Charles Kingsford Smith and Those Magnificent Men

by P Fitzsimons

  As the ground party left, Lieutenant Eaton noted when they looked back, ‘high up, right above the Kookaburra, in an otherwise clear sky, a perfect cross formed by a cirrus cloud. We did not say much to each other, but I think we all thought a lot as we made our weary journey home.’68

  Fourteen

  TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS

  Don’t ever think you will reap the reward of your pioneering efforts. You’ll be acclaimed a hero, people will fawn upon you; but you will always be thought a visionary. The things that you want to do will be done after your death…

  SIR HUBERT WILKINS, FORMERLY GEORGE WILKINS, TO SMITHY, CIRCA 19301

  The hearing proper for the Air Accident Investigation Committee Inquiry started on the morning of 16 May 1929 in Darlinghurst Courthouse, which was as packed with people as it was thick with tension. Not surprisingly, the first man in the dock—and make no mistake that was exactly where he was—was Charles Kingsford Smith. He had been the captain of the ill-fated flight, and it was for him to explain himself and to answer the very serious allegations that had been made to the effect that the whole episode had been a publicity sham gone wrong, and that as a result two good men were lying dead in their desert graves.

  As he swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, the famous pilot looked rumpled, tense and jumpy…and still not quite recovered from his experience at Coffee Royal, to judge from his rather haunted gauntness, although whether that was from physical or emotional trauma was not clear.

  There was no doubt, however, that he could still scarcely fathom that it had all come to this, that Keith and Bobby were dead and he was being asked to defend his role in their deaths. Around the court, the press and the spectators, including devastated and angry family members of the two dead men—most of whom blamed Smithy for their loss—leaned forward so as not to miss a word as the proceedings proper began. Foremost among them was the clearly grieving Bon Hilliard, staring at her former boyfriend through the puffy eyes of one who had spent a lot of time crying.

  Mr J.H. Hammond, KC, the barrister assisting the Crown, was at first relatively gentle, taking Kingsford Smith through the background of the flight before starting to get to the core of the matter.

  The food taken on the flight, for example, was that really sufficient for a trip that always had the potential to land in extreme conditions?

  Pretty much, came the reply. It was true they hadn’t foreseen what subsequently happened to them—who would?—but it was more than enough for a trip 50 per cent longer than the ‘hop’ they thought they were going to take.

  ‘When we landed,’ said Kingsford Smith sombrely, ‘we had seven sandwiches and about a flask and a half of coffee.’

  ‘And where were the emergency rations?’ asked the barrister.

  They had definitely been stowed in the Southern Cross, the pilot explained patiently, but unfortunately someone had removed them before departure. Neither he, nor Ulm, nor any one member of the crew had any idea of that before they had taken off.

  It wasn’t that the barrister snorted derisively at this response—he was far too sophisticated for that—but an eyebrow raised quizzically throughout left no-one in any doubt what he thought. But moving right along. The next line of questioning focused on the charts the men had taken on the flight, and whether those, too, were sufficient for the task at hand.

  Nothing that the aviator replied to this made the eyebrow drop, but at least the barrister was not long in getting to the next, rather more serious matter. It was about the decision to leave Richmond air base when they did, even without the favourable weather report they needed.

  Yes…well.

  On this subject Kingsford Smith seemed a lot less sure of his ground and it wasn’t necessarily easy for the furiously scribbling journalists in the court to follow the trail of telegrams back and forth, but it at least seemed established that the Southern Cross had, in fact, departed without having received the favourable weather report that would have been expected.

  And then the counsel ratcheted up the tension even further.

  Why, when the aerial had broken, had they continued on their transcontinental flight?

  ‘We regarded the risk of another take-off as not worth turning back,’2 he replied.

