Charles Kingsford Smith and Those Magnificent Men

by P Fitzsimons

  It was 7.30 pm on 26 June 1930 and Charles Kingsford Smith was second only to Lindbergh in terms of his world celebrity as an aviator. Among the cognoscenti of aviation he may have even moved beyond Lindbergh, and that was certainly the view of the American himself. Via his father-in-law, the famed diplomat Dwight Morrow, Lindbergh expressed his considered and expert opinion to the press that the two greatest achievements in aviation both had Kingsford Smith’s signature on them—the first crossing of the Pacific, and the crossing of the Atlantic from the east to the west, against the prevailing winds.31 Kingsford Smith was, in Lindbergh’s view, ‘the greatest of long distance pilots’.32

  That also seemed to be the view of the crowd, who were so enthusiastic that the aviators were for a short while effective prisoners in their plane, as it took the 150 Nassau County Police officers and sixteen motorcycle cops nearly fifteen minutes to herd the crowd under control and allow them a safe exit.33

  This latest of Kingsford Smith’s feats made front-page headlines all over the world, particularly in France—where the ill-fated trip of Nungesser and Coli was remembered—and in Holland, where there was great pride that a Fokker had once again set a major aviation record.

  One particular line from the press conference that occurred immediately after landing was widely quoted. Kingsford Smith heaped praise on the machine that he loved so deeply, almost like a woman, and said with feeling: ‘That plane has carried me, with the same motors, close to 80,000 miles since we left Oakland a year ago. It has flown all the oceans but the Polar oceans, carried me safely over the deserts of Australia and America, the jungles of India and Burma, and the towns and cities of Europe, and she still has a lot of flying left.’34

  As to the real woman he loved, Mary, there was a wonderfully warm and loving telegram that he had received from her, even before leaving the field. She had been waiting up through the night for news that he was safe, that he had done it, and hopefully got these long-distance trips out of his system once and for all.

  ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ she told the press in Melbourne. ‘My mother insisted that I spend last evening playing bridge to keep me from worrying. Oh, but the terrible things I did at bridge!’35

  In Australia, it was the Controller of Civil Aviation, Lieutenant Colonel Horace Brinsmead, who perhaps best spoke for the proud nation. ‘In my opinion,’ he was quoted as saying, ‘Squadron Leader Kingsford Smith must be classed as No.1 in the list of the world’s best pilots.’36 For his part, a thrilled Charles Ulm exulted: ‘Kingsford Smith undoubtedly is the world’s premier pilot. And surely the authorities will confer some signal honour upon him. I would suggest an entirely new title, K.M.A., Knight Master of the Air.’37

  As ever for Smithy, the next few days were a blur, beginning with a hairraising trip into New York’s Roosevelt Hotel, behind four motorcycle cops with sirens blaring through streets lined with masses of cheering New Yorkers. Though they politely declined the offer of a ticker-tape parade down New York’s Broadway,38 thinking that was too much for such as them, they did agree to a welcome on the steps of City Hall where, in front of a massive crowd, Mayor Jimmy Walker, after making a robust welcoming speech, presented them all with the city’s Medal of Honor. There were so many photographers there to record the event that the stand upon which they were perched collapsed, fortunately with no major injuries.

  When, shortly afterwards, Smithy was able to speak to Mary in Melbourne via a special radio hook-up, the New York Times was there to record his end of the conversation: ‘Hello—yes, hello darling. I’m speaking from New York. I am thrilled myself. How are you? I’m here for only two or three days. Then I am going to San Francisco. No, I am not going to fly back across the Atlantic. Not a chance! Ah, I told you I’d make it old dear, and not to fear about it…‘39

  In a subsequent radio hook-up with his mother in Sydney, Smithy was equally firm when Catherine began by saying, ‘No more ocean flying, I hope.’

