Charles Kingsford Smith and Those Magnificent Men

by P Fitzsimons

16Ellison, Norman, Flying Matilda: Early Days in Australian Aviation, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1957, p. 197.

  17‘Flight to Fiji’, The Times, 6 June 1928.

  18Sealby, op. cit., p. 17.

  19Adams, op. cit., p. 103.

  20Mackersey, Ian, The Wright Brothers: A Remarkable Story of the Aviation Pioneers Who Changed the World, Time Warner, London, 2004, p. 96.

  21ibid., p. 166.

  22ibid.

  23Shaw and Ruhen, op. cit., p. 133.

  24ibid., p. 134.

  25Kingsford Smith, Charles, letter to father in Canada, sent from Greenwich, Sydney, date unknown, Ellison Collection, National Library of Australia, Canberra.

  26Wixted, Edward P., The Life and Times of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith: An Illustrated Chronology, private source, Queensland, 1996, p. 7.

  27Burton, Walt and Findsen, Owen, The Wright Brothers Legacy: Orville and Wilbur Wright and Their Aeroplanes, Harry N. Abrams Inc., New York, 2003, p. 64.

  28Wallace, Graham, The Flying Witness, Putnam, London, 1958, p. 44.

  29ibid., p. 52.

  30ibid., p.57.

  31Shaw and Ruhen, op. cit., p. 115.

  32ibid., p. 144.

  33‘Review of Hargrave’s Work’, The Technical Gazette of New South Wales, 1924, p. 46.

  34‘Another Sensation at Bondi’, Sydney Morning Herald, 3 January 1907.

  35Brawley, Sean, The Bondi Lifesaver: A History of an Australian Icon, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007, p. 29.

  36Trubuhovich, Ronald V., History of Mouth-to-Mouth Ventilation, Part 3: The 19th to mid-20th Centuries and ‘Rediscovery’, (Vol. 9), Department of Critical Care Medicine, Auckland, 2007, pp. 62-78.

  37Wixted, op. cit., p. 5.

  38Wohl, Robert, A Passion for Wings: Aviation and the Western Imagination, 1908-1918, Yale University Press, New Haven/London, 1994, p. 25.

  39Wallace, op. cit., p. 81.

  40‘Wright’s Airship in Rapid Flight’, New York Times, 9 August 1908.

  41Wallace, op. cit., p. 82.

  42ibid., p. 85.

  43Kelly, Fred C. (ed), Miracle at Kitty Hawk: The Letters of Wilbur and Orville Wright, Farrar & Straus, New York, 1951.

  44Wallace, op. cit., p. 80.

  45Wixted, op. cit., p. 6.

  46Sprigg, C. St John, Great Flights, Thomas Nelson & Sons, London, 1936, p. 15.

  47http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/hh/34/hh34n.htm

  48‘M Blériot in London: Great Public Welcome’, Daily Mail, 27 July 1909.

  49‘Aerial League: Flying Machines to Defend Australia’, Sydney Morning Herald, 29 April 1909.

  50‘Aerial League: Inauguration Decided Upon’, Daily Telegraph, 29 April 1909.

  51ibid.

  Chapter 2: Distance

  1Fokker, Anthony, Flying Dutchman, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1938, p. 5.

  2Wallace, Graham, The Flying Witness, Putnam, London, 1958, p. 54.

  3Wohl, Robert, A Passion for Wings: Aviation and the Western Imagination, 1908-1918, Yale University Press, New Haven/London, 1994, p. 112.

  4Elliott, Brian A., Blériot: Herald of an Age, Temp us Publishing, Gloucestershire, 2000, p. 60.

  5ibid., p. 102.

  6‘The Cross-Channel Flight Accomplished’, The Times, 26 July 1908.

  7Wallace, op. cit., p. 118.

  8‘Cheered at News of Success’, Washington Post, 26 July 1909.

  9Elliott, op. cit., p. 114.

  10Wallace, op. cit., p. 119.

  11‘A Memorable Flight’, Sydney Morning Herald, 22 October 1930.

  12Wallace, op. cit., p. 121.

  13Elliott op. cit., p. 115.

  14Wallace, op. cit., p. 123.

  15Elliott, op. cit., p. 124.

  16Wallace, op. cit., p. 123.

  17‘M Blériot in London: Great Public Welcome’, Daily Mail, 27 July 1909.

  18‘Triomphe de Blériot’, Le Figaro, 25 July 1909, p. 1.

  19‘The Cross-Channel Flight Accomplished’, The Times, 26 July 1908.

  20‘M Blériot in London: Great Public Welcome’, Daily Mail, 27 July 1909.

  21Pound, Reginald and Harmsworth, Geoffrey, Northcliffe, Cassell, London, 1959, p. 375.

