Hero's Hero

No. 1 Australian hero is Air Commodore Sir Charley Edward Kingsford-Smith. Co-pilot and navigator on most of his flights is a thickset, baldish onetime mail pilot named Capt. P. G. ("Bill") Taylor. Because of Capt. Taylor's uncanny ability to find dotlike islands in midocean, Sir Charles's comment after most flights consists of: "Bill's course, as usual, perfect."

Last week, accompanied by a wireless operator, Sir Charles and "Bill" set out from Sydney in the famed old Southern Cross to fly the stormy Tasman Sea to Wellington, N. Z. Halfway across, the starboard propeller broke off, part of a motor fell into the sea. With the other two motors sputtering, the ship lost altitude rapidly. Sir Charles threw 14,000 lb. of freight overboard, then 34,000 pieces of Jubilee mail. When the Southern Cross continued falling, Sir Charles sent out an SOS, added: "Port motor gone now. . . . Afraid we in sea."

But the Southern Cross did not fall into the sea. Clutching a vacuum bottle, "Bill" Taylor climbed out on a wing, braced himself against a strut, transferred oil from the starboard to the port tanks. When he had braved, the howling wind six times he had a gallon of oil, and the port motor started up again. Seven hours later Kingsford-Smith nursed his crippled ship back to Sydney. Haggard and drawn, he told newsmen: "Bill Taylor is the world's greatest hero. No other man could have done it."

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