Charles Kingsford Smith and Those Magnificent Men (56 page)

All to the good then. The main thing was that Harry Lyon, from his calculations, had established that the land they were looking at was Exploring Island—the
easternmost
island of the whole Fiji group. Despite nearly missing it, they had indeed found it, which was the good news…

The bad news was that, a few minutes later, they crossed the international dateline, and, just like that, even though the time didn’t change, they went from Monday to Tuesday. Still, not to worry, as they flew like an arrow towards their destination…

And then they saw it: Fiji ahoy! Gazing out, they could see frothing white surf and backwash around lots of small islands, swaying palm trees and thatched roofs jutting gently through the thick green foliage that seemed to cover just about everything. They could also see villagers running out into the road, looking up gobsmacked at something they had never seen in their lives before—a ‘bird-ship’!

And yet, were they saved after all? As they came in over the spot in downtown Suva that the Fijian authorities had selected for them to land on, an extended sports field called Albert Park, their hearts sank…

It was big for a football field, certainly, but less than tiny for a landing space, with no more than 400 yards to pull up on. And here they were, flying the biggest and heaviest Fokker that had ever been constructed, a plane which usually needed at least 500 yards to come to a halt. With one glance it was obvious that this was a landing that could only be attempted by one of the best pilots in the world. Fortunately, they had such a one on board, in the person of Charles Kingsford Smith…

Smithy took the plane around the field to get the lie of the land—even as the citizens of Suva streamed from all directions to the field, all of them gazing skywards at the
Southern Cross
, its wings glistening in the sunlight—and then came around on one last loop to begin his landing run.

Oh…
shiiiiit.

It was only when they were lining up on the approach, at 3.50 pm on that sultry tropical afternoon, that Smithy noticed there was an enormous 12-foot drop from the roadway at the southern end of Albert Park. This meant he couldn’t get a clear path to touch down at the beginning of the field as he had anticipated and could only hope to land about one-third of the way in; approaching from the south-west to increase the distance available, marginally, by angling diagonally across the field. So it was that the mighty
Southern Cross
—oddly enough surrounded by a flock of enormous white seabirds which seemed to be guiding her in, as a matter of professional respect
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—touched down at a speed of 65 miles per hour, and with no brakes, only 270 yards to play with, a hill lined with trees and thick undergrowth right in front barring a second chance, and thousands of people all around, many of them watching in horror.

They didn’t know much about planes, but couldn’t for the life of them see how this speeding monster could possibly slow in time. On the balcony of the nearby Grand Pacific Hotel, many members of the ruling aristocracy who had decided not to face the discomfort of being in the pressing muskiness of the crowd below, now, almost as one, stopped sipping their gins and tonic. How could this chap
possibly
make it?

To try to slow the plane, Smithy began to swerve it as much as possible from side to side, to take a few miles an hour off each time. Two hundred yards…150 yards…100 yards…the plane was still hurtling forward at such pace it was a certainty there was going to be grief.

Fifty yards…25 yards and still going fast…
It’s going to hit the trees!

And so it would have if, at the last possible instant, Kingsford Smith hadn’t pulled his control wheel down hard to the left and given the rudder a boot while opening up the taps on the starboard motor to violently alter the entire direction of the plane. For an instant, as the left wing dipped and the wheels skidded, it looked as if the plane would topple, but then after a screaming, teetering ‘ground-loop’, as aviators called it, the plane settled and stopped, facing directly back towards the way it had come. Kingsford Smith had done it!

Pandemonium broke out. In an instant the capacity of the crowd to control itself was shattered and people rushed forward through the overwhelmed police cordon to greet the first plane to visit Fiji, and the one which had just made the longest aerial hop on record—3138 miles, non-stop, in thirty-four hours and thirty minutes.
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In the
Southern Cross
the feeling was overwhelmingly joyous as Charles Kingsford Smith, Charles Ulm, Harry Lyon and Jim War…hang on…
Where was Jim Warner?

