TURKS AND TIGERS.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 8 October 1931, Page 5

TURKS AND TIGERS.

FAILURE PRIMARILY DUE TO SUNSTROKE. (Received This Day, 12.10 a.m.) LONDON, Sept. 7. A quarter of an Hour after his arrival, Kingsford Smith’s face broke into • a smile when he was informed that his wife was waiting on the wireless telephone to Melbourne. He engaged in five minutes’ happy conversation and then had a meal of poached eggs before being driven to London. Revelling in the ease -of a deep arm- . .chair after the struggle against sleep, he talked freely of his adventures. He explained that the landing in Turkey was a case either of coming down or fainting in the air, with /possibly disastrous results. “I came down eight mijes from Milas, hoping to snatch a rest and then push on before the authorities found me. I lay down on a leather coat beside the machine and when I awoke I found the villagers grouped round me. Then the police arrived and I knew my chance of breaking the record was gone. They had never seen an aeroplane before. Soldiers guarded me the first night and then, when I explained that I was an officer in my own country, a goodnatured officer took charge until the British Embassy secured my release.” Sunstroke sustained over the Bay of ’Bengal, through what he admitted was his own carelessness in not wearing a 1 proper tropical flying helmet, worried him throughout, and sometimes made him feel so light-headed that he felt like jumping" out of the machine. ■The most unnerving experience of the flight was the forced landing on the beach near Victoria Point. When he went to the jungle to gather timber with which to prop the machine and prevent the rising tide damaging it, he heard a tiger growl. “I covered two hundred yards of beach in twenty seconds, clambered into the cockpit and remained there until morning. I had no sleep that night, “My nervous system will not stand the strain of .an immediate flight home. I am seeing the doctor to-mor-row and my plans depend largely on his advice, but I am hopeful of starting next week and confident of breaking the ■ Anglo-Australia record.”