Charles Kingsford Smith and Those Magnificent Men

by P Fitzsimons

  Finally, when Smithy landed at Atamboea, in Timor, just as the sun was setting on that gorgeous green island, it was to see a lone and rather forlorn figure waiting for him at the end of the airfield. Dr Livingstone, he presumed? It was Smithy’s quarry of the last week, a very sunburned Flight Lieutenant Cedric Hill, who just that morning had crashed into a fence while attempting to take off for Darwin, and smashed his plane beyond any hope of repair. A string bean of a man, given to easy laughter, Hill offered Smithy both a rueful smile and congratulatory handshake.

  The two passed a pleasant evening together in Atamboea’s lone guesthouse, comparing notes over several ales, and at dawn the following morning Hill was there to see Smithy go. A mark of the instant camaraderie between the airmen was that the Queenslander, upon hearing that Smithy did not have a small collapsible rubber boat as a backup should the Southern Cross Junior come down while crossing the 450-mile stretch of the Timor Sea that awaited, insisted that he take his own. Which Smithy did, with great appreciation.

  He flew off and, a little over eight hours later, after crossing the bulk of the extraordinarily calm, glassy Timor Sea, the magic moment came. Sighting the Australian shoreline, Smithy let out a spontaneous yell of joy that was just as soon swallowed by the shriek of the engine,60 and then said quietly to himself: ‘Good old Aussie.’61

  Sweeping in from the Clarence Strait and over the sunbaked roofs of Darwin a short time later, he landed to an extravagant welcome similar to the one accorded Ross and Keith Smith when they landed at the same spot a decade earlier. Back then, the Smith brothers had taken twenty-seven days to complete the journey, while Hinkler had taken just under sixteen days. And now, Charles Kingsford Smith, landing at 1.50 pm on 19 October 1930, had done the 10,070 miles in a total of nine days, twenty-one hours and forty minutes, lopping roughly one-third from the Hinkler record that had so amazed the aviation world only two years previously.62 Hurrah! As it happened, the first telegram he opened on arrival was from Hinkler himself, congratulating him on his feat.63 Another cable shortly afterwards offered the congratulations of His Majesty King George V himself, and there was even talk that he might receive a knighthood in the not too distant future—an extraordinary honour for one who had been divorced! As to the Australian government, it was not long in announcing that Smithy had been promoted to air commodore in the Royal Australian Air Force.

  A triumphal tour across the continent and down the east coast of Australia followed, as Smithy graciously accepted all the laurels heaped upon him. In the words of Horace Brinsmead, Smithy was now ‘as pre-eminent, when compared with any other international pilot, as Bradman is, when compared with any other international cricketer’.64

  It had been one thing to have been greeted as an all-conquering hero in London, Amsterdam and Berlin, but very satisfying to now receive a similar demonstration in his own country. True, he could have done without the endless receptions in every town he visited, where usually the mayor or other high dignitaries made endless speeches welcoming the ‘Honorary Hair Commodore’,65 but it was touching for all that.

  The Coffee Royal affair now seemed all but forgotten, and he was a bigger hero than he had ever been. In a radio interview conducted in the studios of 4QG Brisbane—relayed to other stations around the country—he announced that as much as he had loved it, his days of long-distance flying were over.

  ‘The only long distance of flying I am thinking of at the moment,’ he said, ‘is a matrimonial one, which is a kind of dual control affair.’66

  A triple hurrah for Smithy!

  The following day, at Mascot aerodrome, there were the now almost familiar scenes of wild jubilation—which went up three notches as the famous aviator was given a kiss and a hug on the podium from his gorgeous fiancée, Mary, whom he had not seen for seven months—punctuated by the main speeches of official welcome. Representing the Federal government, the Assistant Minister for Industry, Mr Jack Beasley, noted that every Australian was extremely proud of Air Commodore Kingsford Smith’s achievement, and it was a pleasure to welcome him back to his native country.

  ‘I feel,’ the Assistant Minister added, ‘that he can be rightly acclaimed today as “King of the Air”. It is exploits of this character that build nations, and Australia owes more than it can ever pay to Kingsford Smith.’67

  Strong applause greeted these words from all and sundry, including Smithy’s family, who had turned out in force. And yet, as a group, they were all far less joyous than usual.