  ‘I told you I had to do the last one,’ her son retorted, for all the world to hear. ‘There are no more oceans left to fly.’40

  Then Anthony Fokker himself flew them down to Washington in a—can you believe it?—four-engined, thirty-two-seat Fokker F.32, where nothing less than an official lunch at the White House awaited. At the height of the proceedings, President Herbert Hoover told them: ‘Your feat of flying across the Atlantic is remarkable enough, even though it has been done before, but Kingsford Smith’s achievement in becoming the first flyer to completely circumnavigate the world by aeroplane is enough to take one’s breath away.’41

  Thunderous applause all round.

  And yet, when Smithy rose to graciously reply, he couldn’t help but make a small correction. ‘I thank you on behalf of my crew and myself for this wonderful reception, sir. But you are premature in crediting me with complete circumnavigation of the world. I have to fly my “Old Bus” to Oakland, California, before I can claim that distinction…And I wouldn’t be here with you now, if I hadn’t had the help of Evert van Dijk, Paddy Saul and John Stannage, my New Zealand friend.’42

  Two days later, Kingsford Smith was back in his suite at New York’s Hotel Roosevelt, when he looked up to see a familiar figure framed in the doorway, come to pay a visit. It was Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh himself. Smithy jumped to his feet and eagerly grasped his hand: ‘Why, hello, old fellow!’43 Though the two had never met, there was an instant warmth between them as they exchanged congratulations—on Smithy’s coming marriage and the birth of Lindbergh’s first child, Charles Jnr—before moving on to the obvious subject of how each man had managed to cross the Atlantic, going in opposite directions. Upon leaving, Lindbergh was gracious enough to repeat to journalists in the foyer that in his view, ‘Kingsford Smith’s feat of crossing the Pacific remains the greatest of all trans-oceanic flights.’44

  For Smithy, John Stannage, Evert van Dijk and Paddy Saul, a glorious three weeks in New York as Anthony Fokker’s guests followed, and Stannage, for one, was stunned at the Dutchman’s generosity, which included taking them out on New York Harbor with a bevy of the most beautiful women he had ever seen.

  By early July, though, it was time to move on once more and the Southern Cross crew took a relatively leisurely flight across the American continent. Over Illinois, they paid a flying cheerio call on the City of Chicago plane which had just passed its 500th hour of continuous flight, courtesy of refuelling in the air.45 Was it really only two and a half years ago that Smithy had tried to break the German record of fifty-five hours? The world of aviation was changing so rapidly it was dizzying. Two nights in Chicago featured a visit to one of Al Capone’s nightclubs, with its free-flowing grog and raw entertainment.

  On, then, to Salt Lake City in fifteen hours, flying over Des Moines, Omaha, Cheyenne and the Rocky Mountains, before they approached Oakland airport, where Smithy—actually now Wing Commander Kingsford Smith, courtesy of a decision taken by the Australian government to honour his Atlantic achievement—had taken off from some two years earlier.

  It was an emotional moment. Smithy later wrote: ‘As I sighted once again the hangars of Oakland Municipal Airport, I felt a thrill of satisfaction that I had been able to bring the dear old bus safely around the world. She had now returned to the port whence she had set out across the Pacific. On that occasion her bows had been turned West. Now she came from the East. She had completed the circuit of the Globe around its greatest circumference. She had crossed and re-crossed the Equator, and to me, who had been her pilot in all her long journeys, there came a sense of quiet pride in our achievements. This was our Journey’s End.’46

  And now it was time for the successful team to break up, as Evert van Dijk took a ship back to Holland to resume his flying duties with KLM.

  After the hoopla in San Francisco had died down, Smithy, Stannage and Saul made one last, small hop with the Southern Cross down to Santa Maria, to thank his key benefactor, Captain Allan Hancock. Again, the fatted calf was killed, again the champagne flowed, an
d again the hospitality extended to the aviators was overwhelming.

