THE WORLD'S GREATEST AIRMAN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 292, 9 December 1936, Page 12

THE WORLD'S GREATEST AIRMAN.

HOW SMITHY WON M.C.IN FRANCE. Letter Tells Amazing Graphic Story. " When 1 Came To I Was Spinning Down to Hurdani" TRAINING ESCAPADES. (By FLYING-OFFICER BEAU SHEIL, who was Sir Charles Kingsford Smith's personal assistant.) (Copyright.) (HI.)

CHARLES KINGSFORD SMITH was one of about 140 Australians chosen fvom the ranks of the A.I.F. in France to go to England and train for commissions in a special reserve of the Royal Flying Corps. On a cold October morning of 1910 he arrived at Denhatn, in Buckinghamshire. A portly camp commandant looked him over. He informed Charles that his training there was to be as "an officer and a gentleman" for the infantry. Flying? Nothing of the sort! Spending every night swotting infantry exams, was not entirely to the taste of the band Australians at Denliam, particularly to a group of cobbers including Smithy, Randall Munro, a Queenslander, Max Gore, of South Australia, and "Brolga" Hill, from Buttabone. It was much better fun poaching pheasants from the coveys of a belted earl's estate nearby. Eluding wrathful gamekeepers gave spice to the sport, which was carried out at uiglit. Armed with sticks, Smithy and Co. would crawl along the small lanes in the thick woods. Doubtless they enjoyed the birds, grilled over the open fires in their rooms in barracks, much better than the neighbouring earl would have done after shooting them. Poaching, indeed! Yes, and what of it? It was simply sheer devilment and fun. Moreover, men who had been through the blood and hell of France, seen a million francs' worth of property blown to smithereens by a shell from the muzzle of Mars, could hardly be expected to feel strictly letter-of-tlie-law and squeamish about a few pheasants. And the greatest dramatist-poet of them all, Will Shakespeare, did a little poaching too, of deer from his lordship's estate at Stratford-on-Avon. The infantry course at last changed to flying training. S\nithy was in the air at last and in his log-book of those davs he soon wrote in bold block letters: "SOLO." * The next entry, in letters almost as bold, is "CItASHED." Like many a pilot before and since, he had made one of those perfect lan<li"gs —20 feet off the ground. He "wiped" an undercarriage. At Denliam there was a fine gymnasium where the young officers were kept in shape by an ex-cliampion heavyweight of England. Sergeant Sunshine. He once fought Bombardier Wells, but in | his Denliam days, Sunshine, though still a redoubtable slugger, carried a good deal of his weight in front. At this outsize tummy Charles, when he was boxing one day with Sunshine, couldn t resist taking a swing. Sergeant Sunshine wasn't standing any such impudence from this Australian kangaroo. He cuffed Charles stingingly across the ears. "Then Smithy saw red," says one who was there, Lionel Lee, "and proceeded to vvliack daylight out of the big fellow's tuiii-tum. "Remember Smithy weighed no more than nine stone, and Sunshine was every bit of 17 stone. Sunshine soon tamed him, and we brought him to by drenching him with a few gallons of stale water from the fire buckets. "Smithy was like that," Lee looks back. "He would have stood up to a mad bull elephant." Charles was drafted to France with No. 19 Squadron of the K.F.C. and was soon in action in the air. Before lie had been there long he was flying six hours a day, when the weather permitted. On his first flight over the lines the 20-year-old warbird became detached from his squadron. Suddenly he realised that he was alone in the sky on the German side of the lines.

For what happened then he later received the Military Cross fom the hands of King George V. Let him tell of it, and of his subsequent wounding in the air, in his own words. A letter written home from hospital in England towards the end of 1917 stated:

