PERMIT REFUSED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23857, 11 July 1939, Page 10

PERMIT REFUSED

MONEY FOR MEMORIAL LOST PACIFIC AVIATOR APPLICATION BY WIDOW (Special to Daily Times) AUCKLAND, July 10. The refusal of the Reserve Bank to permit relatives of Mr Joseph Leonard Skilling. companion of Mr C. T. P. Ulm on his ill-fated Pacific Might in 1934, to send money orders valued at £lO to England for the purpose of a church memorial has been communicated to Mr Shilling's widow, Mrs Ellen Andree Skilling, of Auckland. Backed by the Commonwealth Government to the extent of £BOOO, Mr Ulm left Oakland, California, in the monoplane Star of Australia on December 3. 1934, on the first stage of a survey flight across the Pacific to Sydney, by way of Fanning Island, Suva, and Auckland. He was accompanied by Messrs G. Littlejohn, copilot, and Skilling. navigator and wireless operator. On December 4 the machine was forced into the sea at an unknown point in the locality of Hawaii, and, in spite of an intensive search by units of the United States Navy and Air Force, no trace of the flyers was found. Once Leading Choir Boy On a recent visit to England Mrs Skilling discussed arrangements for a memorial to her husband at Seaforth Anglican Church, Liverpool, where Mr Skilling as a child had been leading choir boy. Since her return she has been advised that it had been decided to place inside the church a memorial brass revolving desk. ,J To meet the cost of the memorial Mrs Skilling decided to forward £3 to Liverpool. Her brother agreed to send a similar amount and her mother decided to forward £4. Mrs Skilling went to the Chief Post Office at Auckland to obtain the necessary moneyorders on June 26, the day new regulations were introduced limiting money orders for abroad to £3 and requiring special applications to be made. Negative Reply In her application Mrs Skilling described what the money was required for and also referred briefly to the circumstances of her husband's death. She has since received a reply from the Chief Post Office informing her that her "application to remit a money-order overseas has been returned from the Reserve Bank marked ' Permit declined.'" "The idea behind the flight was to establish an all-British route acrosa the Pacific," Mrs Skilling said in commenting on the matter. "If it was good enough for the Australian Government to back the enterprise and for the King to honour me with a JuDilee Medal, surely it was good enough for the New Zealand Government to allow me to send £lO to England for a memorial to my husband."