Charles Kingsford Smith and Those Magnificent Men

by P Fitzsimons

  ‘Now or never,’26 he breathed to himself, and flew on.

  Using, among other things, his uncanny ability to judge wind direction by the shape of the clouds he was heading into, and making allowance accordingly, Hinkler was able to stay on course.27 After flying for twenty-two hours and forty minutes across the storm-tossed ocean he arrived at Bathurst in British Gambia, where he sent his wife, Nancy, a typical cable: Landed at Bathurst, Gambia. OK. Bert. (At that point Nancy would not have been surprised if he had popped up in Patagonia.)28

  ‘I am thrilled at his great success,’ Nancy told the Evening Standard, ‘for only one other man, Colonel Lindbergh, has succeeded in flying across the Atlantic alone…I think he has done wonderfully, but then he is a wonderful husband.’29 A few more hops and he was touching down in Casablanca, in Morocco, before heading off to Madrid, the town of Tours in France, and finally…England! And there was his Nancy, waiting for him, and throwing her arms around him joyfully the moment he emerged from the plane.

  ‘I must admit,’ Bert said quietly at the formal welcome that awaited him at Hanworth Air Park in Middlesex, ‘that on a certain night my hopes of dying as a respectable old man with long white whiskers appeared as if they would not be realised.’30

  In honour of his achievement, the Royal Aero Club announced that Bert Hinkler would receive their gold medal at a dinner on the night of Wednesday, 16 December 1931. On the following evening, Hinkler was invited to attend a Guild of Air Pilots and Navigators dinner in the Florence Restaurant in London. And perhaps the just-landed Kingsford Smith would like to come too? Indeed he would. It was an odd circumstance that despite having both flown in the Great War and then crisscrossed the skies over and by each other through the 1920s in various parts of the world, the two aviators had never actually met. Both were delighted to do so, just as they were delighted that Amy Johnson, a young Englishwoman of extraordinary pluck—who had stunningly risen to fame the year before when she had become the first woman to fly solo to Australia, in nineteen days—was also at the dinner.

  The wine flowed, the conversation warmed up and there was no doubt in the mind of anyone that the future of the splendid aviators at that dinner was a bright one, just as was the future of aviation itself. For in this game the sky wasn’t the limit—there were no limits!

  As the Royal Aero Club chairman, His Grace the Duke of Atholl, exulted in his toast that very evening: ‘I foresee the time when women can fly from England to Australia with their hair newly Eton-cropped and return in a week’s time, with their hair in the same smart condition.’31

  As a matter of fact, this fitted in rather well with Hinkler’s own views of where aviation was heading, as he was firmly of the belief that in the future most long-distance flying would be done at night, while the days would be reserved for seeing things. He thought that a whole industry might grow up around this, with masses of people flying around the world to different places, to sightsee by day, before climbing back into the plane to sleep at night and travel somewhere else, before seeing another thing!32

  Invited to say a few words, Kingsford Smith made an elegant speech saying he was proud to claim Bert Hinkler as ‘a brother Aussie’. He did, however, jestingly reprimand Hinkler for the risks he took in flying the South Atlantic in such a slender craft, and would Bert mind telling everyone if there was a big flight that he wasn’t going to do, as Smithy himself would like to have a crack at it.

  Laughter all around, as the drinks continued to flow into the merry evening.33 Pass the port…

  ‘Hello Mary, darling. Chilla here. I’m in London…’

  It was her husband, Charles, on the phone, sounding very distant, which, of course, he was. Though they had been married for a year, the way things had worked out, Mary—just like so many wives of pioneering aviators—had spent much of her time on her own in their Bellevue Hill home, waiting for him to return, and in fact had even spent their first wedding anniversary, Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve without him. This time she had hoped he would be soon on his way back, bringing New Year’s post from England to Australia, but now he had bad news.

  There had been another accident, and again it was with Scotty Allan at the controls. Scotty had been moving the Southern Star from the Hamble aerodrome over to nearby Croydon in preparation for departure, when a smothering fog had closed in and he had lost his bearings. With little petrol on board Scotty had brought the plane down on a flat bit of ground in Kent, which would have been perfect except an orchard was planted on it, and he had smashed the undercarriage, knocked the wing off its pegs and finished with one of the engines half-buried in the soft ground. Charles was very sorry, Mary, but it looked like at least a week’s worth of repairs before they could again be under way.

