Apart from the many lives lost during the First World War, a succession of adventurous airmen have lost their lives in pioneering flights
HERBERT HINKLER WHEN HE WAS TEST-PILOT for A. V. Roe, Ltd. Air-Marshal Sir John Salmond is congratulating him after a striking demonstration flight with a new machine.
A HIGH price is always paid for high achievement, and something of the cost of the conquest of the air will be gathered from this chapter. Apart from the many gallant lives lost during the Great War, a succession of adventurous spirits, from John Alcock to Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith, have lost their lives in pioneering flights.
Aviation has already begun to build up a great tradition, much of which has its foundations in the lives and deaths of great airmen. In its comparatively short history the air has claimed a heavy toil among its great figures. During the First World War many reputations were made in the air, few greater than that of Major James T. R. McCudden, V.C., D.S.O., M.C., M.M. McCudden joined the sappers as a bugler, but shortly before the War he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps, and in 1914 was a second-class air mechanic. In four short years, by his brilliance and daring, he had risen to the rank of major, had won that most coveted distinction of all, the Victoria Cross, was a world figure and hailed everywhere as one of the greatest pilots on the Western front.
In addition to being a highly skilled fighting pilot, he was an excellent mechanic, and much of his success was due to his thoroughness and the care which he took to see that the machines he used were in first-class condition, so that his aeroplanes were always a little faster, a little better at manoeuvring, than other aeroplanes of the same type.
In April, 1918, McCudden was ordered home in order to give the pilots then being trained the benefit of his wonderful experience. But he was in England only a few months. In July he was promoted to major and squadron-commander, and given the command of one of the crack air squadrons — the greatest honour for which he could have wished. On July 9 he left England to take over his new command. He landed safely at an aerodrome in France and filled up with petrol. On starting again his engine failed, and he tried to turn back into the aerodrome. His machine side-slipped, and one of the world’s greatest pilots was killed by an accident which can only be described as trivial for a pilot of McCudden’s skill.
ACE OF THE ATLANTIC. Sir John Alcock, who shared with Sir Arthur Whitten Brown the honours of the first direct transatlantic flight, crashed to death through “sheer bad luck” while trying to land in a fog on December 18, 1919.
When, the following year, Alcock and Brown made that first dramatic flight across the Atlantic, their names were for ever inscribed on the roll of aviation history. That sixteen-hour flight through fog and sleet and driving rain, with hardly a glimpse of even the stars or the sun to guide them, is fully described in the chapter “Conquest of the North Atlantic”. For their feat of unparalleled skill and courage both men were knighted. Sir John Alcock was not to live long to enjoy his well-merited honour. On the morning of December 18, 1919, he flew from England to France in a Vickers Viking. The weather was bad, and as he was nearing Rouen the machine ran into heavy mist. A farmer was the only witness of the disaster which followed. He reported that he saw the aeroplane flying unsteadily, and suddenly it crashed to the ground.
Alcock received extremely severe injuries and, despite every effort on the part of the doctors, he died the same afternoon. It was sheer bad luck, for it is certain that Alcock tried to land, believing the fog was getting worse and that he would be unable to reach Paris, for which he was aiming. Yet in Paris the weather was clear and sunny, and the conditions for landing safely were ideal. Upon such a small chance depended the life of the man who had faced successfully the great adventure of the Atlantic.
Some eighteen months later, Alcock’s great rival for Atlantic honours, Harry Hawker, lost his life. The story of Hawker and Grieve’s magnificent failure, one of the most dramatic stories of the air, is told in the chapter “Hawker’s Glorious Atlantic Failure”. A born pilot, Harry Hawker made his first great flight, which astonished the world, in 1912 at Brooklands. On this occasion he remained in the air for 8 hours 23 minutes, winning the Michelin trophy for the year for the longest flight without landing. In the year 1913 he made a British height record. Prizes for great flights had only to be offered for Harry Hawker to attempt to win them. It was while practising for the Aerial Derby of 1921 that he met his death. It was not till then that it became known that he had put up a courageous fight against physical disabilities which would have prevented most men from ever flying at all.
AGAINST HEAVY ODDS. Harry Hawker, whose attempted Atlantic flight and tragic death is mentioned in this chapter, achieved his great reputation as a pilot in spite of being far from robust.
On July 12 1921, Hawker went up in his Aerial Derby machine. He had been flying but a short while when he was seen to be in difficulties. Without warning, the machine came spiralling down to the ground, crashed and caught fire. At the inquest it was proved that Hawker, in any case, had probably only a few weeks to live. Medical evidence showed that he was suffering from tuberculosis of the spine. An operation, which he had already considered, would at the best only have meant that he would have lain helpless on his back for the rest of his life. Despite the knowledge of the risks he was running, Hawker elected to carry on in the job he loved, and died as he would have wished to die.
