Charles Kingsford Smith and Those Magnificent Men

by P Fitzsimons

  Kingsford Smith and Taylor shared the piloting duties, with Taylor sometimes setting his sights on cirrus clouds, hundreds of miles ahead in the distance, which he found helped to ease the strain and monotony of concentrating on the compass alone. Initially Taylor set a course for New Caledonia, just over 900 miles away, which he intended to use as a checkpoint, and their reward was that late that afternoon, off to their port side, they spotted the joyous white line of breakers which told them they had made it. And what a grand pleasure it was to sweep from out of the skies and buzz above the languid water inside the stunningly colourful coral reefs, see open-mouthed villagers waving at them, and then swoop like an avenging angel down the coast towards the capital Nouméa—once spotted, it would give them an exact pinpoint from which they could set off for the next haul to Suva.

  Had they remained with their previous 300-gallon limit on petrol tanks, they would have run out about halfway between New Caledonia and Fiji, but fortunately—with the relevant authorities seeming to turn at least half a blind eye—Smithy had been able to have Lawrence Wackett install three extra petrol tanks before departure, taking the capacity right up to 514 gallons.

  Still, as it was just starting to get dark, they were beginning to worry. If they didn’t spot Fiji soon, they would have only one alternative. They would have to climb above the clouds, get a definite sextant ‘fix’ on the stars to navigate from, then go back under the clouds and hope they could spot the lights of Suva. It was far from ideal, but it was their only choice. About twenty minutes before dusk, however, Fiji wondrously hove into view and in no time at all, they were swooping in low over Suva’s Albert Park, where Smithy had landed the Southern Cross six years earlier. This time in the much smaller plane—with the luxury of brakes—he was able to stop her within 150 yards, to once again be engulfed by an enthusiastic crowd. That thing of legend, the Wanga Vuk, the bird-ship, had returned!

  In the middle of the welcoming ceremony, Smithy looked out on the sea of black faces gazing up at him and spotted a familiar white one—that of young Tommy Pethybridge, who had come on ahead to Fiji by ship to act as an advance party to arrange their fuel and so forth.

  ‘There you are, Tommy,’ Smithy called out to him. ‘Come up here, you belong up here with us.’10

  A delighted Tommy scrambled onto the podium, as Smithy introduced him to the many onlookers as ‘an invaluable member of our team’. And that he was. And a good man, besides.

  That evening, Smithy and Taylor were able to wash, eat and retire to their rooms in the full knowledge that Tommy would work around the clock on the Lady Southern Cross, cleaning and checking everything, and ensuring that the plane was in the best possible shape to take off the following day. Before sleep, however, Bill Taylor decided to take in a little night air, from the balcony of his room.

  A small distance away, he could see where they had parked the Lady Southern Cross. Tommy had covered it in tarpaulins and the lights dancing behind those tarps, throwing jigging shadows, told him that Tommy was still on the job, going through his endless check list of things to be done. It was gorgeous to be there, if slightly amazing to have so quickly hopped from one entirely different world to another, and Bill could go to sleep with the satisfaction that everything pointed to a good start on the morrow.

  Alas, when they awoke at dawn it was to the knowledge that they were in the middle of a severe tropical storm—as the windows clattered, the hallways whistled and a river ran off the roof—and while it was one thing to find themselves in the thick of a storm while in the air, and obliged to battle through, it was quite another to take off in one, and there was no doubt they would not be able to leave on that day.

  And there they were! Just after 3.35 pm on the afternoon of Tuesday, 23 October 1934, the Comet Grosvenor House, flown by Flight Lieutenant Charles Scott and Captain Tom Campbell Black, approached Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne after a higgledy-piggledy, helter-skelter journey that had them crossing three continents, sixteen countries and countless deserts, mountains and jungles. In Scott’s later words, ‘It was a terrible trip, and that is praising it.’11