  22‘M Blériot in London: Great Public Welcome’, Daily Mail, 27 July 1909.

  23Fontaine, Charles, Comment Blériot a Traversé la Manche, Librairie Aéronautique, Paris, 1909, p. 67.

  24Wallace, op. cit., p. 124.

  25Wohl, op. cit., p. 69.

  26Fontaine, op. cit., p. 137.

  27Mattioli, Guido, Mussolini Aviatore e la Sua Opera per L’Aviazione, Prefazione di Paolo Orano, Casa Editrice Pinciana, Rome, 1938, p. 25.

  28‘The Aerial Defence of Australia’ (an Appeal to the Editor), Daily Telegraph, 27 July 1909.

  29Sheil, Beau, Caesar of the Skies: The Life Story of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, Cassell, London, 1937, p. 9.

  30Wallace, op. cit., p. 72.

  31Kalush, William and Sloman, Larry, The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America’s First Superhero, Simon & Schuster, London, 2007, p. 245.

  32‘Like a Bird: Successful Aerial Flights by Houdini the “Handcuff King”.’, Daily Telegraph, 19 March 1910.

  33ibid.

  34Kalush and Sloman, op. cit., p. 248.

  35ibid.

  36Blackmore, L.K., Hawker: A Biography of Harry Hawker, Airlife, Shrewsbury, 1993, p. 43.

  37ibid.

  38‘Like a Bird: Successful Aerial Flights by Houdini the “Handcuff King”.’, Daily Telegraph, 19 March 1910.

  39Finlay, Peter, ‘Australia’s First Aviator’, Aero Australia, Issue No 14, 2007.

  40As quoted in Kalush and Sloman, op. cit., p. 252.

  41ibid., p. 253.

  42Joy, William, The Aviators, Shakespeare Head Press, Sydney, 1971, p. 23.

  43Target, Simon (producer), Rewind, ABC Television, Sydney, 2004. See also: Brogden, Stanley, The History of Australian Aviation, Hawthorne Press, Melbourne, 1960, p. 17.

  44Ellison, Norman, Flying Matilda: Early Days in Australian Aviation, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1957, p. 199.

  45‘Smithy Among Schoolmates’, Sydney Morning Herald, 18 June 1928.

  46Wright, Milton, diaries, 30 May 1912, Box 116, Library of Congress, Washington.

  47Blackmore, op. cit., p. 51.

  48Fokker, op. cit., p. 59.

  49Ellison, op. cit., p. 13.

  50Sealby, Winifred Kingsford, Recollections: Personal and Scenic; Our Dumb Friends, (Australian Library Collections, Record ID 5583222), 1951, p. 36.

  51Ellison, op. cit., p. 201.

  Chapter Three: War!

  1Fysh, Sir Hudson, Qantas Rising: The Autobiography of the Flying Fysh, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1966, p. 27.

  2http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A11873900

  3Fokker, Anthony, Flying Dutchman, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1938, p. 121.

  4‘The Empire’s Call’, Argus, 1 August 1914.

  5Sydney Morning Herald, 6 August 1914.

  6Sealby, Winifred Kingsford, letter to Norman Ellison, sent from Ladstock, Saratoga, New South Wales, 20 January 1956, Ellison Collection, National Library of Australia, Canberra.

  7Ellison, Norman, manuscript of Flying Matilda: Early Days in Australian Aviation (Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1957), National Library of Australia, Canberra, p. 19.

  8Thomas, Lowell, Sir Hubert Wilkins: His World of Adventure, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1961, p. 86.

  9Grierson, John, Sir Hubert Wilkins: Enigma of Exploration, Robert Hale, London, 1960, p. 54.

  10Thomas, op. cit., p. 86.

  11Nasht, Simon, The Last Explorer: Hubert Wilkins—Australia’s Unknown Hero, Hachette Livre Australia/Hodder, Sydney, 2007, p. 34.

  12Garros, Roland, Memoires présentés par Jacques Quellennec, Hachette, Paris, 1966, p. 253f.

  13Schurmacher, Emile C., Richthofen: The Red Baron, Paperback Library, New York, 1971, p. 30.

  14Barker, Ralph, A Brief History of the Royal Flying Corps in World War I, Constable &
Robinson, London, 2002, p. 43.

  15Ellison, Flying Matilda, op. cit., p. 204.

  16Schurmacher, op. cit., p. 93.

  17Margetts, Captain I.S., diary, 25 April 1915, 1 DRL/0478, Australian War Memorial, Canberra.

  18Bean, C.E.W., The Story of Anzac, Vol. I, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1924.

  19Fokker, op. cit., p. 130.

  20Egyptian Gazette, 18 December 1914.

