Amelia Earhart and Lores Bonney

 

24 July 2014 was the 117th anniversary of the birth of Amelia Earhart. Amelia and Lores Bonney were almost exact contemporaries - Lores was born on 20 November 1897 - an interesting coincidence given they both took up long distance flying.

 

It had not gone unnoticed by Brisbane's Sunday Mail (9 April 1933) that ‘long fingers seem to be associated with aviation genius’ when it compared Lores' hands with those of Amy Johnson and Amelia Earhart.

 

Lores' and Amelia's aerial path almost crossed.

The Australian aviatrix had arrived in Cairo during on her Australia—South Africa flight when Amelia and her navigator, Fred Noonan, left Miami, Florida on 1 June 1937. They had flown down to South America, hopping off from Natal in Brazil and arriving at Dakar in French Senegal on 9 June. Next stop was Gao, on the 10th. When Lores ‘got to Khartoum’ after an enjoyable break in Cairo, ‘they told me there that Amelia Earhart was about two days away from Khartoum. Well, it didn’t matter to me when I got to Cape Town and I waited’.

Amelia had expected to cross Africa in four or five days but, after touching down at Fort Lamy, the capital of Chad, she was delayed briefly while her Lockheed Electra’s shock absorbers were adjusted. She was expected in Khartoum on the 13th. Although Amelia, like Lores, had issued frequent despatches regarding her progress, there was ‘no word from her’. Lores waited but by the evening of 11 June, she was ‘uncertain if A. Earhart arriving whether go on or not’. She made up her mind the next morning. ‘So I felt, well, she might be months, she might have had a breakdown or something and so I went’ to Malakal on the 12th. Amelia arrived the next day.

It is doubtful if Lores would have been able to meet her as the American left 75 minutes later for Massawa, on the Red Sea coast of Eritrea. ‘She passed through, only to be lost.’ Amelia and Fred Noonan would disappear somewhere in the Pacific Ocean between Lae in New Guinea and Howland Island on 2 July 1937.

 

Sneak peek of Australia's Few and the Battle of Britain.

I am so excited. Australia's Few and the Battle of Britain has arrived. What wonderful cover art!



The book tells the remarkable stories of eight young Australians who fought in the Battle of Britain:



Jack Kennedy (238 Squadron)—Sydney born and bred; Spitfire and Hurricane pilot, the first Australian to die in the Battle

Stuart Walch (238 Squadron)—Hobart born and bred; Hurricane pilot, known as the father of his squadron

Dick Glyde DFC (87 Squadron)—Perth born and bred; Australia’s first internee of the war; Hurricane pilot who flew in the Battle of France and died on Eagle Day

Pat Hughes DFC (234 Squadron)—Monaro born and bred, memorialised in Cooma and Kiama, raised to adulthood in Sydney; Spitfire pilot and Australia’s highest scoring Battle ace who died defending London on the first day of the Blitz

Ken Holland (152 Squadron)—Sydney born and bred; Spitfire pilot and the youngest Australian to die

John Crossman (32 and 46 squadrons)—Queensland-born and Newcastle raised; Hurricane pilot who was determined to fly at all cost

Bill Millington DFC (79 and 249 squadrons)—English born but Adelaide raised; Hurricane pilot and exemplar of chivalry who avoided crashing into a village; died on the last day of fighting

Desmond Sheen DFC and Bar (72 Squadron)—Sydney-born and Canberra raised; Spitfire pilot and first Australian to engage the enemy in combat. Baled out twice, and survived.


Perhaps you might like to have a sneak peek of what the book is like ... but first, you have to endure some shots of me gloating over it ...







OK. Now for the book itself.

As you can see, it is very handsomely produced. Hard cover dust wrapper, illustrated boards, stitched page sections (so it won't fall apart if you are a hard reader), a goodly number of b&w pics, two maps and some cleverly designed chapter header logos. For the historians, it is fully endnoted with a detailed bibliography of primary and secondary sources.  And an index. All in all, I am thrilled with it.

What do you think of the frontispiece illustration?

That depicts Pat Hughes' last moments in combat. I was thrilled to receive permission to use this from the man who commissioned the painting, based on their father's eyewitness account of the battle.





The table of contents gives the overview of the book but it is only when you read it that you will gain a true sense of the narrative sweep.