  Throwing caution to the four winds, Scott and Black gingerly opened up the Comet’s lame port engine as they dipped and swept for the finishing line ‘at a height not exceeding 200 feet’.12 At full noise, the blood-red racer flashed around the two circuits required by the rules, to the adulation of over 50,000 people cheering themselves hoarse and waving—the men throwing their hats and women their handbags into the air—all in the Melbourne drizzle. The pilots, clamped in their Plexiglas cockpit and barely awake, were only dimly aware, if at all, of their reception, and headed off to land at Laverton RAAF base, 14 miles west.13 The most amazing thing of all was their time: seventy-one hours, one minute and three seconds—just under three days—completely blowing away the record of six days, seventeen hours and fifty-six minutes, which had been set by Charles Ulm only the year before. (And they had arrived in Darwin in an even more stunning time, as witness the headlines across the country: ‘TO AUSTRALIA IN 2 DAYS, 4 HOURS, 38 MINUTES’; ‘AIRMEN SET UP AMAZING RECORD!’)14 Their times beggared belief. England to Australia, in little more than a weekend…

  This, then, was the surest proof of the rate at which aviation was advancing. Just five years earlier, Australia and much of the world had been agog when Bert Hinkler had winged his way from London to Darwin in sixteen days, and now an even greater distance, from Mildenhall to Melbourne, had been done in one-fifth of the time—in a machine with an enclosed cockpit, powered by twin 225-horsepower Gipsy Six R engines.

  (And a sign of how public expectations had changed, in the wake of Scott and Black’s time, was the flurry of criticism that now came down on Qantas Empire Airways for their absurdly long schedule to get from London to Brisbane. Twelve days? Twelve days? When Scott and Black could do it in three? And a Dutch airliner in just under four, including an emergency landing in a storm that cost it ten hours? ‘This achievement,’ the Bulletin magazine sniped, ‘has made the Commonwealth’s twelve day schedule look ridiculous, and even the bureaucracy admits that something will have to be done about it.’15)

  In fact, however, it had been a close-run thing. When the two Britons had arrived in Darwin, it had been with the left engine shut down after its oil pressure had dropped alarmingly over the Timor Sea. No matter the potentially lame engine, they were being pressed hard by the Dutch airliner Uiver, and all Scott wanted was two beers for himself, some fuel for his plane, the oil filters cleaned and they were on their way again! By comparison, Uiver, when it landed several hours later, was in fine fettle, and the crew and passengers all seemingly well rested.

  By the time Grosvenor House made it to Charleville, its lead over Uiver had been further cut, and it was down to the one good engine once more. Again, however, Scott and Campbell Black took off, against all common sense and regard for self-preservation, and the reward for the Britons had been their breathtaking victory.

  After landing at Laverton, the two were then flown back to Flemington in a DH.80A Puss Moth, where they were presented to the cheering crowd as they were driven around the course in a motorcar.

  In his welcoming speech Melbourne’s Lord Mayor Sir Harold Gengoult Smith said rather pointedly, ‘You have thrilled the world, and earned the admiration and gratitude of the British Empire. You have won the greatest race in history…It is with intense pride that we remember you flew in a British race and in a British machine.’16

  Which was, surely, one in the eye for Kingsford Smith, who had wanted to do it in an extremely unpatriotic American plane.

  As to the completely exhausted Charles Scott, however, he was beyond caring what nationality of plane he had flown in. As he climbed wearily out of the Comet at Laverton, he was heard to say to Campbell Black, ‘I never want to see that red bastard again.’17

  The next question at Flemington though, was, where was Uiver? Some of the crowd at the racecourse waited expectantly on into the night, hoping the plane mig
ht soon appear. But 9 pm…10 pm…11 pm…and midnight passed…still nothing. A pall of black gloom hung over the airfield. No-one wanted to say it, but everyone feared the worst.

  Where could she be? It was a dark and stormy night…

  With the cracking of lightning as the only thing to pierce the gloom above Albury, on the New South Wales-Victoria border, residents were woken in their beds just after midnight by the sound of a plane rumbling low overhead with a pained, throaty growl. Back and forth, round and around. It sounded like a plane in trouble. Could it be?

  A phone call to Melbourne established that the KLM Uiver had not yet arrived, and also that for some reason, probably by virtue of a lightning strike, its radio appeared to have been knocked out. Without the radio to help with the navigation, and in the middle of a storm, they must have become lost. So that must be them!

