Keith married Anita Crawford in 1924.
Anita Crawford (nee Schmidt) had previously been married to England cricketer Jack Crawford. In Flick of the Fingers, biographer Michael Burns describes the ‘talented and glamorous’ Anita as a prominent figure in ‘Roaring Twenties’ London. ‘She had her portrait painted by the distinguished Australian artist Marion Jones, she designed a collection of flapper-girl clothes for Adelaide’s fashionable ladies, and she was appointed the conductor of a Shakespearean orchestra …’ When Lady Anita died in 1986, she bequeathed her entire estate to the development of the Sir Ross and Sir Keith Smith Fund, which to this day remains dedicated to encouraging the advancement of aeronautics and aerospace technology in South Australia.
I pause. Along the bar there’s silence. ‘They dropped out of the sky and crashed behind trees lining the track …’
Ross and Benny died in Weybridge on April 13th 1922. An inquest found that the accident was caused by Ross’s lack of training in handling the new single-engine amphibian Vickers Viking, and the fact that he’d not been flying for many months. A large memorial service was held at St Clement Danes, the church of the Royal Air Force, in London, before Keith Smith escorted the bodies home to Australia. Ross lay in state at St Peter’s Cathedral in Adelaide, while Benny lay in state in the Queen’s Hall of Parliament House, Melbourne. Ross was buried on June 15th 1922, with an estimated 100,000 people (one fifth of South Australia’s population) lining the streets to watch the funeral procession from St Peter’s Cathedral to North Road Cemetery. As his mother Jessie continued to receive messages of condolence from across the globe, she noted: ‘Before Ross died he belonged to us, but now he belongs to the Empire.’
Acknowledgements
Huge thanks to everyone who’s been on the Long Flight Home with me.
To old schoolmate Nigel Parsons, who called me up in 2009 (after reading about South Australia’s Smith brothers in Peter FitzSimons’s Charles Kingsford Smith and Those Magnificent Men) and demanded I write a column on the largely forgotten Vickers Vimy at Adelaide Airport. Nige, you have the honour of turning me into the crazy plane lady.
To Nigel Daw at the South Australian Aviation Museum, who was so very generous with his time and expertise when I began my book research in the wonderful museum library at Port Adelaide. Nigel later joined with my News Corporation boss Melvin Mansell in supporting my application for a Churchill Fellowship. That application was life-changing, and I am sincerely grateful to the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, both for the research trip and my new Churchill Fellows family.
To those I met overseas: Alex Spencer at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum; Doug Millard at Britain’s Science Museum; Brian Riddle at the National Aerospace Library; Royal Aero Club trustee Andrew Dawrant; Andrew Lewis at Brooklands (and Phil and Marianne in the museum library); Lionel Dufaux at the Museum of Arts and Trades in Paris; Pierre Lussignol, Jacques Baillet and Pierre Biard from the Lyon Aviation History and Aeronautics Documentation Society; and Chamnong Sripho from the Royal Thai Air Force Museum. Even taxi drivers (from Jaspal Singh in Delhi, to George in Crete and Tedy Try in Surabaya) were so inspired by the story that they’d bail up random elderly people on the streets to ask if they’d heard of the air race as children.
To Claire Kingston from Allen & Unwin, who was super encouraging when only a third of the book was written and kept me motivated all the way (and to South Australian author Liz Harfull who made the connection for me). And to Susan Harrington, Alicia Ranford and Kate Jordan-Moore who read early and earnestly and all said exactly the right thing at exactly the right time.
To Australian adventurer Lang Kidby, who built and flew a replica Vimy from England to Australia in 1994, for pointing out mistakes that would make me look really stupid, and then telling me not to sweat the rest. The advice I received from Lang and his wife Bev was priceless.
To Ross Smith biographer Michael Molkentin, a genuine, generous soul whose talent for non-fiction makes me glad I chose to tackle the air race as a novel.
To my book club girls, who unknowingly inspired me to write the kind of book they’d (hopefully) want to read.
To my partners in crime on the epic flight centenary, who make sharing this story a joy: Greg Mackie, Greg Weller, David Byrne, Jim Whalley and the rest of our EFC2019 Committee.
To those who offered tiny gems that had a big impact: Smith family descendent Gary Lloyd; Smith family friend Judith Rischbieth; Shiers family descendent Gary Shiers; Guy Slater, step-grandson to Biffy Borton; Carolyn Spooner from the State Library of South Australia; Cecile Cutler and Peter Speck from Flinders University; Vimy enthusiast Stephen Heading; Richard Green, my London man on the ground; aviation historians Mike Milln, Peter Ingman, the late Chas Schaedel and the late Paul Daw; Helen Stein at North Road Cemetery; and Narrandera historian Geoffrey Sullivan.
This book is in print because Michael Bollen from Wakefield Press is a bloody nice bloke who believes in good stories, even if they don’t quite fit the marketing mould of one genre or another. Thanks also to his small but superb team including Jo Case, Liz Nicholson, Margot Lloyd, Michael Deves and Maddy Sexton.
To my little family, sometimes a bit neglected but always much loved: Harry and Jack, Mum, Pete, Meryl and Ron, Ian and Barb. And darling Dad; he’d be proud.
But if I could only thank one person, it would be the one and only Max: my husband, my pain-in-the-arse editor, my Wally.
