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Aviation History
1924
1924 - 0642.PDF
many a trying ordeal. Flying Officer Plenderleith piloted the machine the whole time, and never once was his judgment at fault, in spite of the many tight corners we got into. Sergeant Andrews worked incessantly, and his pluck and endurance in working on the machine under the most trying conditions was nothing short of marvellous, and many times he refused to give up even though he was unfit to carry on. "I do not know that there is anything very fresh to say about the flight itself. You have probably read in the Press the brief accounts of the different stages which I was enabled to send home through the co-operation of The Times. Still, perhaps, before I sit down, you might like me to run over as quickly as possible some of the incidents which made the greatest impression on our minds. " It was on the 25th March, six months ago to the very day, that we started from Calshot. Before an hour had passed, we had a taste of what was in store for us. Our arch-enemy fog was waiting for us in the Channel, and we were within a few feet of a collision with the French cliffs near Havre. We had awful weather ior our journey across France and Italy, and we had our next bad shock while we were crossing the Apennines. " It was pouring with rain, and the mountains were covered with low clouds. Whilst we were groping about in the almost pitch darkness, navigating entirely by the aid of the Reid Turn Indicator, without which we should have several times come to grief, and when our nerves were very near breaking point, a small gap appeared in the clouds below us. We found ourselves in a small valley, in which to our joy we saw a railway line. This gave me a clue to our position, but I don't know what we should have done if we had come to a tunnel. We should either have gone through leaving our wings behind, or have gone aloft to don other and better ones. In the end we reached Brindisi safely. " Our next little incident was at Corfu. We had just com pleted the sea crossing from Italy, when the engine came to a sudden stop with a tremendous vibration. We were forced to come down immediately, and by great good fortune we were immediately above a large lake. As it turned out, it was the only possible landing place for miles. All the same, we were ten miles from the nearest village, and it was rough work camping out in that wild spot. " First the Greek Navy and then our own came to our aid. The machine was hauled out of the lake, got into the sea and towed to Corfu, where a new engine, which had been sent overland from England, was installed from the battle ship, the Emperor of India. " On leaving Corfu, we thought that our troubles were over. The weather was beautiful, and we arrived at Cairo by moonlight. " We then made good time to Baghdad, after losing sight of the desert track once but picking it up again after an anxious half hour. All went well from Baghdad to Karachi. Then our tribulations began again. We had the same trouble as at Corfu, and were forced to descend in the scorching Sind desert, near the village of Parlu. Here we had to wait seventeen days for another engine, which the Royal Air Force very kindly sent us from Baghdad. When we got on the move again we had little to chronicle until we reached Akyab, a stage beyond Calcutta. Here we ran into the monsoon, and had to kick our heels for three days whilst our machine was soaked by torrential rains. On Empire Day we set off once more. No sooner, however, had the machine risen in the air, just clearing the tops of the trees at the end of the aerodrome than she began to drop, striking the water in the harbour with such violence that her hull was badly damaged. The machine began to sink at once. A boat quickly came to our rescue, and we managed to tow the machine in shore and beach her. The damage, however, proved too serious to be repaired. It seemed that she was unable to remain in the air, chiefly because she was water-logged by the torrential rains, which aggravated the condition in which she had been left by seventeen days in the open in the scorching Sind desert, and the fact that we had to carry a larger supply of fuel than anticipated owing to strong contrary winds. After we had shaken off our first awful disappointment, we telegraphed home asking that our spare machine, which was awaiting us at Tokyo, might be sent to Akyab as quickly as possible. But before we could get an answer, we received a telegram from Japan saying that the American Navy was already bringing us our machine at full speed. Here we decided to cut out all luxuries in view of the fact that we were flying through the tropics in the monsoon season, when the weather was unfit for even a dog to be out in. In effect this meant that, instead of the machine being loaded to 7,000 lbs., except for some of the longer trips where she was a bit heavier and including the one