘a brown bulge … a domelike island rising from a vast ocean of vapor’ off the port bow. Seeing it too, Lyon consulted his charts and confirmed that it was the 13,796-foot peak of Mauna Kea, a volcano on the island of Hawaii. The jubilance this inspired reverberates through the scrappaper notes that changed hands between the cockpit and cabin in the following moments.

  Damned good work Harry, old Lion. Keep on doing your stuff—Smithy and Chas.

  If we get a cigarette and a cup of coffee we’ll feel like flying back—ha, what, Old Top. [Lyon]

  Half an hour later, Southern Cross was above the eastern fringe of the Hawaiian Islands with Maui and Molokai in sight, as Ulm recalled, ‘purple and gleaming in the sunlight’. Beyond them lay Oahu which Lyon reckoned ‘most beautiful’ in the morning sun. As they approached it sugar plantations emerged ‘like huge lawns’, making the whole island appear ‘so green and fresh’. Over Diamond Head, a formation of United States Army Air Corps aircraft circled, waiting to escort them in.

  Even with their destination in sight, Warner remained on the verge of panic. To his anxious listeners he reported that they could see land but anticipated that it would be ‘a race whether we make it to landing or not before fuel is exhausted’. The radio’s dying batteries added dramatic tension, creating large gaps between his transmissions. USS Omaha ’s radio room was packed with sailors, all gripped by the drama. ‘Minutes seem like hours to me now’, noted Warner’s old friend Charlie Hodge. ‘But I bet it is days to Jim up there about out of gas and water so close!’

  At a few minutes past noon (10 am Hawaiian time), Southern Cross passed low over Honolulu to, as one reporter described, ‘whistles and bells, and the jubilant shouts of thousands in the streets’. Twelve minutes later, Kingsford Smith eased the aircraft onto Wheeler Field, the wheels touching down 27 hours and 23 minutes after leaving the ground at Oakland. Kingsford Smith switched off the engines, the abrupt silence leaving everyone on board, in his words, ‘blank and wondering what had happened’.

  About 15,000 people had gathered at the airfield; reports of Warner’s radio transmissions over a loud speaker had built tension to an almost unbearable level. Now, as the airmen emerged from Southern Cross , dazed and dishevelled, the crowd erupted in pent-up excitement. ‘As I stepped out of the machine’, recollected Kingsford Smith, ‘I caught sight of a sea of faces advancing on me from every direction. The next moment we were swallowed up’. People swarmed around, bombarding them with questions they struggled to understand with their noise-fatigued ears. Kingsford Smith caught one from a young lady, who wanted to know if they had been afraid they wouldn’t make it: ‘Hell, no, Madam, I was born to be hanged not drowned’.

  Police ushered the airmen, adorned in traditional flower leis, to an official welcoming party consisting of the Dole Air Race winners, Art Goebel and William Davis, and Captain Lowell Smith, who in 1924 had circumnavigated the northern hemisphere by air. Also waiting to welcome the weary fliers were the Hawaiian Governor and Major Henry Miller, commander of Wheeler Field and a man whose assistance they would rely on heavily to prepare for the next stage. Surrounding the podium, in Ulm’s words, jostled a horde of journalists with the ‘most formidable battery of cameras’ he had ever seen.

  After a round of speeches that nobody heard above the noise of the crowd, cars whisked the aviators off to the Royal Hawaiian Hotel at Waikiki where the manager had insisted they stay as his guests. Before retiring for much-needed sleep they faced another ‘battery of movie cameras’ in front of the hotel. Warner and Lyon, remembering the contract, sought Ulm’s permission before speaking to any journalists. Following breakfast, the four airmen turned in to sleep for the rest of the day.

  Kingsford Smith walks from Southern Cross with American pilot Art Goebel (right), winner of the 1927 Dole Air Race. Like Kingsford Smith, Goebel came to flying during the Great War and afterwards worked in the Hollywood film industry.

  Southern Cross remained at Wheeler Field overnight in the care of the United States Army Air Corps. Its mechanics went over the machine carefully, repairing a damaged cylinder on the starboard engine and the faulty generator that had failed to keep the wireless receiver’s battery charged. Ulm had instructed them to drain the fuel tanks so he could see how accurate his calculations had been. Had it been a critically close-run thing? Were Warner’s dramatic wireless messages warranted? From Southern Cross’ tanks, air force mechanics collected almost 500 litres, enough for another three hours’ flying.

  ’Dramatic story from the sky’

  Southern Cross arrived in Honolulu at 6.17 am on 2 June, Sydney time. It was perfect timing for an afternoon newspaper like The Sun ; the front page of that afternoon’s edition carried accounts from a correspondent in Honolulu as well as radio messages transmitted by Warner during the night.

  The trans-Pacific flight catapulted Lyon and Warner from anonymity into the ranks of America’s pioneering airmen.

  It was the following day, however, that The Sun featured the real scoop. After sleeping throughout the afternoon, Ulm wired the contents of his log to the newspaper’s offices, as per the contract he and Kingsford Smith had signed. Under the headline ‘Dramatic story from the sky—fliers’ own narrative—diary penned in the clouds’, The Sun presented a narrative of the Oakland–Honolulu leg in Ulm’s words. Interestingly, the newspaper edited it to imply that Kingsford Smith was the author. Indeed, The Sun’s initial coverage on 3 June established a precedent for his dominance in the history of the Pacific flight and laid the foundations for the so-called ‘Smithy’ legend. In several pages of stories devoted to the flight, Ulm and the Americans barely rated a mention. The Sun’s journalists interviewed Kingsford Smith’s parents, conveying stories of his background that would later become integral to ‘Smithy’ folklore. Catherine and William Kingsford Smith related the story, for example, of young ‘Chilla’ leaping from the roof of their Longueville home as a five-year-old in an early attempt at flight. Meanwhile, the other newspapers had to make do with far less impressive second-hand reports from syndicated correspondents, justifying The Sun’s £1,000 investment for exclusive access to the fliers.

  The relief in being back on terra firma is written all over Warner’s face. To his left stands fellow American Martin Jensen who claimed second place in the Dole competition.

  Before
the flight, the mood of Australian newspapers towards the airmen had cooled, with some even criticising their preparations and lack of experience. Upon their arrival in Honolulu, however, this immediately changed to unadulterated acclaim. The press immediately cast the flight as one of great national and historical significance and the airmen as a new breed of pioneer. The Sun ’s editor, for example, proclaimed Southern Cross ’ safe arrival on Oahu as symbolic of national triumph and evidence of greatness in the Australian character. He pointed out that although the venture had originated in the United States, a country with some 20 times the population of Australia, its organisation and execution were entirely the work of Australians. This was hardly surprising, though, suggested the editor, as the flight merely resulted from the lingering pioneering spirit. ‘Whenever there is a chance of adventure’, he trumpeted, ‘there is apt to be an Australian not far away’. At this stage the Australian press had only a vague conception of the extent of American involvement in the flight. George Allan Hancock’s remarkably generous offer to finance the flight after Australian governments withdrew support had not been publicly announced, and the crucial support of the United States military, both before and during the flight, was yet to properly figure in the dispatches of correspondents. These things would be revealed in the coming days and acknowledged by the Australian press, though they would do little to alter the prevailing view at the time and since, that Southern Cross ’ triumph was an Australian one.

  Press coverage of the trans-Pacific flight established Kingsford Smith as a dominant figure in Australian popular culture and an enduring emblem of nationalist sentiment. Despite having engineered the publicity, Ulm received far less attention.