  21Kingsford Smith, Charles, letter to parents sent from Egypt, date unknown, ca. July 1915, Ellison Collection National Library of Australia, Canberra.

  22Hawker, Muriel, H.G. Hawker, Airman: His Life and Work, Hutchinson & Co., London, 1922, p. 182.

  23Kingsford Smith, Charles, letter to parents, sent from Cairo, 27 July 1915, Ellison Collection, National Library of Australia, Canberra.

  24Kingsford Smith, Charles, letter to parents, sent from Cairo, 8 August 1915, Ellison Collection, National Library of Australia, Canberra. Quoted in Ellison, Flying Matilda, op. cit., p. 206.

  25ibid.

  26Omek, Tolga, Gallipoli, Ekip Film, Turkey, 2005.

  Chapter Four: In the Trenches

  1Young, Margaret and Gammage, Bill (eds), Hail and Farewell: Letters From Two Brothers Killed in France in 1916, Kangaroo Press, Sydney, 1995, p. 145.

  2Kingsford Smith, Charles, letter to parents, sent from Cairo, 8 August 1915, Ellison Collection, National Library of Australia, Canberra.

  3Kingsford Smith, Charles, letter to parents, sent from Gallipoli, 6 October 1915, Ellison Collection, National Library of Australia, Canberra.

  4Carlyon, Les, Gallipoli, Macmillan, Sydney, 2001 p. 293.

  5Ellison, Norman, Flying Matilda: Early Days in Australian Aviation, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1957, p. 210.

  6Kingsford Smith, Charles, letter to parents, sent from Cairo, 25 January 1916, Ellison Collection, National Library of Australia, Canberra. Quoted in Ellison, op. cit., p. 211.

  7ibid.

  8Hare, Paul R., Aeroplanes of the Royal Aircraft Factory, Crowood Press, Marlborough, 1999, p. 34.

  9Kingsford Smith, Charles, letter to parents, sent from France, 19 July 1916, Ellison Collection, National Library of Australia, Canberra.

  10McMullin, Ross, Pompey, Elliott, Scribe Publications, Melbourne, 2002, p. 220.

  11Horne, Donald, In Search of Billy Hughes, Macmillan, Melbourne, 1979, p. 70.

  12Kingsford Smith, Charles, letter to parents, sent from France, 11 September 1916, Ellison Collection, National Library of Australia, Canberra.

  13Ellison op. cit., p. 213.

  14Cutlack, F.M., Official Histories: First World War, Volume VIII, The Australian Flying Corps in the Western and Eastern Theatres of War, 1914–1918, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1941, p. 421.

  15Ellison, Norman, Daredevils of the Skies, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1941, p. 57.

  16Kingsford Smith, Sir Charles, My Flying Life: An Authentic Biography Prepared under the Personal Supervision of and from the Diaries and Papers of the Late Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith, Andrew Melrose, London, 1937, p. 14.

  17Ellison, Flying Matilda, op. cit., p. 215.

  18ibid., p. 216.

  19ibid., p. 217.

  20ibid., p. 219.

  21Gammage, Bill, The Broken Years: Australian Soldiers in the Great War, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1974, p. 25.

  22That actual moniker, however, was not applied until after the war was over.

  23Taylor, Sir Gordon, Sopwith Scout 7309, Cassell, London, 1968, p. 53.

  24Morton, Fred, ‘Smithy’: Sir Charles Kingsford Smith—The World’s Greatest Aviator, New Image Publications, Melbourne, 1984, p. 3.

  25Stannage, John, Smithy, Oxford University Press, London, 1950, pp. 2–4.

  26Kingsford Smith, Charles, letter to parents, sent from Denham, January 1917, Ellison Collection, National Library of Australia, Canberra. Quoted in Ellison, Flying Matilda, op. cit., p. 222.

  27Mackenzie, Roy D., Solo: The Bert Hinkler Story, Ure Smith, Sydney, 1979, p. 6.

  28Kilduff, Peter, Richthofen: Beyond the Legend of the Red Baron, Arms and Armour Press, London, 1999, p. 69.

  29Lindsay, Alan (director), Air Australia, Village Roadshow Entertainment, Sydney, 2007.

  30Morton, op. cit., p. 2.

  31Stannage, John, High Adventure, MacDonald, Christchurch, 1944, p. 78f.

  32Schurmacher, Emile C., Richthofen: The Red Baron, Paperback Library, New York, 1971, p. 86.

  Chapter Five: Aces at Dawn…

  1Haynes, Jim and Dellit, Jillian, Great Australian Aviation Stories: Characters, Pioneers, Triumphs, Tragedies and Near Misses, ABC Books, Sydney, 2006, p. 65.

