Charles Kingsford Smith and Those Magnificent Men

by P Fitzsimons

  At the controls, Smithy took the Southern Cross as high as she would go, but at 10,000 feet there was not the slightest sign that they were getting above the weather, and the plane refused to go any higher. Regrettably, at that height, the air was so thin that the Southern Cross was almost impossible to handle so he took her back down, bouncing off air pockets as they went.

  Alas, at 8500 feet, serious danger presented itself, as ice started to form on the plane’s wings and all exterior surfaces, changing the craft’s contours and adding as much as half a ton weight, slowing it and making it even more unstable. Smithy had calculated that they were covering distance over the water at better than 100 miles per hour, with a spanking tailwind adding 7 miles per hour or so to the plane’s usual ground speed of 95 miles per hour. And yet he was stunned to see that the air speed indicator was registering zero.

  His highly trained instinct was to believe the dials and, on the reckoning that they must now be stalling, he began a steep dive and watched as the altimeter indicated they had gone from 8000 feet to 2500 feet in under a minute, and still the speed showed zero!

  Too late, for all the hard-won altitude lost, he realised that the air speed indicator, too, must have become choked with ice, and they were now hurtling down at enormous speed and at a very steep angle. Smithy braced himself and pulled back hard on the control column’s wheel as slowly, oh so slowly, the ice-encrusted mass that was the Southern Cross yielded to his command. But was there still time? Smithy was suddenly gripped by the appalling feeling that they were going to go ‘straight into the angry sea like an ice-sheathed arrow’.13

  At last, the plane levelled just above the ocean. They were still alive, but not yet out of trouble…

  As they continued on their perilous flight, they soon found themselves in a ‘black chaotic void, punctuated every few seconds by great jagged rents of lightning which, like vivid green snakes, seemed to leap at us from every direction’.14 Precisely what happened when lightning struck a flying petrol tank like the one they were in, they simply didn’t know. And yet they were not long in finding out.

  When a bolt of lightning did strike the plane shortly afterwards, it didn’t turn them into a flaming ball as they feared but it did knock out both radio sets. Soon the entire Southern Cross sizzled, from its own electrical charge, with a phenomenon called ‘St Elmo’s Fire’—a frightening effect caused by massive voltages exciting the gases in the air to glow. Amazed, Smithy and Ulm saw the propellers flickering in the lightning bolts, while the leading edges of the wings of the plane seemed to throb with the eerie, electrical brilliance—just as Smithy’s grandfather, the roving sea-captain from Kent, may have seen the top of his ship’s mast in an electrical storm glow with the same effect.

  This time, the theoretical Movietone News cameras would have captured a veritable glowing ghost plane crackling its way through the thunderous heavens. Just one spark in the wrong spot—anywhere near the fumes from the fuel tanks—and everything would have been all over in an instant.15 True, every metal part of the plane had been carefully joined together by an earthing wire to prevent that spark discharging, but it had never been tested like this before.

  As Smithy would later write: ‘I was never so frightened in my life before—as also were my three companions.’16

  Trying not to panic, he took stock of their situation. They were alone in the middle of the deserted Tasman Sea. Above and around them was the worst storm he’d ever seen. Beneath them was a savage hungry sea that would destroy them in seconds if they were forced down.

  The Southern Cross was encrusted in ice. The radio wasn’t working. It was pitch black. They could see nothing, hear nothing but the storm and did not know where they were.

  Yes, all things considered, he thought he could up the ante, and not only was he the most frightened he’d ever been, but he was in fact, ‘touching the extreme of human fear’.17

  Shoulda worn the brown underpants.

  Still trying to fight off panic, Smithy nearly lost his head and momentarily felt a ‘desire to pull her round, dive—climb—do anything, to escape’.18 With no respite, ‘we were like rats in a trap, dazed with fear’.19

  At least the three wonderful Wright Whirlwind radial engines never missed a beat, though it wasn’t long before the propellers were struggling as flying ice tore chunks out of two of them, causing the plane to vibrate terribly.

