by P Fitzsimons
Dearest Mother and Father,
We’re hurrying like mad to get away before the first
of next month in order to beat the monsoons around
East India which would hold us up for weeks…
When we arrive (if we succeed), we’ll go straight
ahead and open an aerodrome. We have Blackburn’s
agency for a year to go on with.14
In his letter, Chilla also spelled out the route he intended to take from the other side of the world home to Australia. After consultation with all members of the crew and other pilots who had flown in various parts of the world, and sending endless cables back and forth, it had been decided that from England to Australia they would hop via Leeds, Lyon, Brindisi, Salonika, Nicosia, Allepo, Baghdad, Bushehr, Chabbar, Karachi, Baroda, Benares, Calcutta, Rangoon, Penang, Singapore, Batavia, Benjawan, Kupang and finally…Port Darwin! Certainly there remained a lot of work to do to really make it happen, but the men were up for it.
In the meantime, another Australian pilot had decided to go after a different prize, and either make his mark by flying in the other direction to Australia, or die in the attempt. His name was none other than Harry Hawker, now thirty years old and one of the most highly regarded aviation men in Great Britain, having the year before been anointed as Member of the British Empire for his work developing such Sopwith aeroplanes as the Camel, the Tabloid, the Pup, the Triplane, the Dolphin and the Snipe. After such a glorious career, he announced that he was going out to win the £10,000 prize that had been offered by Lord Northcliffe’s Daily Mail for the first man or men to fly the Atlantic.
As good as his word, Hawker left St Johns in Newfoundland in a highly modified Sopwith B1 christened the Atlantic, at 3.40 pm on 18 May 1919. His navigator was Navy Lieutenant Commander Kenneth Mackenzie Grieve, and from the moment the news broke that they had managed to get off the ground—the first time they had attempted it with a full load of fuel—America and much of Europe held its collective breath, waiting for news. In the absence of any new flight information, a lot of the press focus was on Hawker’s beautiful wife, Muriel, and their two-month-old baby, who were waiting patiently in London. As the papers delighted in recounting, Hawker had met Muriel four years earlier, when her car had broken down in London’s magnificently sprawling Richmond Park, and out of the blue he had stopped and repaired it for her.
But now…
Where was he? It was hardly surprising that nothing had been heard from them after one day, but after two days the alarm was raised.
Then came news! A report came through that ‘er ‘Arry and his co-pilot had plopped their plane down 40 miles west of Ireland’s Shannon River, had been picked up by a ship and they were safe! There was wild rejoicing—no, they hadn’t won the prize, but the main thing was that they were safe—until a follow-up message destroyed everything. It was a false report.
A crushing silence descended once more. Day…after day…after day.
In faraway Australia, Banjo Paterson penned a poem in the widely read journal Smith’s Weekly eulogising the presumed dead aviator:
Though Hawker perished, he overcame
The risks of the storm and the sea,
And his name shall be written in stars of flame,
On the topmost walls of the Temple of Fame,
For the rest of the world to see.
King George V also was of the view that Hawker and Grieve were dead, with his aide-de-camp sending a telegram to Muriel Hawker:
The King, fearing the worst must now be realised regarding the fate of your husband, wishes to express his deep sympathy and that of the Queen in your sudden and tragic sorrow.15
For his part, Lord Northcliffe announced that although the Atlantic had not been successfully crossed, he had decided that £5000 of the £10,000 prize money would be handed over anyway, to be shared between the two airmen’s next of kin as a consolation prize.
This prompted a letter from Muriel Hawker to Lord Northcliffe, filled with a gentle reproach: ‘While appreciating this as a very noble offer, I cannot, and will not, as you know, believe that my husband is not alive. I am sure that he will return to hear of the generosity of the Daily Mail and your personal kindness to me at this time.’16
Muriel continued to pray for her husband’s salvation, and as it happened, she was in church, on the morning of Sunday, 25 May, doing exactly that when there came a sign that perhaps, just perhaps, her prayers might have been answered. For it was on that morning off the west coast of Scotland that a small Danish tramp steamer, SS Mary, had appeared off one of the islands of the Outer Hebrides.
