Nelson Evening Mail TUESDAY, APRIL 16, 1929 FLIGHT-LIEUTENANT ULM’S DIARY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIII, 16 April 1929, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail TUESDAY, APRIL 16, 1929 FLIGHT-LIEUTENANT ULM’S DIARY

SELDOM has there been written so thrilling a human document as FlightLieutenant Ulm’s journal of the Southern Cross’s flight across Australia, and her crew’s privations after the enforced landing beside the Glenelg river. Now that the lost aviators have been found, and there is every reason to hope that with a small modicum of good luck they will return safely to civilisation, it is possible to review the causes which led to their hazardous predicament, and to consider the lessons which it seems to teach. In the first place, positively correct meteorological knowledge was essential, and that the aviators did not have, not through the fault of the meteorologist at Wyndham, but because they started off on the receipt of false information, sent to them by some malignant person or persons masquerading as the Wyndham meteorologist. Effective means for obviating deception by such false information, in the future, is absolutely essential. The punishment af the disseminators of such false information is highly necessary.

The aviators evidently had a good idea of where they had landed, but they certainly did not know how near they were to the Port George Mission, which was not more than a day’s walk from them. The best possible maps of the country to be flown over are evidently necessary to aviators. Another essential is the most perfect wireless equipment possible, for it will be rememered that the Southern Cross failed to receive the Wyndham meteorologist’s unfavourable report, sent after she was in the air. It is also necessary that aviators should carry with them sufficient food and drink with which to sustain. life for at least a fortnight, in case they may be forced to land in an uninhabited and food less locality. In reference to this aspect of the risks taken, a rifle and a fowling-piece with ammunition might prove invaluable—'Ulm might, have shot the young kangaroo which be saw, if he had had a suitable weapon. Then there is the matter of personal equipment, to meet various climatic conditions which may be encountered in case of an enforced landing—a few yards of mosquito-netting would have bten

invaluable to the Southern Cross’s crew - for there is no doubt, that their sufferings from flies by day and mosquitoes by night sapped llmir energies to a great extent, and amounted to positive torture. Then there is the matter of effective signalling apparatus, something with which to attract attention in the absence of firewood and scrub witti which to create smoko. It will be noticed that, during the twelve days when they were lost, Kingsford Smith and his companions sighted no less than five search-’planes which failed to see them or their attempts to make smokesignals with the poor means at their disposal. This matter requires careful consideration and effective action on the part of all aviators who propose to fly over desert, or semi-desert, country. It was on the thirteenth day that the aeroplane Canberra saw them. Wo do not imagine that it is for us to solve the problem of what would be the best means of attracting attention, in the circumstances in which the brave aviator’s found themselves beside the Clenelg River, but something which would have made a considerable smoko might have saved them several days before the Canberra saw them. Finally, if they had had certain simple tools it would seem that they would have been able to have performed comparatively easily certain things which they did with difficulty and actual physical pain. Of course the thought uppermost in al] minds is one of rejoicing that such brave men as Captain Kingsford Smith p/nd 'liis companions are safe and well and likely soon to make connection with civilisation at Wvndham or Derby, or wherever they may wish to recuperate after their trying experience. If they had perished, the loss to aviation, Australian and British, would have been very great, ar.d great will be the thankfulness that they have been found and succoured. Everyone will hope that the search for Flight-Lieutenant Anderson, a would-be rescuer, will be equally successful. Lieutenant Ulm’s dramatic journal clearly indicates that the four men were discovered just in time. The last stages of exhaustion were approaching. Tiie strange hallucinations which pervade the minds of those lost in the desert or wilderness were beginning to show themselves: but little more of such strain, and possibly they would have lost their reason—in such circumstances the beginning of the end. Considering their gruesome and meagre diet, it is wonderful that they survived. That they did so is undoubtedly attributable to their magnificent physique, their splendid fortitude, and their perfect comradeship. Hard as their experiences have been, they have exalted human nature and have shown to what heights fallible men can rise when imbued with a spirit of good-fellowship, when in the direst straits, and suffering great privations. Lieutenant Ulm’s diary is a part of Australia’s aviation-history. It will be read,, centuries hence, as the record of one of the episodes of which every Australian will be proud, for it disposes, doubtless unwittingly, the splendid co-operation of men facing starvation and death.