Adventurous Airwoman’s Hazardous Sea Crossing

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 153, 1 July 1938, Page 11

Adventurous Airwoman’s Hazardous Sea Crossing

AGONY PROM INJURED HAND SYDNEY, June 17. A young Sydney airwoman, Barbara > Ilitchins, is about to complete a flight) from New Guinea, during which she has had many adventures. She left here in January, made the journey successfully, and then during a flight over the interior crashed in the jungle The story of her privations for four days among uncivilised natives has already been told, but her adventures did not end there. It was at the Wau goldfields aerodrome that Miss Ilitchins met with a mishap which delayed her return to Sydney for several months. She was Testing her D.H. Moth aeroplane, which had just been repaired after the crash in tho jungle, when, through the oversight of a mechanic, her right hand was broken by the propellor. The whirring blado caught the back of her band, | breaking the bones and stripping tho flesh to the bone. Her right index finger is still useless. She had to postpone her return flight until the injury had healed, and even now faces another operation to have the bones.reset. She made a hazardous crossing of the Coral Sea from New Guinea to' Cape York. Suffering agony from her injured hand, with which she had to pump petrol, she crossed the 10,000i't. mountains of New Guinea, flew up the 100-mile-wido estuary of tho Fly river, came down among natives on a mud flat in the middle ot' tho sea, and reached Cape York with only half an hour’s petrol left. “The plane was just moving—that’s all,” she said of her ocean crossing, “and the visibility was generally nil, and at the most 300 yards. Below me I could see only a dense haze. It was very bumpy, and my hand was troubling me. My index finger was useless and stiff. I did not think of the water, or of sharks, or such things—at such times your mind is fully occupied with the business on hand. What did concern me was 'whether I should have allowed more for drift. Cape York is not very big, and I knew that if I miscalculated I could easily miss it. And I was concerned when, with only half an hour’s petrol left, I could see no sign of the shore. I had' been flying about eight and a-half hours. I breathed a great sigh of relief when the land suddenly came to me out of the mist less than a quarter of a mile ahead.” Her adventures continued as she flew down the Queensland coast to Brisbane. She had to make a forced landing short of her objective, and narrowly averted disaster. “I didn’t like it at all,” she said, “but I had no alternative. My wrist was sore, and being unable to reach Brisbane before darkness, I altered my course and landed in a fleld amidst grass two feet high, hiding broken tree stumps and logs. The ’plane stopped within six feet of the edge of a 40ft. creek embankment, at the side of the field.” The take-off the following morning she described as one of the most terrifying experiences on her whole trip. “It was pouring rain, my goggles were clouded, and a strong wind xvas blowing,” she said. “The field was strewn with stumps and logs hidden in the long grass, and in the centre of the 300-yard runway was a high jump hurdle. I just managed to clear the hurdle, and then had to bank steeply to save the ’plane from crashing into some tall timber on the side of a hill directly in front of These air meanderings are in preparation or a long flight Miss Hitchins intends to undertake in 1940. ‘‘l am only crawling before I can walk in my present ’plane, although it is a fine bus,” she said. “I will get something faster, better powered, bigger, and with a longer range, and then in 1940 1 intend to tackle something worth while. I have seen a good deal of Australia, and after I have seen through the Southern Hemisphere I am going to sec the Northern. People think I am just gadding about, but I have definite plans, and nothing I do in the way of flying is just for notoriety.” Miss Hitchins has mapped out her whole life, and is determined to fulfil all her ambitions. 41 When you are determined to do anything you can always succeed,” she said. “I have done many things which I thought were impossible since I left here last January. I went to New Guinea for a purpose, and I have accomplished that purpose at the expense of a broken hand.”