THEN—AND NOW

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 56, 15 September 1928, Page 10

THEN—AND NOW

TAHITI AND SOUTHERN CROSS TWO TRIPS WITH A DIFFERENCE . (By "X.Y.Z.") "No, there's nobody much on board, but those chaps ' (underlining three names on the passenger list) are Australian aviators going' through to 'Frisco; going to try to fly the Pacific, or something." So said an official on one of the R.M. steamers at Wellington some 14 months ago to a pressman in search of prominent passengers. "What are their names again?" "Kingsford Smith, Ulm, and Anderson." ' .So the pressman, not over-enthusi-astic, supposed' he had better see "Kingsford Smith, Ulm, and Anderson," and drifted off to look for them. They wore not on the boat. They were not among the crowd of passengers in the Customs shed, standing like naughty children behind their trunks, uneasily anticipating the revelation of their best la id treasures to unfriendly eyes, but prepared (how childhood habits persist!) to lie themselves out of the scrape if necessary. No, by the time they were discovered the three were well down Customhouse quay, and only a "pot shot" taken because of the heavy leather coat worn by Kingsf ord Smith caused the young men to be approached at all. Courteous, cheerful, and smiling they were, with an air of suppressed excitement at setting out on a long promised adventure. Yes, they hoped to fly from San Francisco to Australia, but details they could not give, being under contract to supply an Australian newspaper with exclusive information. So the scribe wrote a neat four paragraphs for the "Evening Post," beginning, "Through passengers on the Tahiti to-day were Captain C. E. Kingsford Smith, Lieutenant K. V. Anderson, and Mr. C. T. P. Ulm, who are on their way to San Francisco with a view to flying from there to Australia," obtained a small photograph of "Smithy," as he is . now affectionately called, showing his characteristic grin, said "That's that," and went on with something else. ; And then five days ■ ago SquadronLeader Kingsford Smith and FlightLieutenant C. T. P. Ulm (not, of course, Mr. Anderson) came back to Wellington, and this time their visit was oh, how much more spectacular! The intervening fourteen months had held much of worry, strain, and disappointment. . Then after long planning came the triumphant conquest of the Pacific and finally the great victory over the turbulent Tasman. One wonders if Kingsford Smith and Ulm— like the very least of us the great have no need of titles of address; only the

mediocre sustain themselves with "Mr." and like terms—if they thought, as they raced above tho city on Monday last, of their quite ordinary arrival here just over a year ago; if they thought as they wheeled the Southern Cross above the Mahcno lying at anchor in the stream, of their own four days' trip from Sydney by sea, a trip which they had just made in one fierce, single, night. Dinner iv Australia; breakfast in New Zealand! "We arc not the hero type," says Khigsford, Smith. If he means that theirs has not been tho old-fcime, flowery, foolhardy, individual gallantry, he is right. But if he means that he and his companions havo not got the .qualities of purpose, skill, determination, balance, selflessness, and above all courage—courage "to tho sticking point" (and it's tho "sticking" that counts) —ho is surely wrong. And if anyone says that those qualities don't make up a very good hero, one quite in accord with our brazenly modern, common-sense standards, then he's wrong too.