Oh.

Oh dear.

Jammed right into the back of the plane for safety’s sake, at Smithy’s request, the still naked-from-the-waist-down Warner had had the misfortune, in all the shocks and bumps of the difficult landing, to have fallen through the fuselage’s thin fabric covering and, as later revealed by author Ian Mackersey, had been knocked out cold once he hit the turf. Fortunately for him, a nurse rushed forward from the madding crowd, covered him with her cape and slowly brought him around.
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In the meantime, Kingsford Smith, ever the showman, had emerged from the plane—which was later found to have just 30 gallons of fuel left in its tanks
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—and was smiling and waving at the throng. As he later recalled: ‘As I stepped out to face the crowd I had a feeling of exaltation, a sense of accomplishment.’
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In all the hullaballoo, a well-dressed gentleman stepped forward and addressed Kingsford Smith.

‘I congratulate you,’ he said. ‘Will you all lunch with me tomorrow?’

‘Yes. Isn’t it?’ Kingsford Smith replied, taking, as he was now getting used to, a wild stab in the dark as to what the gentleman had just said.

Whereupon the man put his mouth closer to the aviator’s ear and said something much louder, but equally incomprehensible.

‘Excuse me,’ Kingsford Smith replied. ‘I didn’t catch your name.’

It was Sir Eyre Hutson, British High Commissioner of the Western Pacific and Governor of Fiji, and he was inviting them to lunch at Government House the following day.

The cheering continued, even as the aviators were at last able to make their way to the nearby Grand Pacific Hotel—with its gorgeous deep-shaded verandas perfect for catching the cooling sea breezes—for some precious rest. Behind them, as the Governor had declared a day of national holiday to celebrate this momentous event, most of the population of Suva was either gathering around or filing past this bizarre thing that had appeared from the skies, this
Southern Cross.
Among them, one particularly grizzle-haired Fijian, an older man with many tribal scars, who just a few minutes before had been running around and shouting with the best of them in the carnival air of great excitement, had now calmed, and was overheard to ask in his own language: ‘But what are they all doing this for?’
⁴⁹

Back in Australia, it was the Attorney-General, the Right Honourable John Latham who, in the temporary absence of Prime Minister Stanley Bruce, rose to break the wonderful news, his voice ringing proudly through the august chamber: ‘It is with pride and pleasure that I announce to the House that Captain Kingsford Smith and his companions [have] arrived safely at Suva…’
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In response, the House broke into applause, and there were so many resounding cheers and cries of ‘Bravo!’ ‘Bravo!’ ‘Bravo!’ and ‘Hear, Hear! Hear, Hear!’ that it was a few moments before the Attorney-General could continue.

‘On behalf of the government and the members of this House and of the people of Australia, I take this opportunity to congratulate them upon their wonderful and gallant exploit…It has been decided by the government to make a grant of £5,000 to Captain Kingsford Smith and his associates, as a recognition of a feat of aviation of which Australians are proud…’

‘Hear, Hear! Hear, Hear!’

An indication of the general mood of bipartisan celebration was that his words were promptly seconded by the newly installed Opposition leader, James Scullin. ‘On behalf of those honourable members who sit on this side of the House, I desire to endorse most cordially the congratulatory statements of the Attorney-General, Mr Latham. I agree with the honourable gentleman that the flight of Captain Kingsford Smith and his gallant companions has many wonderful features. It is a performance by Australians of which Australia ought to, and does, feel proud. I read recently the statement of an American writer that the six leading flight men of the world all hail from this country. That is a distinction of which we have every reason to feel proud…‘
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(Exactly. And who was Charles Lindbergh when he was at home, anyway?)