  Over the next several days, Kingsford Smith was led to give his account of the rest of the journey: how they hit terrible weather, couldn’t find Wyndham, came across the two missions, had to make an emergency landing on the mangrove flats at the place they had come to call ‘Coffee Royal’ and so forth. With the barrister questioning him all the while, Kingsford Smith then took the court through the efforts they made to get themselves rescued, including lighting the fire, fixing a makeshift generator and trying to send a signal out on the radio.

  Why had they only burnt wood on their signal fires, when if they’d burned some of their remaining engine oil, they could have made black smoke?

  ‘Because,’ Kingsford Smith explained patiently, ‘we were in a green environment, and the white smoke from wood fires shows up better against that, than the black smoke would have.’

  This time the barrister not only raised a quizzical eyebrow, but followed up with a lengthy question as to how that could possibly be. Billowing black smoke less visible than tepid white smoke? What nonsense!

  No sir, not nonsense. That was just the way it was.

  It was when the question was put as to why they had not tried to transform the receiver into a transmitter, however, that things became tense again.

  Smithy replied: ‘We wanted to hear if anybody would have the sense to send out the latitude and longitude of Port George Mission Station, which had seen us pass over.’

  So none of this was contrived to be a publicity stunt?

  A stir in the courtroom…Now they were really getting to the heart of the matter, as the examining counsel produced and tabled a copy of the contract that had been signed by Ulm and Kingsford Smith with Sun Newspapers together with the Melbourne Herald and Weekly Times. It stipulated that the sum of £500 be paid to the pilots for the exclusive account of their flight to England, and a further £500 if they beat Bert Hinkler’s record time of sixteen days—and only £250 if they made it to England but failed to beat Hinkler’s time. In return, the pilots undertook that the only information they would provide would be to the aforementioned newspapers, and they would be in breach of the said contract if they talked to anyone else in the press.

  Thus definitively establishing the strength of the bond between the pilots and these newspapers, and the kind of money on offer, the first day’s proceedings ended as the myriad journalists rushed to file their copy. Kingsford Smith could read the largest account, in the Sydney Morning Herald the following morning—‘DRAMATIC FLIGHT STORY: KINGSFORD SMITH’S EVIDENCE’—as he made his way back to the court for another day of testimony.

  And on this morning, Mr Hammond was not long in causing the journalists to start furiously scribbling once again. In precise, clipped, emotionless tones, he read to Kingsford Smith the article from Aircraft, which stated flat-out that the whole thing was nothing but a ‘publicity stunt’, implying that the airmen had deliberately got themselves lost. And then, rather theatrically, the barrister laid the clipping on the table, before suddenly turning savagely towards Kingsford Smith and thrusting his head forward the better to spit out his words.

  ‘Was there any premeditation?’ he snapped. The members of the Air Investigation Committee leaned forwards, as did everyone else in the courtroom, evincing the ancient human instinct that bringing your ear just a tiny bit closer could make all the difference. No-one wanted to miss the response.

  ‘It is an absolute deliberate and malicious lie,’ Kingsford Smith answered with no little force, ‘and I am very glad to have been given the opportunity to publicly say so.’

  The barrister shuffled his papers, with the same definite action that a man might use to reload a rifle, and came up with a second clipping from Plain Talk, the pur
port of which was that Keith Anderson had been in on the whole ruse, and had gone out after the Southern Cross so he could reap a public reward, while Ulm and Kingsford Smith’s part of the deal was the massive publicity that was generated.

  This time Kingsford Smith was really angry, barely able to get his words out such had the fury taken hold of him. His hands gripped the dock.

  ‘Another deliberate malicious lie, that affects a dead man’s reputation, and which I consider disgusting,’ Smith replied. ‘I think it is disgraceful.’

  Mr Hammond: ‘It has been said that a certain newspaper was party to this supposed stunt. What do you say to that?’

  ‘There was no stunt at all, and there was no arrangement with any newspapers or person other than the perfectly fair contract mentioned yesterday.’3

  Fred Myers, who was representing the Anderson and Hitchcock families, stood up and addressed the wearying pilot.