  In the course of that horrifying night, Kingsford Smith made a promise to himself that never again would he cross an ocean at night if there was any alternative.20 Sometimes the going was so tough that it took both Smithy and Ulm together, pulling on the controls, to guide their ship through.21

  Never had any of the flyers been so glad to see a dawn as that one, on Tuesday, 11 September 1928. Gazing earnestly for a sign of land, it was Hal Litchfield who spotted it first, then passed forward a note using their stick system: Watch bank of cloud on starboard bow.22

  They looked…and he was right! As opposed to the other clouds all around, this particular bank didn’t change form, or position. There could be only one conclusion: it wasn’t a cloud. And that high up there was only one other thing that it could be: the far distant snowy peaks of the Southern Alps.

  New Zealand. They had made it. At least, they had seen land and, turning to the maps, Litchfield soon worked out exactly where they were, near the entrance to Cook Strait, which separates the North Island from the South Island. The main thing was that the crisis had passed, and before heading to Christchurch they decided to swoop down upon Wellington on the southern end of the North Island, bringing the citizens of that fair city out of their houses to wave them a furious welcome with pyjama tops, tea towels and anything else that came to hand, before heading down to Christchurch. (Two people no doubt excused from expressing such transparent joy—though they certainly would have known of the safe arrival of the Southern Cross in New Zealand—were the widows of Lieutenant John Moncrieff and Captain George Hood. All these months later and there had still not been a substantiated clue as to the fate of their husbands. Home is the sailor, home from the sea, And the hunter, home from the hill…23 but of the aviators nary a sign.)

  The Southern Cross flew on, triumphant. About 50 miles out of Christchurch they were greeted by four Bristol F.2B fighter machines from the New Zealand Permanent Air Force and escorted to Wigram aerodrome.

  Just after 9.30 am, Kingsford Smith, Ulm, Litchfield and McWilliams landed in Christchurch to what Smithy later described as ‘the deafening cheers of the most enthusiastic crowd I have ever seen’,24 a gathering of some 30,000 people only narrowly held in check by police and troops. As the smiling airmen disembarked the band struck up ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’, and the crowd joined in heartily. In many ways, that flight to New Zealand marked the last air link being forged to bind the developed world together.

  Despite the fierce storm, they had made it and were still alive! A bath, breakfast and blessed sleep beckoned…

  That evening, while enjoying what they thought was going to be a quiet drink of celebration at the Universal Hotel, Kingsford Smith and Ulm heard shouting. Apparently many of the good burghers of Christchurch had gathered outside and wanted to congratulate them. There were far too many people to greet personally, shake hands with and so forth, but would the Australians mind coming out onto the hotel balcony and giving the crowd a wave?

  But of course not…

  There were thousands of people outside, and they cheered as one at the appearance of the Aussies. By way of greeting, Kingsford Smith cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled cheerfully, ‘I didn’t know there were so many people in Christchurch. We are glad to be here, but by Jove we had a bad time last night and coming through this morning. My hostess is sorry that she can’t invite you all in for a drink. We tried to land here on Sunday but couldn’t make it.’25

  ‘Did you get the cable from the mayor?’ someone shouted equally cheerfully.

  ‘Oh yes, we got it all right,’ Smithy calle
d back, with laughs all round. They got it all right! Did you hear him? He said they got it all right! That Smithy!

  An exceedingly pleasant few weeks in New Zealand ensued, with the two pilots staying on as guests of the national government, and flying from function to function, event to event, at the government’s behest in the New Zealand Air Force’s Bristols. When they arrived, the waiting crowd was never in any doubt as to which plane boasted Smithy—it was always the one doing loops, chandelles and dives before landing.

  That Smithy!

  What they were doing was essentially promoting the cause of aviation in the Shaky Isles, as well as talking extensively with the government about the possibility of establishing a regular trans-Tasman postal service. As a matter of fact, Smithy had brought with him a letter from Australian Prime Minister Stanley Bruce to the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Mr Joseph Coates, and was delighted to formally hand it over.

