"BUNDABERG."

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 99, 29 April 1933, Page 9

"BUNDABERG."

HINKLER FOUND.

NAME ON PASSPORT.

Dead Body and Wrecked 'Plane On Barren Mountainside.

TRAGEDY IN TUSCANY, ITALY,

(United P.A.—Electric Telegraph—CoP 3 right)

(Received 10.30 a.m.) ROME, April 28. The body of the famous Australian airman, Bert Hinklei - , who was reported missing on January 8 when on the first hop of a flight from England to Australia, was found beside his wrecked machine in the isolated mountainous region of Castelfranco, Tuscany, between Florence and Arezzo. The wreckage was found at an altitude of 4COO feet up the mountain. A passport found on the body confirmed the identity. It showed the first name "Herbert." The surname was effaced by weather, but the birthplace "Bundaberg," was discernible. A worker was proceeding to his duty when ho discovered the body. It lay in a barren area seldom traversed in the Tuscan mountains, several hours' walk from Castelfranco di Sopra. There was a deep wound in the dead airman's head, apparently sustained when he was thrown from his machine as it crashed.

The body, which was almost unrecognisable, was found 100 yards from the machine, the three petrol tar.ks of which were empty, but the fourth contained a little petrol. The oil tank was completely dry.

Small pieces of wreckage were strewn over a wide area. A watch found oil the body had stopped at three o'clock, presumably 10 hours after leaving Feltham, Middlesex.

Another report states that the "body and tho wreckage were found on a desolate plateau by a party of woodcutters halfway between Florence and Arezzo, and that the body was partly burnt 'midst the wreckage of the machine, which must have caught fire after crashing among the trees. There is no villages for miles around, the nearest road being five miles away. Hinkler's body was taken to Castel San Niccolo.

Admitted to be one of the world's most accomplished flyers, Mr. Bert Hinkler 6et out on January 7 to travel from England to Australia, covering the route he had pioneered four years before in the then Etartling time of 15 days. It was not known on this occasion whether he intended to attempt the England-Australia record, held by Mr. C. A. Butler, although it was stated by one London paper that he planned to determine whether lie would attack the record according to the progress made on his first two hops. He himself stated that with considerable night flying he believed he could do the trip in four or five days.

When he set off from Feltharn at 3 a.m. on Saturday, January 7, in his now famous 'plane Karohi—the machine in which he flew from London to Darwin in 1928, and from Montreal to Brazil, across the treacherous South Atlantic, and on to England in 1931 —he had kept his plans eo secret that only the aerodrome staff and a Customs official were present at the take-off. It was known that he intended to make Brindisi, on the Italian Adriatic coast, or the "heel" of Italy, his first hop. No news of him was heard after leaving England.

A search committee was organised' in London, and the British Air Ministry asked the European countries over which the famous aviator might have passed to join in the rescue efforts. France and Italy responded. However, the greatest work was done by the famous Englishman Captain W. L. Hope, three times winner of the King's Cup air race, who spent a week searching the Swiss and Italian Alps and the Rhone Valley for traces of Mr. Hinkler. Many other offers of help were received from famous flyers, including Mrs. J. A. Mollison and Lady Bailey. The committee continued* its efforts for about a month, when it arranged for a memorial to be erected in London.