  Things moved quickly from there. At 2CO there was movement at the station, as local ABC radio announcer, Arthur Newnham, left his home and rushed like a mad thing to the broadcasting studio, where he broke into regular programming on relay from 3AR Melbourne and made an appeal for everyone who could to head to the racecourse, so that, between all of their car headlights they would be able to illuminate a makeshift runway for the stricken craft.18 Meanwhile, notwithstanding the terrible weather and flooding rain, Albury electrical engineer Lyle Ferris dashed down to Albury’s electrical supply in South Albury, where he got a telegraphist, a bloke he knew as Turner, to pull a master switch to turn the town’s lights on and off in a fashion to spell out in Morse code: A…L…B…U…R…Y.

  Genius.

  Suddenly the quiet streets of Albury became very busy. Phones rang, doors were knocked on, and hundreds of cars were soon on their way to the racecourse. Much of the drama was broadcast not just around Australia on relay from 2CO, where Arthur Newnham and colleagues were giving a blow-by-blow description of events, but also—by the wonders of modern radio technology—all the way to Holland, where it was late afternoon and regular updates from Australia meant that the Dutch people could closely follow the fortunes of some of their own on the other side of the planet.

  In the DC-2 Uiver meanwhile, Captain Parmentier had been at his wits’ end to know quite what to do, other than to momentarily leave the controls in the hands of his co-pilot while he conducted a small religious service for the crew and passengers—though this was more to keep morale up, rather than the genuine expectation that the Lord might get them down on a wing and a prayer. Knowing that their only hope was to stay near civilisation, he had continued to circle the town, when at last he spotted a ‘blazing crescent’ of headlights at the eastern end of the town.

  An airstrip! The wonderful people of Albury had turned a light on for them, and at exactly the right spot. Coming in low for a quick look-see, the Dutch air captain turned and made his approach for a landing from the north-east. It was 1.15 am on the morning of 24 October 1934.

  The people, huddled in their cars, watched closely as this visitor arriving from another world, all bellowing big radial engines and twinkling landing lights—a bloody massive thing I’m telling you—suddenly filled their windscreens, descended and landed safely on the sodden soil.

  Waiter! More tea! And blankets! And pumpkin scones and beds in local hotels for our new friends!19

  And a wonderful night was had by all…

  The following morning the Alburians turned out in force and with 120 people divided between two ropes, all hauling together—and heave, and heave, and HEAAAVE—managed to pull the plane out of the mud and get it on its way. Despite the delay, the Uiver still managed to finish second overall, and win the handicap section. No, on this occasion the passenger airliner had not surpassed the two-pilot screamers as the King of the Skies, but its finishing position of close second was the surest indication that that era was about to begin—the more so when Roscoe Turner’s Boeing landed just two hours behind Uiver. Roscoe had himself had a ‘helluva trip’, seeing things that he had not known previously existed on heaven or earth, chief among which were the beautiful bare-breasted women in sarongs he had spied when passing through Bali. Once all the fussing was over, he declared, he wanted to return to Bali, to ‘buy me an acre o’ tits, and walk on ‘em barefoot!’20

  A good sport, he was also noted for being quick to congratulate the victors.

  ‘Mr Scott,’ he boomed, ‘I certainly do congratulate you. It sure was an honour to breathe the fumes from your exhaust…‘21

  As to Jim and Amy Mollison, they had been forced to retire at Allahabad, in India, after having terrible engine trouble. The chief engineer there was amazed to find three empty whisky bottles in Jim Mollison’s cockpit.

  Overall, of the twenty competitors who began the race, seven finished within the sixteen-day time limit, and another two afterwards.