  ‘You have heard the extract from the publication stating that it was suggested that Anderson was to find you. There has been also a suggestion that you endorsed a promissory note for £300 on Anderson’s plane and that that was part of the same arrangement. Is that so?’

  ‘That is a deliberate lie!’ Kingsford Smith burst in.

  ‘It was merely a personal friendship?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The journalists kept scribbling. This was providing terrific copy for their newspapers and no-one wanted to miss a word.

  A moment of rare relief from the tension in the courtroom came when Smithy was closely questioned about his health prior to take-off. He told the inquiry that although he had the flu in the days leading up to the flight, his doctor had told him he would be right to fly.

  ‘Did you get a certificate to this effect?’ asked one of the members of the investigation committee.

  ‘I could get one,’ Smithy replied deadpan. ‘All I have at present is a bill.’4

  Muted laughter swept the courtroom.

  Perhaps the most exciting moment of the first few days’ proceedings began when, from the bench, Geoffrey Hughes asked Kingsford Smith if he would again attempt the flight to England.

  ‘Probably, yes,’ was his answer, ‘with even more adequate provisions.’

  ‘Although you considered the preparations for this flight were perfect?’

  Kingsford Smith controlled himself.

  ‘We are not supermen,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Don’t think that I am suggesting you are not a superman,’ Hughes replied. ‘Why did you take risks on this flight?’

  ‘We are in the position of pioneers,’ was the quiet answer, in the manner of one explaining something patiently to another who just can’t grasp the concept. ‘And pioneers always take risks.’

  ‘But it was not necessary to pioneer difficult routes when there were other routes?’ Hughes suggested.

  ‘I do not see why,’ Smithy replied firmly, ‘that in the future, direct long-distance routes should not be used, and why we should not help to eliminate the risks on those routes.’

  As in, yes, they could have got to Wyndham by making lots of short hops between aerodromes, but that was not what the trip had been about. They were pioneers of getting from one spot to another, in the most direct manner possible, and by forging forward in that manner they would be making the way easier for those who would follow, who would inevitably include passengers.

  At least there was some positive testimony from Captain Leslie Herbert Holden on how only a pilot of consummate skill could ever have put the Southern Cross down in the spot that Smithy had.

  And then it was the turn of Charles Thomas Phillipe Ulm.

  What of the assertions that the whole thing was a ‘publicity stunt’?

  ‘It is a deliberate lie; too despicable to talk about!’ Ulm snapped, glaring angrily at both Mr Hammond and the journalists who had penned these slurs. ‘I’d like to get some of those newspaper men out there for a while.’

  ‘In a publication called Aircraft,’ said Mr Hammond, ‘the word “stunt” is used in connection with the flight.’

  ‘I have read that article,’ the grim answer came, ‘and I know the man named Hart who wrote it. We did not sue him for libel because we know he has no money and never will have any. The paper is not published in Sydney. He brings it out wherever he can find some poor stupid printer to print it. The writer is a deliberate liar.’

  ‘It is said that it was a “stunt” and a “newspaper stunt” at that,’ persisted counsel.

  ‘An absolute lie!’ Ulm retorted.

  Counsel went on reading from the article, which included the statement that ‘Mr C.E. Kingsford Smith’s attempted stunt flight to England has resulted in the death of Commercial Pilot Keith Anderson.’ Ulm broke in on the reading with a protest to the chairman: ‘I think this is most unfair!’

  Brigadier General Wilson turned to Ulm.

  ‘You are getting the opportunity of answering them,’ he said.

  ‘Well, I deny it!’ Ulm was getting very angry.

  ‘Don’t deny it until you hear it read.’

  ‘I know who wrote it, sir,’ protested the outraged airman.

  ‘Do I understand from your attitude that you would rather I did not ask these questions?’

  ‘No, go on, go on! I’m glad you are asking them.’

  ‘Do you think I am asking them in anybody’s interest but your own?’