It was difficult selecting the photos and took weeks to make up my mind. I think the end result is mighty impressive. 

 

Do you see the wings brooch in this photo?

That was given to me by Jack Kennedy's former fiancee. I treasure it.

I was so pleased when NewSouth's designer used it as the basis for the chapter headers (see below).

It was all bit of a coincidence too, in that I had separately commissioned a graphic designer to come up with my personal writer's logo which includes a stylised set of wings (see at the top of this post). I love how they all relate.




Here are some extracts from the book.

Australia’s Few and the Battle of Britain is available now with a recommended retail price of $A49.99 from all good booksellers throughout Australia. Naturally, Alexander Fax Booksellers will stock signed copies. Postage and packaging will be additional. Australia's Few and the Battle of Britain will be published in the United Kingdom by Pen and Sword at a later date. (I haven't been told the publication date yet) If you don't mind waiting a bit, you will be able to purchase it from your local bookshop in Britain as well.

To purchase from Alexander Fax Booksellers, just follow the link at http://www.alexanderfaxbooks.com.au/australians-few-and-battle-britain or email alexfax@alexanderfaxbooks.com.au

If you prefer to order via your favourite local (Australian) bookshop, here is what you need to tell them:

Title: Australia’s Few and the Battle of Britain, Author: Kristen Alexander
Publisher: NewSouth, ISBN 9781742234151  

I look forward to sharing with you what I have discovered about Jack Kennedy Stuart Walch, Dick Glyde, Ken Holland, Pat Hughes, Bill Millington, John Crossman and Des Sheen. I will of course tell everyone I know about Australia’s Few and the Battle of Britain. Details are already on my website, and that of Alexander Fax Booksellers, and on our Facebook pages. Please help spread the news to your family and friends, and anyone interested in Australia’s aviation history, by word of mouth or social media, so that more people can learn of the bravery of these young men, and their part in the world’s greatest air war.

Before I sign off, I want to share one last thing. Pat Hughes' favourite song was 'Where or When', by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, which featured in the 1937 musical and 1939 movie Babes in Arms. In it, a young couple who meet for the first time are instantly struck by the feeling that they have been in love before, but they can’t work out where they met, or how long ago. Their strong impression of déjà vu, along with their immediate attraction, create the sense that they belong together. Here is my favourite version of that lovely, evocative song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnRSM3dLSTk

I hope you have enjoyed the sneak peek of Australia's Few and the Battle of Britain.  It is my fourth book and I think it is my best.


Kristen
www.kristenalexander.com.au
https://www.facebook.com/australiasfew
https://www.facebook.com/KristenAlexanderAuthor
Twitter: Kristen Alexander @kristenauthor
www.alexanderfaxbooks.com.au
https://www.facebook.com/AlexanderFaxBooksellers
:

Slash and Burn

I am currently editing a manuscript on Lores Bonney, an Australian pilot of the 1930s. I am a tad over the word limit so I am seriously slashing and burning everything that does not specifically relate to Lores. Here is one little segment I am quite fond of . I hate to consign it to the literary equivalent of the cutting room floor so (hopefully) enjoy.    

(Lores Bonney and Charles Kingsford Smith at Archerfield aerodrome, August 1932)

‘Sensation at Archerfield’
Lores Bonney was at Archerfield overseeing My Little Ship’s final maintenance, which was been carried out by two Qantas ground engineers, on 13 August 1932, two days before her departure on her round Australia flight. She checked her tool box, tested the spare cylinder head and replenished the liquid in the fire extinguisher. This was a task long overdue: it had not been changed since Flight Lieutenant Hill (from whom she had purchased her Gipsy Moth, My Little Ship, filled it before he left England. The magnetic compass, which was oriented to the earth’s magnetic field, and also influenced by any metal objects stowed on board, was ‘swung’ to determine and record any variations. It had to be checked in this way every time a new metal object was brought on board, such as the spare cylinder head or any other iron or steel items which might be stashed in a well-stocked tool kit. Swinging the compass involved first positioning the aircraft away from excess magnetic interference, like metal structure buildings and machinery, then pointing the aircraft at each of the main compass points while still on the ground. Standing some distance from the aircraft, a mechanic orientated a landing compass along a centre line from each compass point and called out the reading to the person sitting in the aircraft. He or she would note the discrepancy on a ‘compass card’. Thus, during flights, Lores would be able to check her bearings against the compass deviation card and allow for any degrees of difference.