  A few days after the first celebrations had begun to die down, Uiver, while on its way back to Europe, again swooped low over Albury racecourse and dropped a package. In it was a cigarette case attached to a Dutch flag on which was written a message: ‘To all our good friends in Albury, we salute you and say farewell.’22

  Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands shortly afterwards awarded to the Mayor of Albury, Alf Waugh, the Order of the Orange Nassau, and sent personal gifts to particular people who had gone out of their way to help those in the plane. For its part, KLM made a handsome donation to Albury District Hospital of 1000 guilders, the equivalent of £180.23

  Amsterdam’s main newspaper, the Telegraaf, ran many letters of praise to the editor, including one who waxed particularly lyrical about ‘the unknown Australians who gathered in cars at Albury, despite terrible weather, at dead of night. Thanks to you, we walk the streets today with smiling faces. Here’s to world comradeship and to the Australians!’24

  Still in Fiji, Kingsford Smith was asked by the Fiji Times for his view on the result of the Centenary Race and he did his very best to be gracious…nearly pulling it off.

  ‘It was a stout showing on Scott’s part,’ he told the journalist. ‘I am very glad to see it. I have a shade more horsepower and would probably have bettered his time, but I was handicapped by the petrol loading they allowed me. I am disgruntled. It was stated that with a load, owing to its undercarriage, the Comet was able to get under way very fast, but I myself can get off very fast with a big load of petrol.’25

  Famous last words?

  As it happened, that was not always the way with the Altair. After Tommy Pethybridge had finished repair work on its wings and fitted new spark plugs, and a local weather phenomenon—the thangi walu, or eight-day wind, with its low cloud and rain—had abated enough, Smithy and Taylor were able to take off from the sodden Albert Park to re-position at Naselai Beach for departure on the afternoon of 24 October, with full fuel tanks.26 With the thangi walu still strong, it was always going to be a close-run thing…

  At two o’clock they commenced their take-off run on the narrow, curving strip of beach, its width reduced by the windblown waves of the rising tide. Alas, a sudden gust gripped the Altair, causing it to swing uncontrollably at 60 miles per hour into the surf, engulfing the wheels. Only Smithy’s instant and instinctive airmanship saved the aircraft from certain catastrophe. The motor, now at full bore, drove streams of water from the propeller over the entire plane, while the wheels threatened to sink into the softening sand.

  Lady Southern Cross shook herself clear of the rising tide, like a big, angry, wet blue cattle dog; Smithy using judicious bursts of throttle to help pull her above the high watermark. Taylor could only pray and marvel at his skill. Finally, the plane shuddered to a halt and they could assess the damage.

  For a further four days the crew luxuriated in Fijian hospitality, staying on board the government’s vessel HMCS Pioneer in Suva, per courtesy of the genial Captain Mullins, for three nights and then with islanders on the final two evenings. At last the weather cleared with only some scattered cumulus dotting the sky and nary a sign of the high cirrus clouds which portend de
teriorating conditions aloft. At 6.08 am, Fiji time, on 29 October, Smithy opened up the Altair’s Wasp engine—this time with no dramas—and the take-off was both very fast and flawless, as they tore away to the eastern skies.

  At 2.30 pm they spotted the Phoenix group of islands which had so frustratingly escaped Smithy on his previous trip across the Pacific—the sign they were looking for that they were on course. All well and good, and it was a time for quiet reflection. ‘As we roared across the placid ocean I could not help reflecting how different were the circumstances on this occasion. Then, I had had three companions; now, only one; then I had three engines; now, only one; then I was flying in triumph to my native land; now, I was flying from it.’27

  It was not long, however, before there would be no more time for quiet reflection…

  About twelve hours out from Fiji, just after evening fell, they hit a wild tropical storm. Smithy tried to get above it, but at 15,000 feet, it was as fierce as ever and the rain was hitting their windscreen like bullets from a machine gun. Once again flying blind, as sudden gusts of wind battered them from every angle, Smithy was himself being hurled around in the cockpit. With his brain feeling foggy at this altitude due to lack of oxygen, he kept turning the landing lights on and off, anxiously checking that the driving rain had not damaged the fabric cover of the leading edge of the Altair’s wooden wings, when he saw something that froze his heart. The airspeed indicator had fallen from 130 miles per hour to just 90 miles per hour, and the plane had turned sluggish, like it was suddenly flying through honey. Then the airspeed indicator suddenly snapped to zero and the Altair’s left wing dropped. The blind-flying instruments showed a steep bank to the left and stayed there, meaning they were in a spin!28