  Never mind, darling, the main thing is that you’re all right, and Scotty wasn’t hurt either.

  Mary finally hung up, feeling lonely. Being the wife of a famous aviator had many upsides, but on other occasions it wasn’t easy at all.

  In fact, the penalties of being part of the family of a famous aviator were never so graphically illustrated as when, late on the evening of 1 March 1932, it was discovered that not only was the first-born child of Charles and Anne Lindbergh missing from his bed in the family mansion in East Amwell, New Jersey, but a ransom note had been left on the windowsill. It read:

  Dear Sir, Have 50,000 $ redy $25,000 in 20 $ bills 15,000 $ in 10$ bills and 10,000 $ in 5 $ bills. After 2-4 days we will inform you were to deliver the Mony.

  We warn you for making anyding public or for notify the Police the child is in gut care.

  Indication for all letters are singnature and 3 holes.

  The greatest search in American history was immediately launched, ending a few weeks later when a truck driver pulled over to allow his assistant, William Allen, to relieve himself beneath a grove of trees 5 miles from the Lindbergh home, only to discover the badly decomposed remains of the child, with a caved-in skull that had almost certainly occurred on the night. Even amid such tragedy the press did not respect the Lindbergh family’s privacy, with photographers trying to break into the mortuary to get a photo of their dead son.

  Smithy was devastated by the news, and constantly thought back to his meeting with Lindbergh two years earlier in New York’s Roosevelt Hotel, when the American pilot had been so thrilled at Charles Jnr’s recent birth and had shown him photos of his baby son.

  Smithy! Smithy! It’s Smithy! Come quick!

  And come quickly they did, first in Sydney—where the discovery of a nudist colony in the thick bush around Kingsgrove which could be viewed from the air helped boost business no end34—before heading off through the likes of Tamworth, Newcastle, Bendigo, Echuca, Deniliquin, Kyabram, Melbourne, Colac, Terang, Warrnambool, Maryborough, Ballarat and Geelong. In the first months of 1932, Smithy earned his living by taking enormous numbers of endless joyrides charged at 10 shillings a pop, which might have been steep for some, but a small price to pay to say you were one of the select few who had been ‘up in an aeroplane!’ and ‘with Smithy!’ to boot. All those who purchased a ride were given a ticket embossed with the words ‘Souvenir Flight in Southern Cross Piloted by C. E. Kingsford Smith’, and for many people it was the experience of a lifetime, something they would remember fondly and talk about for decades afterwards. Often local councils would be so excited about the impending visit of Australia’s most famous man that school children would be given a half-day holiday, which helped business no end.

  Ideally, of course, Smithy would have been able to put another pilot in charge of the Southern Cross, but over the years they had learnt that that simply didn’t work. The person everyone wanted to fly with was Smithy himself, one of the most celebrated men in Australia—with only Donald Bradman able to argue the toss (heads), and perhaps Phar Lap to snort derisively. True, it was a pity he didn’t have more serious flying work to do, as the Christmas postal venture had actually turned a profit despite all the misadventure, but for the moment nothi
ng beckoned.

  Except Sydney and its newly minted Harbour Bridge. And so in March he returned in time to take part in the celebrations that marked its opening, leading a fly-past in the Southern Cross and then taking people for joyrides.

  That evening he took a party of celebrants, all in evening wear, including his mother-in-law, for a spin over Sydney. Was he ‘flying blind’, in a different sense of the word? Perhaps. At the very least, there was a lot of alcohol around on that momentous day and evening.

  In any case, with an undetected tailwind he landed way too hard, collapsing the undercarriage and sliding along the airstrip. Holding the plane straight the best he could, even as the Southern Cross slithered and squirmed in agonised protest, Smithy mentally calculated the cost—£500…£800…£1000…£2000—before it finally came to a merciful halt. Fortunately no-one was injured, the chief casualty being what was left of Smithy’s bank balance.35 In fact, six weeks and £1500 later he had no choice but to head back out again, through Wellington, Warren, Narromine, Dubbo, Forbes, Young, Grenfell, Temora, Canberra, Cowra, Bathurst, Canowindra and Orange.

