AEROPLANING TO AUSTRALIA

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 116, 13 November 1919, Page 6

AEROPLANING TO AUSTRALIA

CAPTAIN ROSS-SMITH STARTS

(DNITED PEESS ASSOCIATION.—COPXBIOHT.)

(AUStIIALIAN ■ NEW ZEALAND OABlri ASSOCIATION.)

(Received November 13, 9 4,m.)

LONDON, 12th November.

Captain Ross-Smith started on his flight to Australia, in a Vickers-Vimy aeroplane at 9.15 this morning.

.. Captain Ross-Smith, who will pilot the' vickers-Vimy machine, leSt Australia in 1914 with the Ist Australian Machinegun Squadron, and served with the unit oh the Pehiiisula. After leaving the Peninsula (says the Sydney Sun) he was recorded to the 67th Australian Squadron of the R.F.C. as an observer at Mustabig, where he did one of the first reconnaissances made from Egypt to Jerusalem. He.remained with the 67th Squadron as observer for six or seven months, until he went •to Rafa. to the Flying School at Gairo. Here he was one Of the bast pupils, and after qualifying in an extremely short time as fighting pilot, he returned to his squadron. - The squadron subsequently moved to Belah, and it was whjle here that Captain RossSmith had the adventure which Mi. H. S. GuJlett, the official correspondent with the Palestine forces^ described in the following manner :—* ''The other day Captain Ross-Smith was flying in company with another machine, wheft he sighted twJO German 'planes; The Germans put their noses down and went for home. Our two. 'planes followed, but the second pilot developed engine trouble, and was forced to pull out. Captain Ross-Smith went on alone. The Germans, almost literally skimming the ground, sought desperately for a. place where they could land/ and Ross-Smith, following them round ths bends of wadis at a speed of fully 100 miles an hour? and with from 50ft to 100 ft 0E the earth, shot each pilot down in succession. Both ,the enemy machines crashed and turned over on their backs, and the Australian pilot, before returning, took photographs of them, as they lay. In this fine little fight, Ross-Smith was accompanied by Lieuteiiiuit A. Kirk, D.F.C., as observe er." . Captain Ross-Smith himself received a bullet through both cheeks, but siif' fered no injury to fes teeth or jaws, and brought Jlis machine home without di&culty. Numerous other engagements, with eneiriy 'planed were fought by Captain Ross-Smith, in the cour&S of which he won the Military Cross (with bar) ah,d the D.F.C. (with hit). His tally when the war ended was over a dozen enemy machines.. He won the M.C. for holding off a party of Turks with his revolver while Flight-Lieutenant Baillieu, of Mcl : bourne, whose observer he'was, rescued ah English pilot Who had been fprced to land ih enemy territory. . Captain RossSmith actually opened tile final big stunt in Palestine by bombing the enemy at Afhleh from the Handley-Page machine in which he later flew With General Sa.l--iridnd from Cairo to Delhi. After that long flight he accompanied General Borton on his survey of the route from Calcutta to Port' Darwin;'' .-' '".'■.".' '■'.'.' "•'''"