  Under the circumstances, Smithy felt honour-bound to offer Hancock his plane back but, as the Australian later recorded of the American, ‘with his wonderful tact, he realised that I could ill afford such a sacrifice and insisted that the plane should remain mine’.47

  In fact, Kingsford Smith could have been released of all financial worries had he accepted an offer to stay on in California and make a series of flights for the state, at a salary equivalent to £10,000 a year. But, given that one condition of the deal was that he became an American citizen, and the fact that he actually loved his life in Australia, he declined.48 So too to other lucrative offers he received to stay in America. Thank you, but no. He wanted to live a life in Australia, with Mary.49

  What could possibly top piloting the first flight west across the Atlantic? Nothing, of course. But at least Smithy decided that on his way home he may as well go back to London—by ship this time—pick up a new Avro Avian that the company had bought, Southern Cross Junior, and set a new solo record for getting it back to Australia. Compared to flying over massive oceans, flying across continents was not nearly so challenging, and Smithy felt that he may as well have a go at picking up the record on the way home, while trying the new experience of flying without a co-pilot, radio operator and navigator. Smithy and Stannage sailed to Bremerhaven in the liner Europa, while Paddy Saul sailed independently to Ireland after enjoying his rewards on the west coast of the United States.

  After arriving in Germany with that in mind—strange to be landing in the country of his former enemies—Smithy nevertheless made time to go on a brief sojourn in Holland as Anthony Fokker’s guest, where ‘scenes of indescribable enthusiasm’ awaited.50 In the course of his visit the Australian pilot, together with Evert van Dijk and John Stannage, were given a ticker-tape parade, before the munificent Fokker accompanied them on a triumphal trip to Berlin, where they were greeted by an estimated 160,000 Germans.51

  Finally, though, Smithy felt that he was ready to give it a shake.

  Or was he? For some time he had not been quite right physically and after a quick medical examination, he was put straight into a Dutch hospital for surgery to have his appendix and then his tonsils removed (the latter without anaesthetic).

  ‘Dis vill hurt a liddle,’ the old be-whiskered Dutch doctor had told him beforehand, and he was not wrong.52

  And yet while those operations put him back in reasonably good shape physically, it was not just his throat that was troubling Smithy. He was somehow…flat. And nervy at the same time…

  Once back in London what little energy he could muster was spent engaged in such a debilitating anxiety that he was struck down for days at a time. He stayed in bed, with the blinds closed, drifting in and out of sleep, remembering dead Germans, fallen friends both in the Great War and since, and feeling such a boiling angst that he was incapable of functioning. Nerve specialists he consulted advised him to give up flying, but in response, Kingsford Smith was dismissive.

  ‘Hell to my nerves,’ he said. ‘If I were dead I should still fly an aeroplane.’53

  Another worry was that he felt he had no time to go by ship. He was desperate to get home to marry Mary, in a wedding ceremony that had already been pushed back from September to December, and he had also been advised that his beloved father had been taken ill. It was time to get back to home and hearth. He was an aviator. He would fly home, and that was that.

  At last, and despite all of the doctors’ tut-tutting, Smithy was set to make the attempt by early October 1930. Press interest had particularly grown at this time, as in this perfect flying season there were no fewer than four flyers who were intending to make separate attempts to beat the England to Australia record, which turned their departures into a kind of an informal race. By the time Smithy was ready to go, Captain George ‘Skip’ Matthews was long gone, but had broken down at Rangoon, while a couple of flyers by the names of Pickthorne and Chabot were already across the Persian Gulf, and seemingly going well. Kingsford Smith was not particularly concerned about them, as he was after Bert Hinkler’s solo record. No, the fellow who truly interested both Smithy and the press was Australian Flight Lieutenant Cedric Hill, who had got away four days earlier, and was apparently going well.

  When Smithy was asked by a journalist how he felt he would go, the aviator was quick with his reply.