  As it happened, Smithy was in Grenfell on the early morning of 3 June 1932, when young Tommy Pethybridge—whom Smithy had first met as an RAAF mechanic, but who had recently left that service so he could work for his hero—burst into his boss’s hotel room, beside himself with some stunning news he had just heard on the radio. The King’s birthday honours had been announced and, wait for it, King George V had knighted Smithy! He was now Air Commodore Sir Charles Kingsford Smith. In an instant, Smithy’s world changed, as phone calls were made, telegrams began to arrive, everyone was giving him three cheers together with newly respectful slaps on the back, and he immediately had to make plans to fly Mary to Canberra that very afternoon in preparation for the investiture.36 (It was the second bit of wonderful news for the couple in recent times, after confirmation that Mary was pregnant, when he had been back in Sydney for the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge celebrations.) For his part, Tommy Pethybridge was thrilled that he was the one who got to tell Sir Charles the news.

  True, not everyone was pleased, as there was a strong view in certain sections of conservative society that a divorced man should never get a knighthood, and indeed Smithy was the first divorced man to ever be so honoured.

  Never mind. That evening Sir Charles and Lady Kingsford Smith, if you please, dined with His Excellency the Governor-General Sir Isaac Isaacs, at a banquet at Government House given in honour of the King’s birthday. Asked the following day how her husband felt about the honour, Lady Kingsford Smith said her husband was very pleased, as ‘it was at least some tangible proof that Australia felt about him the way he felt about Australia’.37

  Smithy himself was quoted: ‘In view of this new honour, I am more determined than ever to remain in Australia. I was born here. I have lived here and I like Australia better than any other country I have visited. While it is true that I should by now have been a comparatively wealthy man had I become a naturalised American or had some of the lucrative offers from abroad been accepted, I am content to remain here and to earn my own living in my own way.’38

  Though many of his supporters were public in their view that the government should ‘look after’ Smithy and give him the job of the unfortunate and still hospitalised Horace Brinsmead as Controller of Civil Aviation, nothing had come of that. Kingsford Smith didn’t ask for the position, and the government didn’t offer it. This meant that giving joy flights was the way he had left to make a living, and even if there were many people who took a dim view of a knight of the realm engaging in such common commerce, Smithy himself had no such compunction.

  ‘While there is a living to be made in the Southern Cross,’ he told a packed house at Brisbane City Hall on the evening of 1 August 1932, during one of his paid public lectures, ‘I do not think it is any disgrace for one on whom His Majesty has conferred the honour of knighthood to remain in his own country and earn his living in an honest way.’39 The response was warm applause. Thus, ‘Smithy’—and that is what he insisted he be addressed as, and never Sir Charles—kept on flying, much as he had ever done, with his one concession to his new status being to acquiesce to Mary’s insistence that he get a couple of tailored suits to wear on formal occasions.

  Which was as well, because there were even more of them to get through, as mayors positively outdid themselves to welcome the ‘Honorary Hair Commodore Sir Charles Kingsford Smith’, though on one occasion a particular mayor decided to go the whole hog.

  ‘And we are honoured to have here today,’ he said, ‘Lord Smith…who ‘as conquered the Hatlantic Hocean, the Pacific Hocean, and heven the great [Mediterr-hanean Hocean…]’40

  Only just was the aviator able to prevent himself from bursting out laughing. But enough of all that. It wouldn’t be long before there was a particularly strong reason to stay closer to home. On 22 December 1932, not long after his flying for the year was done, Mary gave birth to a fine son, whom they christened Charles Arthur Kingsford Smith.

  Late on the evening of 6 January 1933, at about eleven o’clock at night, Bert Hinkler called two of his closest friends. He asked if they would meet him at Harmondsworth aerodrome in a couple of hours’ time to help him get away on his planned trip to Australia, in which he hoped to break C.W.A. Scott’s latest record from England to Australia of eight days, twenty hours and forty-seven minutes, which the Englishman had set eight months previously.

