"SMITHY'S" LETTERS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 119, 22 May 1945, Page 6

"SMITHY'S" LETTERS

STOLEN FROM CAR

EARLY AVIATION RECORDS

After being kept carefully since 1936, when the late Squadron-Leader Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith, pioneer of transpacific aviation, was lost during a 'flight from England to Australia, all of "Smithy's" correspondence and other documents were taken from a motor car in Weilington last .week-end. They have not yet been recovered. The story of the theft was told this morning by Squadron-Leader Beau Shiel, Director of Public Relations for the R.N.Z.A.F who was formerly personal assistant to both Kingsford-Smith and C. T. P. Ulm co-ptlot to "Smithy" on the first Pacific flight. The papers were left in his charge by Lady KingsfordSmith, and it was from his car that they were stolen. The papers were of special interest at the present time, when an American film company is eneased in Australia in the making of a film on the life of "Smithy," for World release. Squadron-Leader Shiel had received a cable from this company asking that he should go to Australia for consultation regardine aspects of "Smithy's" life, and the film itself, in which he himself was being portrayed. Of Historical Value In preparation for this visit he got out the papers, parcelling them up to take with him. They were stolen from the back of his car while it was parked in a Wellington city street The papers had sentimental and historical, but no other value, but widespread efforts, including a search of the week-end rubbish collection in Wellington, had failed to find them. Incidentally, Squadron - Leader Shiel revealed this morning that nearly , a year after "Smithy's" disappearance during the course of his 1936 'flight," definite evidence was found that his- plane had crashed into the island of Aye, thirty miles off the coast of Burma. A wheel from a plane, which drifted ashore on Burma, was positively identified as being off his plane, and a later search showed broken trees and other evidence that a plane had crashed into the steep side of the small, unmapped island. Squadron-Leader Shiel leaves for Australia by air to-morrow.