  ‘I’ll do all right,’ he said firmly. ‘I’ll soon be blowing hot air down Hill’s neck. The others don’t worry me. Hill’s the bloke I have to beat.’54

  At dawn on 9 October 1930, Smithy took off from Heston aerodrome, to the west of London, in his unique Southern Cross Junior, G-ABCF, a modified, one-off, long-range Avro 616 Avian IVA sports-model biplane with a 120-horsepower de Havilland Gipsy II engine capable of generating a cruising speed of 90 miles per hour, at 1900 revolutions per minute. With a capacity of 113 gallons of petrol—including a good-sized tank inside the passenger’s cockpit—she could go as far as 1700 miles, which was not bad for such a small plane. Painted blue with silver wings, she had the silver stars of the Southern Cross constellation painted on both sides of the fuselage.

  Long-distance flying, of course, has good days and bad days. Rarely, however, had Smithy had a better day than that first one out of London. Everything went perfectly from first to last, and late that afternoon he had his highest moment. ‘There are few more beautiful scenes for the airman than the blue waters of the Mediterranean. To fly serenely down the Italian coast in the late afternoon is one of those pleasures not experienced by many; but to catch one’s first glimpse of Rome, at sunset, from a height of 3,000 feet, is a unique experience. For the moment I forgot the urgent nature of the mission upon which I was engaged…the ever-present underlying thought that I was engaged in a race, for once in a while vanished. I could only marvel at the grandeur and the glory that met my gaze as a thousand facets threw back the rays of the westering sun, and the full majesty of the City of Rome burst upon my sight. There are indeed moments, even in the life of a twentieth century airman, when he forgets his plane, his engine and himself.’55

  With Rome thus conquered in a day—and a shorter day than usual it was, too, as he was flying east towards the sun—he was off to a wonderful start. And so it continued for most of the rest of the journey.

  Crossing Italy’s perilous Apennine Ranges the following day at a height of 8000 feet, he continued keeping up a good speed through to glorious Athens—where he still made time to zip away from the airstrip to visit the Acropolis by moonlight56—and then to Aleppo in Syria, a place that had had human habitation for 13,000 years! From there, leaving at dawn on 12 October, he kept in sight the grand Euphrates River all the way until he could spy the towering mosques of Baghdad and then turned down the valley of the Tigris, the heartland of the former Babylonian and Assyrian empires…which now had a new king. Him!

  At least that was the way he felt, soaring over those ancient lands, as both physically and spiritually he continued to feel stronger the longer the journey went on, like a fish that was back in water. At the endlessly sprawling, teeming city of Karachi—which had twice as many people in its city confines as Australia had in a whole continent—he met up with Pickthorne and Chabot, who had crash-landed and were now out of the race. They advised, among other things, that the redoubtable Hill had passed through Karachi just two days before, and was flagging fast.

  Onward Christian soldiers.

  Leaving an hour before dawn the following day, Kingsford Smith was indeed now breathing down Hill’s neck, as he set off for the mosques and minarets of Allahabad. Arriving in the late afternoon, exhausted, he announced to the local press, ‘No more long-distance flights for me. There is nothing left for me to do, and besides, I am getting married when I arrive in Australia.’57

  Winging his way south-east, he was soon over the teeming lands crisscrossed by canals and rice paddies that led to Rangoon. Over Burma, it stunned him to see peasants wading
knee-deep behind ploughs drawn by buffalo, just as they had done for centuries, though he was probably not as stunned as they were to see him, essentially a soaring visitor from the future. When he landed on Rangoon racecourse, he was promptly told that Hill was now less than one day ahead of him, having left Rangoon the previous midnight.58

  The next day’s long flying took him to Singapore without serious incident, and the day after that, his ninth day in the air, he was in Sourabaya in East Java. Every report he received of Hill was that the Australian was exhausted beyond measure, but, conversely, Smithy continued to feel stronger than ever, as he fair ate up the route: ‘I swept over the dense jungle of the east coast of Sumatra; down past the sunlit sea immortalised by Conrad; over rivers and waterfalls, past villages, islands, and so on, over the ocean again to the Java coast…‘59

  Had to catch Hill. Had to catch Hill. Of course Smithy knew he was going to beat Hill’s time, as he had closed the gap on him by nearly four days already, but it had become a point of honour to beat him outright.