In short order, this same Australian government, which had all but totally ignored Kingsford Smith and Ulm over the previous twelve months, now deployed the destroyer
Anzac
to leave Port Stephens, north of Newcastle, and head into the Pacific, positioning itself along the route between Brisbane and Suva. As Prime Minister Bruce, now present once more, told the parliament, ‘It is anticipated that at the moment when the flyers pass, the destroyer will be about 700 miles off the coast of Australia, and will be able to keep in wireless communication with Captain Kingsford Smith throughout his trip and render him a great deal of assistance.’
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Bravo!
Bravo!

In Arabella Street, most of the neighbourhood—cheering, laughing and crying—seemed to have gathered in the Kingsford Smith living room, treating the beaming Catherine and William as what they were—parents of the most celebrated man in Australia.

In Mosman, meanwhile, Charles Ulm’s aged mother was taking it a lot more quietly. She had been on the point of emotional collapse, right up to the point when she heard that her boy was safe, and now it was all she could do to quietly sip some tea.
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On the streets outside her door, as on streets all over Australia, newsboys were bellowing the wonderful news, and selling out of specially printed extra editions of their papers.

There is sleep, deep sleep, the sleep of the dead, the sleep of the damned, and then there is the sleep of an aviator who has flown nearly 6000 miles in just a few days, so far, so fast, that despite his extreme fatigue his natural body clock awakes him at midnight, local time.

So it was for Charles Kingsford Smith on that first night in Fiji. Ulm awoke at much the same time and after the two of them had spent an hour or so opening and reading the hundreds of congratulatory cablegrams that had been flooding in from all parts of the world—including one from Australian Prime Minister Stanley Bruce saying, ‘Australia looks forward to welcoming you on the termination of your long and daring achievement’
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—they decided to go and have a look at the
Southern Cross.
Was it being looked after, as promised by the local authorities? It was too important a question to be left until morning. They needed to know
now
and, wrapped in sarongs, they walked the short distance from the hotel to where they had left the plane, at one end of Albert Park.

At least they tried to. In fact, when they got to within 50 yards of the plane, which was looking rather ghostly in the soft tropical moonlight, four uniformed Fijian men with rifles appeared. Though these men spoke no English, they were able to use international sign language to indicate that if the two white men cared to keep coming on and get anywhere near the plane, there was every chance they would have their heads blown off.

Ulm and Kingsford Smith could not have been more delighted, and returned to their hotel to get some more sleep, mightily relieved.

Even beyond Australian shores, the news of the
Southern Cross
’s landing was creating major headlines, particularly in America and Britain, as it seemed as if another of the world’s major natural barriers was now on the edge of being conquered.

But just who would be credited with the conquering? Under the original terms of the contract that Warner and Lyon had signed at Charles Ulm’s behest on the evening before departure, their services were not required beyond Fiji, and they were to be given the money to simply disappear on a ship back to America. After all, from Suva onwards, the east coast of Australia would be a hard target to miss, so there was a lot less need for a navigator and radio man. And yet, once both the Australian and American press got wind of the plan, the pressure built for the Americans to remain included to the end, something that Lyon and Warner were keen on themselves.

Having broken the back of the journey, it seemed to the Americans that it would be a great pity to be let go now, and both of them said so at a meeting they held on their second night in Fiji. Ulm tried a compromise, offering the Americans a trip by ship to Australia, so they could arrive in time for some of the receptions and so on. Unfortunately, he put this proposal at a time when all of them had just returned from nearly a full day’s round of celebrations, including a lunch, civic reception, two cocktail parties and a mayoral ball, all of which had involved the consumption of a great deal of alcohol. This meant that, at midnight, Harry Lyon’s natural restraint—never the
particular
feature of his character that he would hang his hat on—was at a rather lowish point.

So Ulm wanted them to sneak to Australia, did he, and arrive after all the hoopla had died down? What kind of damned chumps did he think they were?!?! Something snapped. Grabbing Ulm, Lyon pushed him against the wall and was about to follow this up with the knockout blow, when Kingsford Smith stepped in.
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