It was a ship without a radio, so as soon as it neared the coastguard station of the Butt of Lewis, it hauled up signal flags, spelling out: ‘SAVED HANDS SOPWITH.’
The coastguard immediately replied: ‘IS IT HAWKER.’
Came the reply: ‘YES.’17
The wonderful news was spreading across the land even before the ship had berthed and the captain could tell the story. A week earlier, the Mary had been bobbing about in a fierce storm in the middle of the Atlantic when she was suddenly buzzed by a plane with a very sick engine. It was Harry Hawker and his navigator who, at the height of the tempest, with their capacity to remain airborne rapidly running out, had, by miracle, spotted the ship and knew they had only one chance of survival. After firing three distress signals from the cockpit, they ditched the plane ahead of the ship, and were indeed saved.18 Fortuitously, the plane’s near-empty fuel tanks helped to keep it afloat until a lifeboat from the ship could reach them. And, a week later, here they were.
Here they were! Astonishing things happened from the moment the two intrepid aviators made landfall. No, they had not succeeded in flying all the way across the Atlantic, but by God they had tried! And survived against the odds. And that was enough for wild celebrations, with even the sober Times recording, ‘No event since Armistice has so stirred the popular imagination’.19 Put on a train to London, the two initially bemused airmen were soon completely stunned at their reception, besieged as they were at every station along the way, through Inverness, Perth, Edinburgh and Newcastle, by cheering crowds and civic receptions. Flags were waved, women wept at their very sight, just as mayors were moved to flights of oratory, and hordes of children ran beside their carriage, laughing, waving and carrying on until they ran out of platform. Along the route to the next station, thousands of people stood on either side of the railway line, fluttering handkerchiefs of welcome and celebration.20
Both Hawker and Grieve, in the former man’s words, ‘completely agreed that the whole of this business was utterly undeserved and out of all proportion to what he had tried, and utterly failed to do.’21
Meanwhile, Thomas Sopwith and his wife accompanied Muriel Hawker to Grantham Station, two and a half hours north of London. Beside himself with joy and unable to contain it any longer, the redoubtable Sopwith threw open the door of Hawker’s compartment and cried: ‘Hello, Hawker!’22 And so very good to see you, too, Thomas…but it wasn’t his employer that Harry had been hoping to see when the door had burst open.
At last, Muriel—oh, blessed Muriel!—met up with her husband in a private room at that station, away from the madding crowd. Himself bursting in, Harry was instantly embracing her and their baby.
‘He just said,’ Muriel later recorded, ‘the sweetest and most wonderful thing I could ever hear, and added, just as the people started to crush in, “Don’t cry.”’23
When finally Hawker arrived in London at Kings Cross Station, the plan was to give him a civic reception on the spot, and yet the mass of Australian Diggers who had assembled for the occasion had other ideas and they were no more disposed to take ‘no’ for an answer than they previously had been at Gallipoli and on the Western Front.
As reported in The Times the following day: ‘Mr Hawker is an Australian, and Australia took his reception into her own hands. Other people were there, of course—a multitude of other people—but it was the Austra
lian soldiers who predominated in the crowd, distinguished it from ordinary crowds, and contributed with gentle force to keeping it safe from harm. The force of organisation they brought to bear was perhaps a trifle irregular and unconventional, but had a great deal to do with preventing any very serious accident to one of the biggest, most excited, but one of the best-tempered throngs that has ever gathered in a London railway station.’