  The letter read: ‘Through the courtesy of the two intrepid Australian airmen, Squadron-Leader Kingsford Smith and Flight Lieutenant Ulm, I desire to extend to you and, through you, to the people of New Zealand, our warmest felicitations on the linking of our sister Dominions by air. This achievement marks a new epoch in our history and our relations. Its accomplishment alone will tend to draw our peoples closer together. But its deep significance lies in the fact that it points towards a future in which, by regular aerial communication, our two countries will be more firmly united, deriving strength in peace and war from their mutual association.’26

  There really seemed to be an enormous amount of enthusiasm for the project, and the widespread view was that Kingsford Smith and Ulm were the obvious men to do it. The New Zealand government also honoured them by making them temporary officers in the New Zealand Permanent Air Force, Smithy a major and Ulm a lieutenant. Oddly enough, despite all of his fame as an aviator, Charles Ulm to this point had never been officially certified as a pilot, and so after receiving formal flight training by the NZAF in an Avro 504K, he was awarded his wings, with the temporary rank of lieutenant.27 Beyond that, the two Australians were warmly greeted by most of the populace, though there were one or two exceptions.

  On one occasion, the farmer whose pastures encompassed Christchurch’s main airstrip of Wigram Field—whose cows had to be shooed off whenever there was to be a landing—noticed a large crowd had formed to greet the famous pilots, who’d gone to check on the Southern Cross, and saw an opportunity. The farmer sent his twelve-year-old son to the airstrip with a gallon of fresh milk, and a cup with which he could dole it out to anyone who had sixpence. This lad wormed his way to the front of the admiring crowd, at which point Smithy spotted him and said, ‘Hey sonny, if you will clean down my plane I will give you a joy flight over the city this afternoon.’

  The proud and plucky young New Zealander drew himself up to his full 5 feet nothing, stuck out his chest and said, ‘I ain’t cleaning no cow shit from no plane tyres for no Aussie.’

  True, his chance of a flight in the Southern Cross evaporated at that moment, but national honour had been served.28

  When passing through Wellington, Kingsford Smith and Ulm made a brief visit to the home of the mother of Lieutenant John Moncrieff.29 That good woman still maintained hope that by some miracle her boy would be found alive.

  Finally, after new propellers shipped over from Sydney had been fitted to the Southern Cross, it was time for them to head home, and Kingsford Smith and Ulm, with Litchfield and McWilliams again as crew, took off at 4.54 in the morning of 13 October 1928 from the Marlborough Aero Club at Blenheim, at the top of the South Island, and proceeded west by north. As they did so, a fearful wind hit them and they flew straight into the teeth of it, all day long. The wind took off so much of their speed that they were only able to make progress at an average ground speed of 65 miles per hour. At that rate, it would be touch and go whether they would make it home.

  That rising anxiety, however, was as nothing to what happened at around three in the afternoon, when, shortly after Charles Ulm had stood up to stretch his cramped legs, the starboard engine cut out. There was no flutter, no splutter, no stutter—it just went dead.

  With great urgency, but remaining calm, Kingsford Smith drew on his vast experience and immediately went through his mental check list of vital actions to determine what possibly could be the cause of the engine failure, even as the Southern Cross started to lose altitude.

  Known as FMS: ‘F’ stood for ‘fuel cocks’, and they were on, while ‘M’ was for ‘mixture’, which had been set at ‘full rich’. Too, when the cause of an engine problem was lack of petrol, the engine usually had the decency to cough a few times in protest. Which left ‘S’ for ‘switches’. Could it be an electrical fault, a wire that had come off, magnetos that had died together, a switch that…?

  Then he saw it. The magneto ignition switch for the starboard engine, instead of being in the ‘on’ position was now in the ‘off’ position. In the confined cockpit, Ulm must have knocked it accidentally, perhaps as he put out his hand to steady himself.

  Smithy reached over, snapped the switch back to ‘on’, and an instant later the still windmilling propeller on the starboard engine burst into life. Though that was definitely good news, they were still not safe. By the time it became dark at about 7 pm, they remained a long way from the Australian coast, with a third of their journey still to go, and even when they eventually saw the coded flashes of a lighthouse in the distance, it turned out to be Newcastle, a bit over an hour’s flying time north of Sydney, meaning the wind had blown them a long way off their correct course. Could they make Richmond air base, on the amount of petrol left in their tanks? The answer was…maybe.