Many of the great airmen of the War who earned the Victoria Cross were killed fighting. Among a few outstanding figures who survived the War, Lieutenant-Colonel William G. Barker may be mentioned. In the whole history of the war in the air, no two names are more illustrious than those of Barker and William Bishop, two great Canadians. Barker was officially credited with 52 enemy aircraft destroyed. He won his Victoria Cross on October 27, 1918, after one of the most amazing fights on record.
V.C. VICTIM OF THE AIR. Major William G. Barker, V.C., D.S.O., M.C., whose exploits as a fighting pilot placed him amongst the heroes of the Great War, took an active part in aviation in post-war years. He was killed testing a new type of aeroplane in Canada in 1930. Barker is shown here in 1918, when he commanded a Sopwith “Camel” squadron.
Barker’s exploit began quietly enough when he was on a lone patrol. Flying at 22,000 feet, he attacked a two-seater, and then became involved in a terrific melee with first one enemy formation numbering fifteen machines, and then another of between ten and fifteen single-seaters. He was wounded three times and, though crippled in both legs and one arm, he continued to fight his way homeward. During this unequal struggle he twice fainted, but, nevertheless, sent five of his attackers to their doom. Then, bleeding and faint, he landed and crashed.
Most men would not have survived that final crash, but Barker did so to such good purpose that after the War he became one of the leading test-pilots in Canada. The testing of aeroplanes is always a dangerous job. It was while testing a machine on March 12, 1930, at Rockcliffe, a suburb of Ottawa, that Colonel Barker met his death. The aeroplane got out of control and nose-dived on to the frozen Ottawa river, and one of the world’s greatest pilots was killed instantly.
A FEW FEET WOULD HAVE SAVED HIM. The R.A.F. lost one of its most distinguished pilots when Major James T. B. McCudden, V.C., D.S.O., M.C., M.M., was fatally injured in a crash in July, 1918, due to the engine of his S.E.5a failing just after taking off. Had McCudden had sufficient height at the time, the disaster might have been avoided. He is seen here beside a Bristol “Scout”.
The names of many of the great airmen of the War period are but historical memories to all but a few. It was in the years following the War that the names of many newcomers became known all over the world. No one deserved world recognition more than Squadron-Leader Herbert Hinkler. In 1920 he burst into fame by flying from London to Turin in an Avro “Baby”, fitted with only a 35 h.p. engine. No word of the proposed flight appeared in the newspapers until it had been made, for Hinkler strongly objected to publicity. His maxim was “Do the thing first and talk about it afterwards”. The difficulty was ever to get him to talk, however. Hinkler, like Harry Hawker and Barker, was a test-pilot, and many of his remarkable flights were made to show the capabilities of his aeroplane. A list of Hinkler’s flights would be too long to give here. He was the pioneer of the light aeroplane, and did more than any other pilot to make it popular. In 1928 he made his great solo flight in a light aeroplane from England to Australia in sixteen days. In 1931 he amazed everyone by flying from New York to Jamaica and from Brazil to Africa, across the South Atlantic, in a small machine. His navigating skill was almost uncanny.
LONE FLYER’S LAST FLIGHT. British aviation suffered a grievous loss when Bert Hinkler was killed. Flying in a D.H. “Puss-Moth”, he left England on January 7 1933, to go to Australia. Nearly four months later his dead body was discovered with his wrecked monoplane in the Apennines. Shown here is the remains of the machine as it was found.
On January 7 1933, Hinkler left England on an attempt to beat the record for a flight to Australia. The next that was heard of him was a vague report that he had been seen flying over Switzerland the same day — and then silence. A machine set out from England to search for him in the Alps without success. The world’s most lonely flyer had vanished. It was nearly four months later, in May, that news was received that the wreckage of his machine had been found on the deserted slopes of the Pratanago Mountains in the Apennines by some wandering charcoal burners. In that desolate spot a memorial has been erected to a great pilot and a great gentleman.
In November, 1935, the world lost one whom Anthony Fokker rightly described as “the greatest flyer in the world today”, Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith, who disappeared over the Bay of Bengal while flying to Australia.
Kingsford-Smith first became known to the world by his circuit of Australia in ten days, beating the previous time by no less than twelve days in 1927. In May, 1928, in the “Southern Cross”, he was the first man to fly across the Pacific from San Francisco to Australia, via Honolulu and the Fiji Islands. In the same year Kingsford-Smith flew the Tasman Sea to New Zealand and back. In 1929 he and Ulm beat the existing record from Australia to England, and afterwards flew to America and across to San Francisco, thus completing the circuit of the world.
In October, 1930, Kingsford-Smith flew solo from England to Australia in a light aeroplane in 9 days 21 hours, beating the record set up by Hinkler. In 1931 he flew back to England, and in December flew the Christmas mail to Australia, and two years later again lowered the existing record for the England-Australia flight, while in 1934 he made a second crossing of the Pacific. No pilot held such a fine record of long-distance flights as this great flyer.