The crowd consisted of middle-aged ladies, nine-to-five workers who had missed their train just to see the great man, British sailors and soldiers, and young ladies who were alternately screaming and giggling. Just off-centre, an enormous woman with large brass earrings and an absurd sealskin coat was selling from the tray beneath her bounteous bosom, ‘working models’ of Hawker’s plane. The tide of the crowd swelled and then surged around her island of flesh, trying to get to Hawker himself.24
The Times continued: ‘More than once the broad shoulders of Australian soldiers were set against ugly rushes, and their quick hands upheld those who had slipped and ran the risk of being run over in the hurly-burly. They finished their conquest by taking bodily possession of Mr Hawker and Commander Grieve, and delivering them to the acclamations of the populace outside in the road.’25
First they placed Hawker and Grieve in a car set aside for the occasion, and then they decided to carry the car—with him still in it—on their shoulders. Singing, clapping, cheering and carrying on, Harry was one of theirs and he had done well! As to Commander Grieve, they decided to make him one of theirs just on principle. As also recounted in The Times, ‘a few thousand voices more or less melodiously sang “Australia Will Be There”’, and the two airmen ‘were immediately “crowned” with two Australian slouch hats, which Captain Thompson of the 30th Australian Battalion had in readiness. This “crowning” is a ceremony by which Australia recognises men as “Diggers”, whether they be her own sons, or children by adoption. Commander Grieve was a son by adoption.’26
Someone handed Hawker a newspaper, where it was reported that at the Paris Peace Conference, Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes was clearly beside himself with joy. ‘The world will not forget his plucky attempt,’ he was quoted as saying. ‘Australia, whose soldiers have done things the world will not forget, is proud of Harry Hawker, and the Australian delegation hails him as a worthy son of the great land which gave him birth. The flight was for the purpose of testing the ability of an airplane to cross a great space in a new way. Technically, the airplane has yet to be proved, but Hawker’s attempt has more than proved the ability of the men who operate those machines. It is a great thing to know we can still produce brave men.’27
At Buckingham Palace several days later, King George V presented Harry Hawker and Kenneth Mackenzie Grieve with the newly inaugurated Air Force Cross.
If that was the response for men who hadn’t covered the distance, and hadn’t won the prize, what would it be for someone who actually did fly the Atlantic, or do something comparable by winning the England to Australia race?
Kingsford Smith was keener than ever to win it, but was also frustrated as the date for departure kept being put back. With so many pilots wanting to try their luck it had been decided that some structure had to be placed upon the competition, and so, to give everyone a fair go, it was announced that to be eligible to win the prize all crews would have to leave England after 8 September 1919 and arrive in Australia before New Year’s Day 1920. In addition, no more than thirty days could separate the time of departure and the time of arrival. Impatiently, Smithy and his crew wondered what to do with themselves over the summer, as they waited for 8 September to roll around. In the end, there really was only one possible choice. The only thing they wanted to do, the only thing they could do, and love, and make money out of was to unpack the crates, put the BE2s back together and go barnstorming all over England.
And then things really started to go wrong. Or right, depending upon which way you interpreted it.
No sooner had the crew uncrated one plane and taken it to the air than a weird succession of disasters began. After one flight just a few days into their new venture, Smithy was landing the plane in a thick fog on a clear field in dead still conditions when suddenly an enormous oak tree jumped in front of the plane, which in turn insisted on wrapping itself around said tree. Or that was the way it seemed. Still, if there was an upside to the accident—and there certainly was!—it was that they had insured the plane for more money than it was actually worth. So they were soon able to replace the destroyed plane with an even better one. After all, Britain was awash with war planes that she no longer needed, so it was really no problem to get another one. Kingsford Smith and Maddocks continued on their tour, through such towns as Aylesbury, Oxford, Abingdon, Burnley, Blackburn and Nelson.
The next crash was a little different in calibre. One afternoon after they had been barnstorming together, Kingsford Smith and Maddocks were heading home in their plane when a strong difference of opinion arose between them. Maddocks wanted to get straight back to the aerodrome that was their base, while Smithy much preferred to land in a farmer’s field, where he knew the farmer’s daughter would be waiting for him, sweet as a peach. Had it been a verbal argument only, the outcome of the disagreement would have been merely raised voices. But in this case they were in a plane with joint controls, and as Maddocks hauled with all of his might one way on the controls, Smithy hauled with all of his strength in the opposite direction and what gave way—with a sudden and sickening twangggggg—was a control wire.