  Hinkler’s friends agreed, and at one o’clock on that Saturday morning met him in fog so thick it was like being in a coalmine at midnight with a blindfold on. Bert had intended to get away at 2 am, but it was 3.10 am before—between them—they managed to get the Puss Moth into position, with its engine warmed up and ready to go, lit by the headlights of the cars the friends had driven there. Bert now opened ‘er up and the tiny plane was quickly lost in the fog. His two friends, chilled to the bone and desperately rubbing their gloved hands together to try to get circulation back in them, returned hastily to the warmth of their homes, while Bert flew to the south-east.

  He was spotted first over France, and then in Italy to the west of Turin, heading on a straight course to the Italian Riviera. That accomplished, just after eleven o’clock local time on the morning of 7 January, he was spotted over Florence, still heading south-east. His next task was to get over the Apennines, the mountain range that effectively forms the backbone of the Italian peninsula.41

  And then Bert Hinkler, son of Bundaberg, love of Nancy’s life and famous through much of the world, simply disappeared. There was no word of him at either Brindisi or in Athens—his possible landing points that afternoon—and the alarm was slowly raised. The devastating news was passed to Nancy as she was about to return to her ship in Auckland—on her way, she thought, to meet up with her Bert in Bundaberg—as a search operation was launched by the governments of France, Italy and Switzerland.

  Though very concerned about Hinkler’s disappearance, Charles Kingsford Smith had his own worries early in the new year of 1933. On 11 January, he took the Southern Cross down to Seven Mile Beach at Gerroa, a thirty-five-minute flight south of Sydney, in preparation for another trans-Tasman crossing. Seven Mile Beach had been chosen because its long, flat and hard surface of slightly curved shoreline and distinctly compact sand—often used for horse, car and motorcycle racing—was perfect to give their plane, heavily burdened with post and fuel, every chance to take off and if necessary to stop safely if that take-off had to be aborted. (Mascot runway was too short with such a heavy load on board, and Richmond too near the Blue Mountains, which represented a potential obstacle should the wind dictate a westerly departure as the most desirable.)

  Once positioned at the Berry Surf Club about 2 miles down the beach from the village of Gerroa, in the wee hours of the following morning, by the light of myriad car headlights and the flaming flares strung along the beach and those of the two Fox Movietone newsreel film crews, the Southern Cross rumbled al
ong the beach like an ungainly albatross trying to get up enough speed to get off the ground.42 On board, co-pilot Bill Taylor—who had been a pioneer of aerial navigation and ANA’s most outstanding regular pilot—was awestruck at Smithy’s skill in keeping the right-hand wheel of the heavy plane on a straight course just above the rising tide, and the left-hand wheel just below the soft sand.43 Any deviation meant disaster, and yet Kingsford Smith kept the hurtling plane precisely on track. The faithful bird finally left the sand just before 3.00 am, before swinging in a graceful arc back over the surf club, her searchlight glaring balefully in the foggy night, to set course to the east, towards New Zealand.44

  Never before, on a serious flight, had the Southern Cross been carrying so many people. As well as navigator and co-pilot Bill Taylor, the crew included radio man John Stannage (who had just married Smithy’s niece Beris after something of a whirlwind romance), Associated Newspapers journalist Jack Percival and one Stan Nielson, the secretary of the New Plymouth and New Zealand Aero Club, who had not only been instrumental in upgrading the club’s airstrip so the Southern Cross could use it, but had also parted with a cheque for £100 for the privilege of being the first fare-paying passenger to fly to New Zealand with them.45

  For once, for once, this proved to be a relatively uneventful flight—apart from Bill Taylor at one point fearing they were frightfully lost, and John Stannage getting severe electrical shocks from his radio gear—and no more than fifteen hours later they were able to land at Bell Block aerodrome in New Plymouth, escorted by five de Havilland Gipsy Moths, to be greeted by Smithy’s old friend and flying companion from the Coffee Royal days Tom McWilliams, as well as Chilla’s brother Wilfrid, who had gone on ahead to make arrangements, in a new managerial role he had just taken over. Also there waiting was Tommy Pethybridge, who was jubilant. He had been extremely worried about whether the Southern Cross was going to make it, and at its very sight had leaped into the air, danced around and yelled, ‘Those bloody marvellous engines!’46 They had done it again, pulling Smithy and his crew through mortal danger.