  At last, coming in over the muted lights of Sydney, the crew of the Southern Cross were momentarily confused as to just where Richmond air base lay, until, out to the west they saw what was effectively an arrow of light, pointing straight at a dark blob that just had to be the field. So many Sydneysiders had followed the drama of the flight on the radio and were now heading out to Richmond to greet them, that a traffic jam had ensued, which meant the Southern Cross could follow the cars’ headlights all the way to the field, where an arc light, together with a dozen flares—lit kerosene-soaked rags in large tins that had been cut in two—had been set up to guide them in.

  Finally, the plane came over the gathered crowd at the airfield ‘like a great bat in the darkness’,30 and touched down at 2.15 am. When they mercifully turned their faithful engines off, only 3 gallons of petrol remained in the tanks.31 That would have been enough to keep them in the air for another ten minutes—at best. The flight had taken just less than twenty-four hours, but the main thing was that they were safe and sound, and those listening on their radios across Australia could now breathe out.

  As ever, the Kingsford Smith clan turned out in force to welcome their boy home.

  Before Kingsford Smith left the airbase with his family for home, he was handed a telegram addressed to him from the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Joseph Coates:

  Hearty congratulations on successful re-crossing. Now we can all go to bed.32

  The usual slew of glorious headlines followed their achievement, though one headline out of the ordinary that was of particular significance to Smithy’s personal life was ‘KINGSFORD SMITH DECREE NISI GRANTED’. The article appeared in late October 1928, and noted that his divorce from Thelma had gone through.

  Two letters were tabled during the proceedings. One was from him formally asking her to return to him, and the other was her reply:

  I have no intention whatever of returning to you, and absolutely refuse to live with you again. I am content at home and am capable of supporting myself as I have done for the last four or five months since you went to Sydney. Do not trouble to write again, as this is definite. Thelma.33

  Well, that seemed rather final then.

  In the final judgment, Smithy was able to give Thelma £250—now only a tiny percentage of the riches he was amassi
ng—and she was able to give him a wide berth as long as they both would live. All to the good…

  What now? After all, they had flown around Australia, crossed the Pacific Ocean and crossed the Tasman. Hinkler had flown from England to Australia in under sixteen days. Blériot had long done the Channel, Lindbergh the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Paris in one hop and Richard Byrd claimed to have flown over the North Pole. And, in 1924, the US Army had flown a fleet of aircraft right around the world in the northern hemisphere. Pioneer aviators had effectively run out of oceans to cross, heroic deeds to do. So what would they do? In Smithy’s words, the only answer was for them to focus on ‘the exploitation of commercial flying in our own country, where there was much scope for aviation enterprise’.34

  And so Australian National Airways Limited was formally born. The central idea was for Kingsford Smith and Ulm, together with financial backing from some leading Sydney businessmen who Ulm had rustled up, to buy five tri-motor Avro Ten (licence-built Fokker F.VIIb.3m) aircraft—similar to the Southern Cross—and establish regular passenger and postal services between Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Hobart. As a railway line ran between Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, this meant that under government policy there was no question of them receiving subsidies—competing as they would be with the government for travel and freight custom—but they still felt the time had come for such a service, and they were just the men to do it.

  The only place to buy the five Avro planes they needed was England, as Australia’s nascent aircraft manufacturing industry did not have suitable products available, and both Ulm and Kingsford Smith—now ‘joint managing directors’, if you please—felt strongly that the Australian public would be happy only in planes that were British built.

  True, their last attempt at an aviation company, Interstate Flying Services, had been no great success, but this was different. Back then no-one had known anything about them, now they were famous. Now, they had clout. Now, surely, there would be plenty of people who would want to fly with them, just as governments would also be more disposed to listen to their needs. They hoped so, anyway. And yet, there would be some difficult things they would have to get through before making that a reality.