The thing about plane crashes, Kingsford Smith was discovering with some regularity now, in much the same way as Louis Blériot had discovered a decade earlier, was an unearthly sense of time suspended…and then rushed…as the once so distant scenery below…slowly floats up…towards…you…and.then.comes.hurtling.right.at.you!
Belting down onto the fields below, they were at least able to avoid trees this time, but nothing could stop them from first breaking off one wing, then the other, then the undercarriage…until all they were left with was the fuselage…bursting over a ditch and into a thick hedge. Never mind, neither of them was hurt and in any case the insurance company would pick up the cost, what?
Yes, albeit reluctantly, and the company was increasingly reluctant when only a short time later a third plane flown by Kingsford Smith had a disaster. This one burst into flames in midair, and he was able to practise a technique he had long heard about—keeping the flames under control by ‘side-slipping’, banking left with ailerons, while simultaneously applying lots of right rudder to keep the plane straight. The lateral relative wind blew the heat and flames away from the cockpit and at least he was able to get the plane on the ground before running for his life, just seconds before it exploded. Somehow, the insurance company did not seem as joyous as he was that he had lived.
When Kingsford Smith subsequently crashed a fourth plane—after a lovely nurse he had taken aloft suffered a panic attack and gripped the controls as if her life depended on it—things had really gone too far and, in some ways, it was perhaps Oscar Wilde who enunciated the principle best: ‘To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.’
One lost plane might be merely misfortune; two lost was carelessness; three destroyed was cause for pause, and four…? Four was cause for serious examination as to just what was going on.
One day shortly after the fourth crash, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Williams, the Australian government’s chief organiser of the England to Australia race, based in London, a distinguished war veteran, received an odd phone call in his office at Australia House from the manager of the Blackburn Aircraft Company. Would Lieutenant Colonel Williams mind popping around for a little chat?
Not at all, not at all…
After polite formalities, the manager got to the point. Would the Australian government have any objections if this chappie Charles Kingsford Smith was replaced as a pilot for the Blackburn Kangaroo, which was already
entered into the race?
‘So long as the replacement is an Australian,’ Williams replied, a little bemused, ‘it is no business of mine or the Australian government to say who should or should not be the pilot of a competing aircraft.’
Still, Williams could not resist asking why they wanted to replace Kingsford Smith?
The manager, in turn, was frank.
It’s like this: the pilot concerned is purchasing aircraft from government disposals and going barnstorming around the country, ignoring civil air regulations and landing in fields not approved for the purpose. It seems he has also found that he can insure his aircraft for an amount in excess of that for which he can replace them and there have been some crashes…
He paused.
The bottom line? The view of the Blackburn Aircraft Company was that such behaviour was undermining not only civil aviation control, but also damaging aviation insurance, which was just in its early days. So, if the Australian government had no objections, Kingsford Smith was out.28 And Cyril Maddocks too, for that matter…
And out, they were. Blackburn would simply have to find some others to fill his crew.
Back in Sydney, another Australian pilot from the Great War, Nigel Love, had finally made his decision. Like Smithy, he was convinced that there was going to be a quid or two to be made in aviation in peacetime, and with that in mind he had, along with a couple of his mates, formed the grandly titled ‘Australian Aircraft and Engineering Company Ltd’. Their key asset was the licence to make and sell in Australia the Avro aeroplane—those constructed by the major British industrialist Alliot Verdon Roe, who had first learnt the principles of flight by throwing paper planes out the second storey window of the family home—and it had fallen to Captain Love to find a spot to build an airfield from which they could operate. After scouring Sydney, and then following up on a tip from the real estate firm of Raine & Horne, he knew that he had the perfect spot.