“WORTH WHILE.”

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20341, 26 June 1934, Page 12

“WORTH WHILE.”

Miss Jean Batten’s Air Adventures. MOST THRILLING MOMENT. (Special to the " Star.”) AUCKLAND, June 25. “ I have been asked for my most thrilling moment,” said Miss Jean Batten in addressing a huge crowd at a civic reception t-j-day. Thereupon she told of her crossing of the Timor Sea. She was six hours out across the sea, where visibility was supposed to be possible for a hundred miles. She poked her heac\ out of the ’plane to look for land but no land was to be seen. Six and a hall' hours went by and still there was no land. Seven hours and still there was only sea “ And then I began to wonder and wonder,” said Miss Batten. Like a Cloud. After seven and a quarter hours she looked again and there ahead was something that looked like a tiny black cloud on the horizon. “ But I said to myself, ‘ I will not be cheated,’ ” Miss Batten continued, “ and I determined to keep my head inside the cockpit for ten minutes before I looked again. I did, but when I looked again there it was, still there. “ I have passed over some of the most beautiful cities on the earth and some of the most beautiful places. Yet none seemed to me more beautiful than the city of Darwin when 1 arrived.” An Intent Audience. A pin could have been heard drop all the time Miss Batten spoke, so intently did the audience hang on her words. It is to be doubted whether any of them before had a proper conception of the difficulties of which the quiet young voice so lightly spoke. She told ot her first attempt, of how her engine had literally burst into pieces when she had had to land at Karachi. “ I had not realised that disappointments could be so bitter,” she said. There were times, after she had flown from sunrise to sunset and spent hours over her engine, when she had wondered if it was all worth while, whether “ the game was worth the candle”; but she had realised since how worth while it had been.