from Athens to Cairo when she was loaded to 7,500 lbs., we managed to reduce her to somewhere in the neighbourhood of 6.500 lbs. Our action appears to have been entirely justified, for, after leaving Akyab to the time of our unfortunate crash at Nikolsku on Bering Island, we did not once have to make the slightest adjustment to machine or engine, which ran the whole time as consistently as possible. " When we started off again, we had shocking weather between Akyab and Rangoon. Again between Rangoon and Bangkok we were forced to descend at Tavoi, as we were unable after several attempts to get across the big range of mountains separating Burma from Siam. This we accom plished on the following day, but our hearts were in our mouths most of the time. The fun began again when we reached the great range of mountains that divides Siam from Indo-China. The moun tains were covered with heavy clouds, and although we climbed 8,000 ft., the higher we got the higher the clouds seemed to be. By this time, we had all got the wind up. We decided to go back a little way to try and find some open ing in the clouds. Luckily, we found a hole, and sighted an open clearing in the middle of the jungle. As we approached this clearing, with a view to landing and waiting for the weather to clear up, we saw something moving and discovered it to be a herd of elephants, which rushed into the jungle at our approach. We could also see many buffalo and deer. When making a final tour of inspection at a height of only a few feet, the grass seemed to be inordinately long, and we then found to our horror that the clearing was a vast swamp. There was only one thing to do, and that was to climb up through the thousands of feet of cloud again. Somebody must have been looking after us that day, for a patch of blue sky appeared above us. We dashed into the breach, keeping our eyes glued to that blue patch, sometimes losing it for a moment and then finding it again and using it as our horizon. We chanced our luck on a compass course, and after an hour's flying over impenetrable cloud were rewarded with a sight of the sea in the distance. " The three of us solemnly shook hands on it. From Indo-China to Hong-Kong, Shanghai, and across the China Sea to Toyie, there was nothing of special interest to relate. We stopped a few days at Tokyo, where the most enthusiastic reception was given to us by the Japanese people and the Navy, Army and Air Force, who could not do enough for us, getting the machine in readiness for the next stage of the flight, the most difficult one of all. Here we took Colonel Broome on board, together with stocks of food, a small silk tent and sleeping bags, and left behind our wheels and under carriage. We had hardly got under way from Tokyo than we ran into fog, and had to make three forced landings during the first day's flight. However, we reached Yetorup, the first of the Kurile Islands, in safety, and landed in a large lake. Dense fog delayed us a day, and when we finally got off we met with nothing but fog and storms. We had to turn back and land in a small open bay on Tokotan, another of the Kurile Islands. Our anchors failed to hold, and it was with the utmost difficulty that we prevented the machine from being dashed on to the beach. Plenderleith, clad only in his shirt, as the rest of his clothes was spread out on the beach to dry, first taxied the machine out to sea, and then landed her in a small lake just inland. The machine weathered one of the most unpleasant nights I have ever spent, but the succeeding days brought nothing but dense fog, rain, and gales. On the third day a Japanese destroyer, which had been searching for us, arrived and told the world that we were safe. Plenderleith was taken sick, but quickly recovered, and we were able to resume our journey on the seventh day after landing at Tokotan. " The passage along the Kuriles was an extremely anxious one. There was dense fog the whole way up, but Providence looked after us, and we safely reached Petrapavlovsk in Kamchatka. There we found awaiting us the Thiepval, the gallant little ship that had laid down our supplies, and without which we should not be here today. " Now I come to the last day of our flight, August 2. We left Oest Kamchatka with a 130-mile sea crossing in front of us. WTe were within 30 or 40 miles of our destination, when the fog became so solid that we were forced down to within 50 ft. of the water. As we neared the coast, the fog got lower and lower, until we were flying only a few feet above the water. Suddenly a black object loomed up straight in front of us, and only a quick swerve saved us from crashing into the cliffs of a small islet. By this time we were almost in a state of nervous prostration, so we decided to land in the open sea, although there was a heavy sea running. Plenderleith brought the machine down perfectly, but just after we had
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