Lores also helped repair a broken windscreen. She did not reveal how it had been damaged but it is possible it was one of the casualties in a madcap escapade, where ‘Famous Pilot Figures in Chase’, that had caused a ‘Sensation at Archerfield’ the day before.[iii] According to the Brisbane Courier, ‘a powerful roadster motor car, driven at breakneck speed ... heralded a melodrama that for thrills and incidents outshone any motion picture’. The Chrysler Imperial, which had been brazenly stolen from the showrooms at Ward Motors Ltd, careered into the aerodrome. Recently knighted Sir Charles Kingsford Smith was based at Archerfield during the Brisbane leg of his barnstorming tour of Queensland (which coincided with Exhibition Week).[iv] He was standing near Southern Cross, the Fokker F.V11b/3 trimotor monoplane in which he Charles Ulm and Americans Jim Warner and Harry Lyon had made their 1928 trans-Pacific flight. Smithy saw the Chrysler racing towards him and, realising the driver intended to damage his aircraft, grabbed from the cabin the two rifles he always carried with him. He handed one to his mechanic and the two of them took up armed defence of the Fokker. The driver headed straight for them but, then apparently deterred by the Smithy’s impromptu armed guard, swerved. The roadster crashed into the tail of the Southern Cross Midget, which had been acting as tender to the Southern Cross during the flying circus’s Queensland tour, then slammed into the tail of a Gipsy Moth. But that didn’t stop it.

It was mayhem. Smithy later commented that he had ‘never seen the ‘drome clear so quickly’.[v] As the Chrysler raced along the tarmac, W.E. Gardner, the Queensland Aero Club’s chief instructor, grabbed a control stick from one of the club’s Moths and hurled it at the driver. He swerved, narrowly missing five of the club’s Moths and continued towards the club house, through its fence and onto the western boundary fence, through a neighbouring property and another fence before hightailing it down the Ipswich Road to Oxley.

Meanwhile, Smithy, Charles Matheson (who had taught Lores to fly) and some other onlookers had commandeered an innocent bystander and his car to set out in hot pursuit. (It all seemed so Keystone Cops.) Still with rifle in hand, Smith took aim and fired at the fleeing roadster which rolled to a stop. The driver was pulled from the car with Smith’s rifle firmly in his back. Elder was later charged as a person suspected of being of unsound mind.[vi] Excitement over, Smithy resumed his ‘short air tours in the famous Southern Cross’[vii] and Lores continued her preparations.

---

 

[iii] The Brisbane Courier, 13 August 1932

[iv] The Brisbane Courier, 2 August 1932; Mackersey, Smithy. The Life of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, Little, Brown and Company, London, 1998, p. 272–274

[v] The Brisbane Courier, 13 August 1932

[vi] The Brisbane Courier, 13 August 1932

[vii] Advertisement, The Brisbane Courier, 6 August 1932

Australia's Few and the Battle of Britain

I am thrilled to announce that, after six years of research and writing, Australia’s Few and the Battle of Britain will be released on 1 September 2014. The release date is significant: it is just before the 74th commemoration of the Battle of Britain.

 

The publishers are NewSouth Publishing, a division of the University of New South Wales. Many books these days appear in paperback but Australia’s Few and the Battle of Britain is a fine hard cover, with a magnificent dust wrapper, over 30 photos, two maps, and 432 pages. As befits a history book, it includes index, endnotes and bibliography.

 

I am so proud of Australia’s Few and the Battle of Britain. Let me tell you a little about it.
 The Battle of Britain is one of the most significant battles of the war, and until now, the role of the Australian ‘Few’ has received little attention. I give a personal account of eight Australian participants, drawing heavily on primary source material (much of it from family archives). I follow these young men from childhood, through their education, training, personal relationships and flying careers, to death in combat (in the case of seven of the eight men), and beyond that to commemoration.
 This is not a one chapter per pilot book. Their stories are woven into the general Battle narrative and chronology.

