TRIP TO AMERICA

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 150, 21 December 1940, Page 8

TRIP TO AMERICA

AUSTRALIAN AIRMEN

MISSION NOT DISCLOSED

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

AUCKLAND, December 20,

Two of Australia's leading airmen, Captain P. G, Taylor, former associate of the late Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and Mr. C. T. P. Uim, and Captain Lester J. Brian, operations manager of Qahtas Empire Airways. Ltd., arrived by the Aotearoa from Sydney. They are on their way to the United States on a mission of which details are at present confidential and will leave by the next north-bound clipper of Pan-American Airways. Though he was unable to disclose the purpose of his present trip, Captain Taylor, who commanded the American flying-boat Guba on her Indian survey flight last year, spoke with enthusiasm of Australia's growing war effort. In the air, he said, apart from men being trained to man the machines of the Royal Australian Air Force for home defence, very manywere being partly trained before going either to Canada or to Rhodesia to complete. In addition Australia had a substantial number of airmen at Singapore and there were others serving with the Royal Air Force in Britain and in Africa.

The aircraft industry in Australia was of increasing importance, he said. As the authorities considered the air defence of Australia necessary, it was obvious that an aircraft industry was required to provide replacement machines, and things were now shaping well. Captain Taylor said that so far Australia completely lacked a modern fighter. In his view, however, such a machine could be built round the bigger Wasp engine already being produced, and would add considerably to the air strength of the Commonwealth.

Captain Taylor, who flew with Sir Charles Kingsford Smith across the Pacific from Brisbane to the United States in the Lockheed Altair in which Sir Charles was subsequently lost, was awarded the medal of the Order of the British Empire (civil division) for gallantry in 1937. It was awarded for his conduct when during the transTasman flight in 1935 one engine of the Southern Cross cut out and Captain Taylor climbed out under the wing to drain the oil from the defective engine and supply it to another engine that was showing signs of failure through shortage of lubricant.