LONG LONE FLIGHT

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 36, 11 August 1930, Page 11

LONG LONE FLIGHT

AUSTRALIA TO LONDON

CUNNINGHAM'S CAREER

(From "Tho Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, 7th August.

Many amusing sidelights are being told of the career of Andrew Cunningham, the Australian a visitor who set off, secretly, early one morning last week, on a flight from Sydney to London. In many respects he is a remarkable man, a man of impulse, and just as likely as not to succeed on his great mission. It was typical of him to set off unannounced at an ago when most men are thinking of settling down in comfort. He is rising forty, ,-uid, in his own. words, "a bit thin on the thatch." He can best be described as athlete, soldier, and scholar. '

Everybody in the tiny village of Tharwa, about 20 miles from Canberra, knows Andy Cunningham and his 'plane. Tharwa residents were not surprised when they were told that he was on his way to England. Tharwa boasts of few things, but it does boast of Cunningham. He has lived much of his life in the district, and he once owned a property there. He has had a 'plane for years and has been credited with some amazing feats. It is said that he was in the habit of making early-morning flights, sometimes taking off at 4.30 a.m. He never wore morb than, shirt, or singlet and trousers. He would fly over the mountains like that, and he would often inako long trips without notice. Sometimes he would sot off in his . 'plane, for the coast on a fishing expedition, and his landing ground on such occasions was the top of a cliff. The only means of getting away was to taxi about 200 feet,-half the distance of which was up hill -and the other half down hill, and then drop over a cliff, which was. about 80 foot high. He would gain Ms flying speed after leaving the edge. SEBVIOE IN THE WAKv Cunningham was awarded the M.C. at the Great War. It is said of him, in all sincerity, that ho earned the decoration many times. The game and generous deed was a commonplace with him. He commanded the Australian Fourth Light Horse Machine Squadron, into which ho gathered many kindred spirits. Cunningham did not say much to his men, but he showed them what ho expected them to do, and he took it for granted that they would do it. A bluff, simple man, he has never really outgrown tho boyish sense of advonture. He was not above taking his coat off and going behind a tent to any man who preferred that way .6.1: settling an argument. Ho is a man of phenomenal physical strength and prowess. Probably his greatest achievement was the day his squadron posted their guns on tho ridges in the foothills of Moab, and delayed for many hours a massed enveloping movement of Turkish infantry in great force. This gave time for the Australian Mounted Division to extricate itself from what Sir Harry Chauvol, in his mild way, described as "an extraordinary difficult situation." Cunningham was wounded on Gallipoli, and when he returned home he entered tho Sydney University before he returned to his father's station close to Canberra. He stroked his college four and his university's eight. He was also nomiuatcd for the Australian eight for tho Olympic Games at Stockholm, but ho had to refuse tho offer. Tho initial stages of the flight were enshrouded in . a strange mystery, tho papers emphasising that the aviator was masked when he set off. Cunning- j ham has stated that his desiro was that his relatives should not be worried owing to his exploit.. Nobody who knows him has any doubts about whether hewill succeed, but there are few who are prepared to predict that he will break Hinklcr's wonderful record. In his dosire to escape notoriety he has achieved it, and his flight will be followed with even greater interest than would otherwise have been tho case.