Flights & Flyers

Couriers. As dawn broke over the airport at Victoria, B. C. one day last week two swift Army pursuit planes roared into the air, flew eastward on an impressive mission. The leader, Lieut. Irvin A. Woodring, sole survivor of the Army's famed "Three Musketeers" flying team (TIME, May 5), carried a despatch case containing Japanese Emperor Hirohito's ratification of the London Naval Treaty. The document had been speeded across the Pacific by the steamer Hikawa Maru, 12 hr. ahead of schedule, had to sail out of New York aboard the Leviathan four days later in order to be laid before the League of Nations' Preparatory Commission on Disarmament at Geneva Nov. 6. Piloting the escort plane, to carry on in case of accident to Lieut. Woodring, was 26-year-old Lieut. William W. Caldwell. Over the Rockies flew the couriers, into a Wyoming blizzard. Lieut. Woodring emerged, after two forced landings. Not until landing in Cleveland next day did he learn that his escort lay dead 70 mi. west of Cheyenne. In the "zero-zero" (no ceiling, no visibility) weather, Lieut. Caldwell had crashed into a fence post trying to land. With bad weather still ahead of him over the Alleghenies, Lieut. Woodring prudently transferred to a consolidated Fleetster piloted by a brother officer, landed at Mitchel Field, N. Y. two nights before the Leviathan's sailing.

England-Australia. For nearly three years the record of Pilot Harold J. L. ("Bert") Hinkler--15 1/2 days from England to Australia--withstood all assaults. Last week Australians went wild with joy when their own idol, Wing Commander Charles Kingsford-Smith, landed his Avro Avian Southern Cross Jr. at Port Darwin ten days after leaving Heston Airdrome, north of London. Apart from the glamour of Kingsford-Smith's mission--going home after his trans-Atlantic flight to marry Mary Powell of Melbourne--the race was full of human interest. Of three others who essayed the route within the month, Capt. F. R. Matthews crashed between Bangkok and Singapore, finally reached Australia safe, sound but slowly. Hon.

Mrs. Victor Bruce was loafing along in easy jumps. Flight Lieut. C. W. Hill, another Australian, flew his Moth into Surabaya, Java two days ahead of Hinkler's schedule. But there Kingsford-Smith, who left England four days behind, was close on his tail. The two were nearly even for the last hazardous lap across the Timor Sea. Then Lieut. Hill was forced down on the Island of Timor and, in trying to take off again, his plane overturned. The Southern Cross Jr., sweeping past Timor in an attempted nonstop dash to Port Darwin, ran into headwinds and was also forced back to land at Timor. Next day Kingsford-Smith took it off safely, finished the 12,000-mi. flight.

Missionary. To Kotzebue, Alaska last week proudly flew the Very Reverend Philip I. Delon, head of Indian and Eskimo missions in northern Alaska, to show the new missionary plane Marquette to Father William F. Walsh.

With Pilot Ralph Wien, the Vicar-General took Father Walsh up for a jaunt. The plane, a Diesel-powered Bellanca, circled the field, dove, crashed, killed pilot and priests. A gift of the Marquette League of New York, which has spent $750,000 upon missions for Indians of the southwest U. S. and of Alaska, the Marquette was intended to enable Father Delon to visit in three weeks missions scattered over 500,000 sq. mi., a trip that formerly required a year's travel by dog team.

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