Bibliography and Sources
Andrews, C.F., Vickers Aircraft Since 1908, Putman & Company, 1969
Barnaby, Jane, Australian Aviators, Cassell Astralia, 1973
Blainey, Geoffrey, If I Remember Righty: The memoirs of W.S. Robinson 1876—1963, F.W. Cheshire Publishing, 1967
Bowyer, Chaz, History of the RAF, The Hamlyn Publishing Group, 1977
Brearley, Sir Norman, Australian Aviator, Rigby Limited, 1971
Brocker, Susan, Brave Bess and the ANZAC Horses, HarperCollins New Zealand, 2010
Canby, Courtland, A History of Flight, Editions Rencontre and Erik Nitsche International, 1962
Clune, Frank, D’Air Devil: The story of ‘Pard’ Mustar, Angus & Robertson, 1941
Cutlack, F.M., The Australian Flying Corps in the Western and Eastern Theatres of War 1914—1918, Angus & Robertson 1938
Dowie, John, A Life in the Round, Wakefield Press, 2001
Eustis, Nelson, The Greatest Air Race: England—Australia 1919, Rigby Limited 1969
FitzSimons, Peter, Charles Kingsford Smith and Those Magnificent Men, HarperCollinsPublishers, 2009
Fysh, Sir Hudson, Qantas Rising, Angus & Robertson, 1965
Gammage, Bill, Narrandera Shire, Bill Gammage, 1986
Grant, R.G., Flight: 100 Years of Aviation, Dorling Kindersley, 2002
Gunn, John, The Defeat of Distance: Qantas 1919—1939, University of Queensland Press, 1985
Gwynn-Jones, Terry, Aviation’s Magnificent Gamblers, Lansdowne Press, 1981
Gwynn-Jones, Terry, On a Wing and a Prayer, University of Queensland Press, 1989
Gwynn-Jones, Terry, By the Seat of Their Pants, University of Queensland Press, 1992
Gwynn-Jones, Terry, Wild Blue Yonder, University of Queensland Press, 1996
Hamilton, John, The Price of Valour, Pan Macmillan Australia, 2012
Haynes, Jim & Dellit, Jillian, Great Australian Aviation Stories, ABC Books, 2006
Hodges, Ian, Australian Flying Corps, Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Canberra, 2010
Hyde, Andrew P., The First Blitz, Leo Cooper, 2002
Kabaila, Peter, Leeton, a Thematic History, Canprint Publishing, 2013
Kieza, Grantlee, Bert Hinkler: The Most daring man in the world, HarperCollins Publishers, 2012
Lawrence, T.E., Revolt in the Desert, Jonathan Cape, 1927
Lax, Mark, One Airman’s War: Aircraft Mechanic Joe Bull’s personal diaries 1916—1919, Banner Books, 1997
Livesey, Anthony, Great Battles of World War I, Marshall Editions, 1989
Mackersey, Ian, Smithy, Little, Brown and Company, 1998
Maguire, Marie, Living Memories: Tales of Leeton and its pioneers, BH Maguire, 1984
Maiden, Peter, The Sky Racers, Central Queensland University Press, 2010
McCoy, J.P. and Keohane, The 14—18 Journal, The Australian Society of World War 1 Aero Historians, 1968
Miller, H.C., Early Birds, Rigby Limited 1968
Molkentin, Michael, Fire in the Sky: The Australian Flying Corps in the First World War, Allen & Unwin, 2010
Nasht, Simon, The Last Explorer: Hubert Wilkins, Australia’s unknown hero, Hachette Australia, 2007
Odgers, George, Pictorial History of the Royal Australian Air Force, Paul Hanlyn, 1978
Price, A. Grenfell, The Skies Remember, Angus & Robertson, 1969
Rendall, Ivan, Reaching for the Skies, BBC Books, 1988
Roberts, Tom D.C., Before Rupert: Keith Murdoch and the birth of a dynasty, University of Queensland Press, 2015
Robinson, Derek, Goshawk Squadron, Cassell Military Paperbacks, 1971
Schaedel, Chas, South Australian Airmen of the Great War, South Australian Aviation Museum, 2015
Semple, Clive, Airway to the East 1918—1920: And the collapse of No. 1 Aerial Route RAF, Pen & Sword Aviation 2011
Slater, Guy, My Warrior Sons, Peter Davies, 1973
Smith, Sir Ross, 14,000 Miles through the Air, Macmillan & Co, 1922
Stanley, Peter, The Crying Years: Australia’s Great War, National Library of Australia, 2017
Sutherland, L.W., Aces and Kings, Angus & Robertson, 1935
Verne, Jules, Great Works of Jules Verne, Projapoti, 2011
Williams, Sir Richard, These Are Facts, The Australian War Memorial and the Australian Government Publishing Service, 1977
SOURCES
Australian War Memorial: www.awm.gov.au
Flight magazine archives: www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/
National Archives of Australia RecordSearch for World War I service records: recordsearch.naa.gov.au
National Library of Australia: Walter Henry Shiers interviewed by Hazel de Berg in the Hazel de Berg collection [Oral trc 1/182—184]
National Library of Australia: Album of Walter (Wally) Shiers memorabilia relating to the 1919 Ross Smith flight, 1919—1986 [NLA MS 8627]
National Library of Australia: Papers of Ernest and Virtie Crome, 1784—2005, relating to Ross Smith and Wally Shiers [MS 1925, MS Acc11.005]
National Library of Australia: trove.nla.gov.au (particularly archive copies of the Narrandera Argus, Adelaide’s Advertiser and Observer newspapers and Broken Hill’s Barrier Miner)
The State Library of South Australia has digitised its collection of Sir Ross and Sir Keith Smith’s personal papers and other material relating to the brothers from throughout the SLSA collection. https://digital.collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/pages/smith-brothers
State Library of South Australia: Ross Smith letters to his mother Jessie Smith and father Andrew Smith [SLSA PRG 18/17/1—56]
State Library of South Australia: A. Grenfell Price collection [SLSA PRG 1067]
The University of Adelaide Rare Books and Special Collections: Sir Keith Smith and Sir Ross Smith certificates, pamphlets, photographs and miscellanea 1916—1956 [MSS 92 S653]
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