FLYING-BOAT TRIP

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 20, 25 January 1938, Page 11

FLYING-BOAT TRIP

MYSTERIOUS THUMPS

DEAD GOAT TANGLED UP

(From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, January 20. Best of the many stories told in Darwin of the experiences of the British flying-boat squadron since it left Plymouth six weeks ago concerns a goat. The' goat unwittingly was carried 1100 miles from Calcutta on the outside of the hull of the boat in which Air-Commodore Goble travelled as passenger. Swept down the Hoogli, the animal became tangled in the mooring gear on the flying-boat. When a dawn start was made for Akyab, the goat went too. In tne air the crew heard a steady thump, thump' on the hull, and tore up the floor boards in. a desperate effort to locate the cause. The goat, however, was not discovered until the boat reached its destination 11 hours afterwards. Some days later when the boat met with slight trouble and lagged behind, the Squadron Commander sent a signal asking the reason, and adding: "Presume you are carrying a dead bullock this time." On another occasion a boat was obliged to come down on the water to invesitgate an ominous sound, which appeared to be coming from one engine Both engines were thoroughly overhauled; and the technical officer of the squadron and Squadron-Leader Feather, second in command, were called to investigate. No explanation could be found, and the machine eventually took to the air again. It flew for an hour before it was discovered that the worrying hum had sprung from a mouth organ belonging to a member of the ship's crew. The mouth organ had become jammed in a port of the boat, and the rush of air had d°At threfp'orts of call in the Persian Gulf it was found that stores and supplies for the boats had not arrived, and small impoverished Arab villages were scoured for food for the 40 hungry men of the five flying-boats. All the available poultry in one -village, was purchased, and the scraggy-Arab fowls were so tough that they had io_ be skinned before they could be eaten.