FINE WAR RECORD.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 15 April 1922, Page 5

FINE WAR RECORD.

SIR EOSS SMITH'S CAREER,

At the outbreak of the Great War Sir Ross Smith enlisted in the 3rd Australian Light Horse Regiment, and sailed with the first Australian Expeditionary Force, landing in Egypt in December, 1914. After four months on Gallipoli he gained his commission and later he contracted enteric fever and was invalided to England. He. rejoined his regiment in March, 1916, and took part in the battle of Romani during the last Turkish attack on the Suez Canal in August, 1916.

In the following October Sir Eoss Smith joined the 67th (Australian) Squadron, Royal Flying Corps, as an observer, qualifying as a pilot in Egypt in July, 1917. He then joined his old squadron, the No. 7 Squadron Australian Flying Corps, stationed in Southern Palestine, and remained there until the armistice. During the war he was twice wounded. He has one bar to his M.C. and two to his D.F.C., which he won for descending behind the Turkish lines and successfully picking up a brother airman, who had been" compelled to make a forced landing. In December, 1918, he took part in the first flight from Cairo to Calcutta, and after arriving at Calcutta he went with Air Commodore Borton on his reconnaisance for aerodromes in Burma, Siam, Malay States and the Dutch East Indies.

It was then in 1919 that Sir Eoss Smith and Sir Keith Smith, with Lieut. Bennett (then Sergt. Bennett) and Sergt. Spiers, started on their great adventure —the flight from England to Australia, which ended successfully in Sydney in February, 1920. It was an amazing achievement, but all Sir Eoss Smith had to say was; ** After the war we wanted to get home, and thought we might as well fly home, so we flew home." They won the £10,000 prize offered by the Australian Government, and the two Smith brothers were knighted.