FOR SOUTH POLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 134, 8 June 1928, Page 7

FOR SOUTH POLE.

Sir G. Wilkins To Leave Panama In November. COMPANIONS NOT YET CHOSEN. (Australian and N.Z. Press Association.) LONDON, June 7. The Australian explorer-aviator, Sir George Wilkins, and his pilot, Lieutenant Carl Eielson. arrived at Croydon yesterday by a German air-liner from Amsterdam. They are to remain in London until June 19 when they will leave for America. Sir George said his South Polar expedition had been definitely arranged. He would start from Panama on November 1. The machine to be used has already been built. It will be a double horsepower Arctic 'plane and will take-ofi' from Edward VII. Land in an attempt to travel 2500 miles across the unexplored area to Grahams Land, much of which has not been seen by man. That is why Sir George is going. The two companions, who are to travel with him, have not yet been chosen. The explore; said he considered a transpolar air service was feasible which would reduce the distance from Europe to America and China bv two-thirds.

ANTARCTIC AGAIN. EXPEDITION IN SEPTEMBER. (Australian Press Assn. —United Service.) (Received 10 a.m.) NEW YORK, June 7. Mr. Douglas George Jeffrey, a retired British banker and a member of one of the late Sir Ernest Shackleton's expeditions. announced on Thursday that he will head an Antarctic expedition of men and two 'planes. He will leave in September and return in May.