“DAREDEVIL WILKINS.”

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 5, 4 December 1928, Page 7

“DAREDEVIL WILKINS.”

FRIENDLY RIVAL OF BYRD. “MORE COURAGEOUS THAN I.” DUNEDIN, Dec. 1. “Wilkins is far more .courageous than I am,” said Commander Richard E. Byrd, when discussing the reports that tlie famous Australian airman-explorer is making final preparations for his dash to the South Pole. “He is a daredevil and will take risks which I would not vonturo to take.” With the exception of Sir Hubert Wilkins’s fiancee, Miss Suzanne Benn<yt, an Australian .actress now in London, it is probable that no one in the world is more keenly, interested than Commander Bvrd in the news of Wilkins’s flight. A week ago he read that the Australian had had a successful trial flight over Deception Island, his base. _ “I am particularly interested in Wilkins’s engines, as they are the most reliable obtainable in America,” he said, when discussing his rival’s flight. Though they are rivals, they are friendly rivals; in fact, they are close friends, and they have a personal, as well as a material interest, in each other’s movements. Wilkins has only a small expedition, as his effort is to fly only over the South Pole from Deception Island, in the Weddell Sea. He will set a oourse direct for the Pole, and should his flight be successful, it is possible he will continue up the other side of the world towards Comamnder Byrd’s base at the Bay of Whales, in the Ross Sea. The American lias already offered Wilkins the use of his base and all other facilities, should he need them. If Wilkins reaches the Pole first and takes the honour of being the first to fly to the “bottom of the world,” Byrd will be the first to congratulate him.