  ‘No,’ Ulm answered, ‘I am sorry. I got heated for a moment.’

  ‘Do you think steps should be taken to prevent people going off on harebrained flights?’ Hughes asked.

  ‘If they are harebrained, yes. But I would not like to say what form the control should take,’ answered Ulm.

  Dozens of other witnesses were then heard—seventy-four in all, with the hearing also being held in Melbourne and Adelaide—including Captain Clive Chateau, who told of his angst when he heard that the Southern Cross had left without receiving his favourable weather report, and that the plane also couldn’t be contacted. He nevertheless was most forceful in dismissing any suggestion that Ulm and Kingsford Smith had set the whole thing up so as to generate publicity as ‘absurd’.

  Harold Arthur Litchfield, who had of course lived through it all, was equally forceful in rejecting the insinuations as ‘malicious lies’.

  One who received a particularly hard time was Tom McWilliams, who seemed to be attacked from all sides for having failed to even attempt to turn their receiver into a transmitter. In response, McWilliams steadfastly stuck to what he had said all along—they as a group had decided against it, because the chance of ending up without a transmitter or a receiver was too risky—the receiver was their lifeline.

  Though the inquiry was declared closed on 7 June, suddenly on 13 June 1929 the whole thing was resumed to enable the Crown to call a surprise witness…a man by the name of William Angus Todd.

  And wasn’t that a turn-up for the books!

  Both Kingsford Smith and Ulm knew this man as Bill Todd, the second mate of the Tahiti, who had first taught them the principles of navigation, and was then going to accompany them on their flight across the Pacific, until he had been asked to leave after too much boozing. For the purposes of this exercise, however, he was no longer ‘Bill’ from the Tahiti, but a witness who was out to do them damage.

  But, oh, what a story he told, his red-visaged countenance of the heavy drinker getting even redder as he progressed.

  ‘In October 1927 at the Hotel Roosevelt in San Francisco,’ he recounted to the hushed courtroom, ‘we were talking about finance. Finances were extremely low. We were discussing some method of getting enough money to get the flight started. During that conversation Ulm said that had his plan for getting lost in central Australia for four or five days been followed, sufficient money would be available and public sympathy and support would enable them to have no cause to worry. Keith Anderson and myself were present. Anderson’s only comment was that it would not work…’

  Pandemonium broke ou
t in the courtroom. Here was a first-hand witness, claiming the whole thing was a long-planned scam! Ulm, for one, looked thunderstruck and beside himself with rage at Todd’s claims.

  Why, counsel now wanted to know, had he not come forward earlier?

  He had been in New Zealand, he said, ill in a Wellington hospital, and it was only on reading press reports of Ulm’s denials when a previous witness had claimed to have heard Ulm say the best way to get publicity would be to get lost in the middle of Australia, that he realised the significance of this conversation he had had with him.

  Whatever the sensation Todd’s claims in the courtroom made, however high the tension had climbed as a result, and however much the journalists were furiously scribbling down every word, none of it seemed to have had any effect whatsoever on Jack Cassidy, who was the counsel for Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm. M’learned friend was nothing less than acidly amused with Todd’s fantastic claims when he tiredly and rather theatrically took the trouble to cross-examine this clearly completely unreliable witness.

  ‘So we may take it,’ he suggested of Todd’s impulse to suddenly come and give evidence to the inquiry,’ that you did it out of a sense of public duty?’

  ‘I did so,’ declared Todd defensively, ‘because I saw the statement that he had denied saying it. I heard him say it.’

  Cassidy, no longer acidly amused but outright angry, got straight to the nub of it: ‘You have got your knife into Ulm, have you not?’

  ‘I won’t admit that at all.’

  Cassidy took Todd through some of the details of his problematic relationship with Ulm, pointing out that a contract between him and Ulm and Kingsford Smith had never been formally signed.

  Cassidy: ‘Were you pressing that they should sign it?’

  Todd: ‘I did, on several occasions.’