  It was about Dad, his brother Leofric told him quietly a short time later. He was ailing, and going downhill fast, so ill with bowel cancer that he had not been able to make it to Mascot to greet his youngest son, something that nearly killed him in itself. So, after Smithy and Mary had been driven through the streets of Sydney in a kind of ticker-tape parade without the ticker-tape, he was not long in making his way home to Kuranda, to see his father and effectively begin to say his goodbyes. Within a few days, William’s condition had deteriorated to the point that he was admitted to nearby Longueville Hospital, where he could receive professional care around the clock.

  One thing the 78-year-old patriarch of the family was able to express over the last few days of his life was that when he died, he wanted his ashes to be scattered upon the Pacific Ocean.68

  Just nine days after Smithy had arrived in Sydney, on the morning of Sunday, 2 November 1930, with his sons Chilla, Leofric and Eric by his side, William Kingsford Smith died. Grief-stricken, Smithy was able to honour his father’s wishes by taking up the Southern Moon a few days later with a very special cargo. Once well out and high over the Pacific Ocean, Smithy shut off the engines to let her glide gracefully downwards, and allowed Charles Ulm to take the controls while he moved back into the main cabin where his brothers, sisters, niece and nephew awaited him. There as well were two clergymen, Bishop Wilton and Reverend G. Morris Fielding, who conducted a quick final service for William Kingsford, before Smithy leaned out the cabin window and scattered his father’s ashes from a silver urn, followed by a bunch of rosemary and three roses, his father’s favourite flower.69

  Of the many regrets the youngest Kingsford Smith offspring had about William’s death, one of the biggest was that his father would not be present for his wedding to Mary, the following month in Melbourne, which proved to be a grand occasion.

  On the sparkling afternoon of Wednesday, 10 December 1930, the gorgeous Mary Powell in a flowing white wedding dress, escorted by her proud father Arthur and attended by four bridesmaids, including Beris Kingsford Smith, walked down the aisle of Melbourne’s grand Scots Church in Russell Street. Waiting there, beaming back, and decked out in full ceremonial dress was Air Commodore Charles Kingsford Smith, with Wing Commander Charles Ulm beside him as his best man, and other RAAF officers beside him. It was a ‘fairytale wedding’ indeed, between the stunning twenty-year-old from one of the richest families in Melbourne and the ‘World’s Greatest Airman’, as he was frequently described. The bride, as recorded by the Sydney Morning Herald, ‘wore a frock of ivory georgette, interwoven with gleaming velvet thread in a closely set lace pattern. A pink foundation gave a delicate glow to the graceful draperies which fell from the waist-line at the back with a long train. Her full veil of pale pink tulle enveloped her like a sunset cloud.’70

  On the streets around the church no fewer than 10,000 people were standing tightly together or had climbed nearby trees in the hope of catching a glimpse of the happy couple. Upon the couple’s exit from the church these spectators were so enthusiastic that the wooden barriers which had been set up to keep them back toppled and it was only with the help of the police that the newlyweds were able to get away.

  A blissful honeymoon in Tasmania ensued, which Mary would remember ever after as one of the rare times she could have her husband all to herself. And in many ways, she was still getting to know him, as in their whirlwind romance to date, extending just over a year—during which he had been overseas for seven months in total, and
living in Sydney for the rest, while she had remained in Melbourne—the actual time they had spent together was limited. ‘He was a very physical but gentle and endlessly patient person,’ she later told Kingsford Smith biographer, Ian Mackersey. ‘He taught me to smoke, to drink and introduced me to highly risqué stories. “A dirty mind is a perpetual solace,” he would often say. And he loved to announce outrageously: “My greatest ambition is to be hanged for rape when I’m ninety-two!” He had this deep need to be surrounded by people. He hardly ever read and had very few books.’71

  Among other things, Mary was amused by Smithy’s capacity to stand on his head while drinking a beer.