  2Richthofen, Manfred von, The Red Fighter Pilot: The Autobiography of the Red Baron, Red and Black Publishers, Florida, 2007, p. 56.

  3Kingsford Smith, Charles, letter to parents in Sydney, sent from France, 14 July 1917, Ellison Collection, National Library of Australia, Canberra.

  4Thomas, Lowell, Sir Hubert Wilkins: His World of Adventure, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1961, p. 94f.

  5ibid., p. 86.

  6Nasht, Simon, The Last Explorer: Hubert Wilkins—Australia’s Unknown Hero, Hachette Livre Australia/Hodder, Australia, 2007, p. 57.

  7ibid., p. 61.

  8Sufrin, Mark, The Brave Men: Twelve Portraits of Courage, Platt & Munk, New York, 1967, p. 233.

  9ibid., p. 242.

  10Kingsford Smith, Charles, letter to parents in Sydney, sent from France, 10 August 1917, Ellison Collection, National Library of Australia, Canberra.

  11Stannage, John, High Adventure, MacDonald, Christchurch, 1944, pp. 79–83.

  12Stannage, John, Smithy, Oxford University Press, London, 1950, p. 7.

  13Kingsford Smith’s own reckoning, in a letter to parents, was that he had killed a few dozen.

  14Stannage, High Adventure, op. cit., p. 83.

  15Elliott, Brian A., Blériot: Herald of an Age, Tempus Publishing, Gloucestershire, 2000, p. 208.

  16Pound, Reginald and Harmsworth, Geoffrey, Northcliffe, Cassell, London, 1959, p. 467.

  17Interview with John Ulm, Australia, May 2008.

  18Yeates, V.M., Winged Victory (Echoes of War), Buchan & Enright, London, 1985, p. 217.

  19Kingsford Smith, Sir Charles, My Flying Life: An Authentic Biography Prepared under the Personal Supervision of and from the Diaries and Papers of the Late Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith, Andrew Melrose, London, 1937, p. 16.

  20Ellison, Norman, Flying Matilda: Early Days in Australian Aviation, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1957.

  21Mackersey, Ian, Smithy: The Life of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, Little, Brown, London, 1999, p. 34.

  22Guttman, Jon, Sopwith Camel vs Fokker Dr I: Western Front 1917–18, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, 2008, p. 17.

  23Ellison, op. cit., p. 237.

  24Davis, Pedr, Charles Kingsford Smith: Smithy, The World’s Greatest Aviator, Lansdowne Press, Sydney, 1985, p. 26.

  25Mackersey, op. cit., p. 35.

  26FitzSimons, Peter, ‘Being Mike Carlton’, Sydney Morning Herald, 8 January 2000.

  27Wixted, Edward P., The Life and Times of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith: An Illustrated Chronology, private source, Queensland, 1996, p. 16.

  28Kilduff, Peter, Richthofen: Beyond the Legend of the Red Baron, Arms & Armour Press, London, 1999, p. 174.

  29Wohl, Robert, A Passion for Wings: Aviation and the Western Imagination, 1908-1918, Yale University Press, New Haven/London, 1994, p. 228.

  30Ellison, op. cit., p. 239.

  31ibid.

  32Aviation Magazine, 12 June 2006.

  33Kilduff, op. cit., p. 239.

  34ibid., p. 203.

  35‘Diggers’ Red Baron Blue’, Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 26 March 2007.

  36Day, Mark, ‘Unsung No 1 with a Bullet’, Australian, 11 April 2007.

  37Younger, James (director), Unsolved History: Death of the Red Baron, Termite Art Productions, USA, 2002.

  38This anecdote comes from the man I consider Kingsford Smith’s principal biogra
pher, Ian Mackersey, who in the 1990s was able to track down one of the last survivors from that whole era—James Cross—who told him that story when he was ninety-three. Mackersey, op. cit., p. 37.

  39ibid.

  40Joy, William, The Aviators, Shakespeare Head Press, Sydney, 1971, p. 28.

  41Lawrence, T.E., Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1979, p. 639.

  42ibid.

  Chapter 6: Après la Guerre

  1Wohl, Robert, A Passion for Wings: Aviation and the Western Imagination, 1908-1918, Yale University Press, New Haven/London, 1994, p. 1.

  2Kingsford Smith, Sir Charles, My Flying Life: An Authentic Biography Prepared under the Personal Supervision of and from the Diaries and Papers of the Late Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith, Andrew Melrose, London, 1937.

  3‘Gaiety on the Boulevards’, The Times, 12 November 1918.

  4‘We Want King George’, The Times, 12 November 1918.

  5Ellison, Norman, Flying Matilda: Early Days in Australian Aviation, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1957, p. 244.