"I am glad you are bucked up about the M.C. So am I. You ask me what I got the M.C. for. I thought I'd told you. It was for a morning's work 1 did one 'push day.' "Brought down a two-seater in flames, set fire to Some wooden huts with incendiary stuff and killed a hundred or so Huns with my machine gun as they were massing for a counter-attack. "It wasn't that morning that I was hit, but a few days later. "We went out fairly early (eight machines) on a morning when there were lots of bunchy clouds at about 0000 feet and visibility was bad. After half an hour the leader fired a light to signal 'go home; nothing doing.' So we split up and started for home. I, however, saw one of our chaps turn east again, so thinking he had spotted something, followed, and promptly lost him in the clouds. "I flew on, about 10 miles over the lines, and didn't see any Huns or anything to worry me except some fairly good archie shots at me, so I turned back. As soon as I did that I spotted two Hun two-seaters away below me so 1 thought I'd have a hurry-up scrap and tear off home, as it's not too healthy 10 miles over, and by oneself. "I proceeded to turn the old bus bang on her nose and dived at the nearest Hun, at a speed of 220 m.p.h. (one of my last coherent recollections). "I then sort of recollect a fearful clattering just in my ear and a horrid bash on my foot which made me think [ the whole leg had gone, and then I fainted. | "It turned out the bullet had burst j numbers of nerves, and the shock Sent me off. When I came to about 30 or 40 seconds later —thank goodness —I was spinning nose first down to Hunland. And the Huns firing like blazes, and little holes and chips of wood suddenly I appearing: all round me where the bullets

were chewing up things. I tried to turn round and scrap, but my whole left leg was paralysed, and I could only fly straight ahead, as fast and steadily as I could, for our lines; and pray that they didn't do very good shooting. "It turned out that while I was diving on the nearest two-seater, a little scout Hun, about as small and fast as myself, had been hiding in one of the clouds above me, and, not having the guts to come out and fight openly waited till my tail was up and I was occupied with the other Huns; And then came behind me and opened lire at point blank range (about 20 yards) and got mo with one of his first few shots. He then evidently saw that I was hit and knew that I didn't have much more fight left in me, and proceeded to try to finish me off, which, thank goodness, he failed to do. "He left me just before I <;ot back over the lines and turned back. I was feeling pretty groggy then, and blood was filling my flying boot up past the knee. 1 wondered if I could get back to the aerodrome. "I chanced it, and more by instinct than anything else, made a moderately good landing, then crawled off the bus and fairly collapsed. They saw, of course, that I was hit, and rushed the ambulance up and took me away to the C.C.SI, where they operated, and you know the rest. "It was a marvellous escape considering that there were about 180 bullet holes in the machine, and dozens around my head within inches. Fortunately, any that hit the engine didn't do any damage, and it never 'conked out.' "If they don't want me to go out to France again I a-\ going to try for an instructing job in America, and teach the budding Yank to flap his wings." Years afterwards Smithy was sitting in a hangar at Oakland airport, San Francisco, waiting for a fog to lift so he could take -off with the old Southern Cross for Los Angeles. With him was his radio operator of famous flights. Johnny Stannage. Somehow their talk turned to war flying. "What did you think about the war, Charles V" Stannage asked him. "I didn't think- about it," timithy said then, "I just fought. When I did think about it, it made me sick. I was a hero. I'd won the M.C. For what, Johnny, for God's sake, what? I'll tell you what I got it for—for plain bloody murder. I'd brought down a Hun in the air—that wasn't too bad —but what clinched me the M.C., what made me a hero in the ryes of my country, was the way I sprayed helpless German troops with my machine guns. "There they were in the road, a solid column of them. I couldn't miss. All I had to do was dive on them, fly the length of the column, keep the Vickers going, and kill, kill, kill. Watch them falling and jumping and crumpling. My bullets ripped into them, then 1 turned and flew back again—and massacre, massacre, massacre. And for that 1 received honour and glory. That's war." Those were Kingsford Smith's feelings looking back on the war. Stannage says he will never forget the passionate irony of his words. When the hero was presented with his Military Cross by the late King George V. Charles was still on crutches, due to his bullet-shattered foot. From the presence of Royalty, one always withdraws by walking backwards. When Charles attempted to do this with his crutches he slipped and fell to the floor. Equerries dashed to lift him to his feet. . The King came to his assistance nnd took his arm. "Oh, I do trust you are not hurt," His Majesty said, showing great concern. Actually Charles had knocked his wounded foot in falling, and was in agonv, but he managed to smile and dispelled the distress of his Sovereign, who then told him to waive all ceremony in leaving. So Charles Kingsford Smith left the presence of the considerate King —back turned towards him. He is probably the only subject who ever did so. (To be continued next Saturday.)