  As it happened, Kingsford Smith was back in Tasmania just a few weeks later in the company of ANA pilot James Mollison, as the two took the Southern Cloud on their company’s inaugural trip to Launceston. A couple of happy days of being bathed in glory by the good burghers of that town ensued, but on the night before leaving Smithy decided it was time to take Jimmy in hand.

  ‘Jim,’ he said firmly, ‘we must impress the Tasmanians with our steadiness and sobriety. In the company’s interest we’ll spend a quiet evening and be early in bed, say about eleven o’clock.’

  Aye-aye, Cap’n sir. No matter that Jimmy was himself a big drinker who characterised himself as the ‘flying playboy’,72 by his own account he duly went to bed in the room he was sharing with Smithy, mildly surprised that his skipper wasn’t there, only to be awoken in the wee hours by a very noisy ‘Shhhh…’

  ‘Staggering slightly and wild of eye,’ Mollison later recounted, ‘Smithy tip-toed towards the twin beds, noiseless as a battery of horse-artillery at the canter, finger to his lips. A slightly rumpled blonde behind him made shaky efforts to bolt the door on the inside. Between them they made clatter enough to bring the ceiling down. We all drank and made merry together until the smallest hours.’73

  Meanwhile, Smithy had arranged for the Southern Cross to be shipped to Sydney from San Francisco on the steamer Golden Bear. As it left, the San Francisco Examiner editorialised: ‘It will take 26 days to cover what those roaring Whirlwind motors accomplished in 88 hours. There will be no gallant conquest of the darkness now; no tempestuous storm to encounter, no lashing gales and no cheering throngs—just a crowded place in the hold of a crawling tramp steamer. The dauntless path-finder that kings and presidents acclaimed—now a lonely old crate—follows its master home.’74

  All up, 1930 for Charles Kingsford Smith had been an amazing year, one in which he had married the woman of his dreams and dominated headlines around the world for his derring-do and pioneering spirit. Australian National Airways could be confident that in Smithy they had one of the most famous and accomplished aviators as their public face—with only Charles Lindbergh able to argue the toss. Most importantly, the name ‘Kingsford Smith’ and travel to and from England by air were practically synonymous, meaning that ANA was now extremely well positioned should there be a breakthrough in opening a commercial England to Australia run.

  And yet, while there was no pilot flying for Qantas who had achieved remotely as much, that company could also take some quiet satisfaction in how it had been able to consolidate its early growth, and how well the move to Brisbane had gone. At the end of the financial year, Qantas was able to pay its third dividend to its shareholders, distributing the £5770 profit it had made for the year, which was 14.6 per cent of its capital.

  When it came to money, somehow Smithy never seemed to have enough, and for a marital home all he and Mary could afford was a relatively modest apartment in Sydney’s Bellevue Hill that his mother Catherine had scouted out for them while they had been on their honeymoon.75 Something that perturbed him was being endlessly pursued by the British Air Ministry for £96 10s expenses, incurred in sending cables to the countries where he had landed during his latest record-breaking flight. In an aggrieved letter to the secretary of that air ministry the famed pilot made his position clear:

  As a British subject, it seems most peculiar that I have had nothing but the most helpful attitude from Foreign countries towards my flights, whereas in my dealings with Great Britain a reply to the slightest request is always accompanied by an account for payment.

  After all, I am a loyal British subject, and my flights have, I claim, done a little to increase the prestige of the Empire in the air. Yours very truly,

  C.E. Kingsford Smith.76

  At last, the international breakthrough. After long correspondence between Australia and Great Britain’s civil aviation authorities, and their respective General Post Offices, it had been decided in the early months of 1931 that two test round-trip airmail services would take place between London and Sydney, with two lots of post leaving London, on 4 April and 25 April. Imperial Airways would expand their London to Delhi services for the occasion and get the mail all the way to Darwin, where it would be sent on to Sydney via…Qantas.77

  Bugger! How on earth could that be?! What had Qantas ever done to open international routes? Where, now, were the government’s statements that Australia owed Smithy more than it could ever repay? Was there to be nothing for those who had blazed the path of Australia’s international airroutes more than any other flyers in the country? Just a month earlier the Australian Post Office had deeply honoured Kingsford Smith by releasing a range of postage stamps bearing his image—to celebrate his achievement in circumnavigating the globe—and yet he was now adjudged as not good enough to even carry the mail on which his image was frequently plastered.

