DAUNTLESS AUSTRALIAN FLIERS

Evening Post, Volume C, Issue 23, 27 July 1920, Page 8

DAUNTLESS AUSTRALIAN FLIERS

PARER 2IND M'INTOSH IN DUTCH INDIE'S.

| (?ROU OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

SYDNEY, 21st July. It is announced to-day that AviatorLieutenant R. J. Parer and Lieutenant J. C. M'lntosh, Australian, airmen, expect to Teach Port Darwin on Tuesday next. They have just left Singapore, and are now somewhere in the Dutch Indies. Their fate will have been de.'tenmned, very likely, by the time this reaches New Zealand.

If they should reach Port Darwin eventually, the flight will bo without parallel in the short history of aviation; but even if they meet with disaster between Singapore and 'Ulie Australian coast, they will have won no inconsiderable glory. Everyone laughed when these two young Australians started off from Hounslow on Bth January last on an old de Haviland machine. "They may get across the Channel," said one expert, "but that wiil be about 'Uhe end) of them.' As a, matter of fact, a determined attempt was made to stop them and officialdom put all sorifeof obstacles in their way. But Parer would not be denied, and he practically defied' officialdom.

Their subsequent flight was. one long series of accidents and crashes. Yet they always came up smiling, laid up until they .had recovered from their injuries repaired " the old 'bus," and started off again. They had a. bad smash at Rome, but immediately afterwards they flew across to Cairo. They found a new route across to Bagdad. Incidentally, they had .another little accident," and had to descend in the Syrian desert for repairs. Bands of marauding Arabs became interested, and they kept the sons of the desert at bay with revolvers. They " h^Pr^ " right across Persia, and India, to Burma, but they crashed badly at Moulmein, trying to avoid a crowd which had overrun the flvin" grounds. They were so badly hurt^d their machine was so- damaged that this was thought to be th». end 'of them, but they somehow effected repairs, and eventnallv reached Singapore. But it was the flight across the Dutch Indies which brought Captain Matthews to his final evash after that resolute airman had surmounted even-greater difficulties' than young Parer. Ho. fell nt Bima, the Inst stopning nlnce bsforo Port Darwin. TVs wonder of Paver's performance is that h<? has come- so far with so obsolete and small a machine. He k snid to h.ivo bought it for £100. M'lnto=b Inding the money. Parer, who is a. MeUioiirnn boy. is said to be a youngster of eitraordinarv determination' and strength of cr»ira' lt;r.

Tncb of thesa attemnts to vcn^h Any t-ralis- liv air serves tn enr-ih^U^ j,l ls wonderful nature of Ross Smith's »er-