  It took some time to get over missing out on such a plum, but there was little ANA could do. For the moment the airline decided to focus on building up its domestic routes between the major eastern cities, which a few months previously had expanded to Launceston. All the company could do was keep going and hope that it would continue to prosper without mishap. Something the board thought would help with the matter of safety would be to erect a series of ground radio stations along its principal routes, so company management could always be in touch with its planes, but the Federal authorities had refused permission on the basis that it intended to build its own stations, which facilities would be available to all airlines.78

  Saturday, 21 March 1931 dawned in Sydney cold, blustery and wet. Although it was not yet winter, it was the kind of morning where the instinctive human reaction was to stay in bed and snuggle up.

  Alas, that morning, as on most mornings, ANA’s engine foreman, Dan Macfarlane, had a job to do, which was to get the Avros shipshape and away on their regular runs, come rain, hail or shine. But still, even on this morning? He wasn’t sure, as he pulled up outside ANA’s hangars at Mascot and wind gusts fiercely shook his old Vauxhall. What a bloody day!

  Macfarlane’s unease grew as the time came to get the Southern Cloud away to Melbourne. If the plane was going into a sustained 40-mile per hour headwind, strong enough to blow the chicken out of a chicken sandwich, its ground speed would be cut to 50 miles per hour, making it a nine-hour trip to the Victorian capital. And yet the planes only carried eight hours of fuel in their tanks! Of course, it probably wouldn’t be a headwind that strong all the way, but still…Dan personally ensured that all four fuel tanks were topped up right to the brim.

  He signed the maintenance release and gave it to the ex-British Army officer and now ANA pilot ‘Shorty’ Shortridge for countersignature, whereupon Shorty asked, sort of disinterestedly, in his British burr, ‘What’s the weather report?’

  ‘Nothing in this morning, but last report was a low, east of the mountains, and strong south to south-west winds.’

  Shorty grunted in the manner of a man who had seen a few storms in his time—three months earlier he had published a guide to ‘Blind and Bad Weather Flying’79—and had never been too impressed by them.

  ‘Sounds like bloody blind flying and bumps. Tanks full?’

  ‘Topped them up myself,’ Dan replied.

  ‘How many passengers?’

  ‘Only six, so you don’t have much of a loa
d.’

  ‘Good job. Might be able to get above some of the dirt anyhow. May have to land at Benalla for fuel if it stays too bad.’80

  And with that, Shorty climbed into the cockpit of the Southern Cloud, where young Charles Dunnell was already in the co-pilot’s seat, and only a few minutes later they were taxiing to the northern end of the airstrip. In the cabin the six passengers were themselves a little nervous, as the plane rocked in the buffeting wind. Of them all—theatre producer Clyde Hood, electrical engineer Julian Margules, businessman Hubert Farrall, accountant Bill O’Reilly and holiday-makers Elsie Glasgow and Claire Stokes81—one had the most reason to be nervous. Young Claire had never flown before, and this hardly looked like the day to start. And yet, once they were rolling, one didn’t really want to make a scene and demand to be let off the plane. She was, after all, in the hands of professionals.

  It was just after 8.10 am when Dan Macfarlane watched the plane take off—slower than usual, it seemed to him, struggling against the headwind—still feeling most uneasy. His unease grew when, only an hour after they left, a phone call came in from the weather bureau, with nothing less than a cyclone warning, saying that something close to the worst weather in thirty years was hitting the area south of the new Federal capital of Canberra.

  Though there were no means of contacting the Southern Cloud to relay this warning, there was no great alarm in the ANA offices. Shorty, with 4000 hours’ flying time logged to his credit, would surely find either a way through or around it. Short of Kingsford Smith himself, the plane could barely have been in safer hands.

  And later that afternoon, when Charles Ulm took a phone call at the company’s offices from ANA’s Melbourne manager, to inform him that the plane had not arrived at Melbourne, there was still no panic. All that meant was that Shorty hadn’t found a way through, and had no doubt headed west to the vast farming flat-lands around the Riverina that were an aircraft’s friend.