 

Eight Australian Spitfire and Hurricane pilots of the Battle of Britain. Only one survived. Who were these brave men, who contributed to victory in what became known as a turning point of the war:
 ·               Jack Kennedy (238 Squadron)—Sydney born and bred; Spitfire and Hurricane pilot, the first Australian to die in the Battle.

 

·               Stuart Walch (238 Squadron)—Hobart born and bred; Hurricane pilot, known as the father of his squadron.

 

 ·               Dick Glyde DFC (87 Squadron)—Perth born and bred; Australia’s first internee of the war; Hurricane pilot who flew in the Battle of France and died on Eagle Day.

 

 

·               Ken Holland (152 Squadron)—Sydney born and bred; Spitfire pilot and the youngest Australian to die.

 

·               Pat Hughes DFC (234 Squadron)—Monaro born and bred, memorialised in Cooma and Kiama, raised to adulthood in Sydney; Spitfire pilot and Australia’s highest scoring Battle ace who died defending London on the first day of the Blitz.

 

 

·               Bill Millington DFC (79 and 249 squadrons)—English born but Adelaide raised; Hurricane pilot and exemplar of chivalry who avoided crashing into a village; died on the last day of fighting.

 

 ·               John Crossman (32 and 46 squadrons)—Queensland-born and Newcastle raised; Hurricane pilot who was determined to fly at all cost.

 

 ·               Desmond Sheen DFC and Bar (72 Squadron)—Sydney-born and Canberra raised; Spitfire pilot and first Australian to engage the enemy in combat. Baled out twice, and survived.

 

   Australia’s Few and the Battle of Britain also tells the story of the women who loved these young men:

 ·      Feisty Kay Hughes who met her match in Pat Hughes and grieved a lifetime at his loss.

·      Christine Jourd, with whom Jack Kennedy fell in love, almost at first sight.

 

 

·      Seina Haydon, who agreed to marry Ken Holland for perhaps the wrong reasons but kept his photo close all her life.

 

 ·      Patricia Foley, who fell in love with John Crossman at 16 and never got over his death.

 

·      ·     Rusty Sheen, the only partner of the ‘eight’ to enjoy a lifelong marriage with her fighter pilot husband.   

 

 Australia’s Few and the Battle of Britain has a recommended retail price of $A49.99. It will be available from all good booksellers throughout Australia. Naturally, Alexander Fax Booksellers will stock signed copies and will offer a 10% discount. Postage and packaging will be additional.
 

 Alexander Fax Booksellers is now taking preorders for Australia’s Few and the Battle of Britain. We are not taking payments, now; we just need an expression of interest so we know how many to order from NewSouth! If you haven’t already preordered (or want to confirm that yes, we have you on the list), you can follow the link at http://www.alexanderfaxbooks.com.au/australians-few-and-battle-britain or email alexfax@alexanderfaxbooks.com.au

If you prefer to order via your favourite local (Australian) bookshop, here is what you need to tell them:
Title: Australia’s Few and the Battle of Britain, Author: Kristen Alexander
Publisher: NewSouth, ISBN 9781742234151  

 I look forward to sharing with you what I have discovered about Jack Kennedy Stuart Walch, Dick Glyde, Ken Holland, Pat Hughes, Bill Millington, John Crossman and Des Sheen. I will of course tell everyone I know about Australia’s Few and the Battle of Britain. Details are already on my website, and that of Alexander Fax Booksellers, and on our Facebook pages. Please help spread the news to your family and friends, and anyone interested in Australia’s aviation history, by word of mouth or social media, so that more people can learn of the bravery of these young men, and their part in the world’s greatest air war.

www.kristenalexander.com.au

https://www.facebook.com/australiasfew
https://www.facebook.com/KristenAlexanderAuthor
Twitter: Kristen Alexander @kristenauthor
www.alexanderfaxbooks.com.au
https://www.facebook.com/AlexanderFaxBooksellers

 

Thomas Barker Leigh: Australians in Stalag Luft III and the Great Escape

Great Escaper Thomas Barker Leigh was a former ‘Trenchard Brat’; he joined the 32nd Entry at No. 1 School of Technical Training (Apprentices) at Halton and passed out in 1938.

The Halton Apprentices’ Association has installed a number of beautiful commemorative stained glass windows at St. George’s Church, RAF Halton. The four corners of the 32nd Entry’s window illustrate the Rose of England and the beech trees of Halton. From the top of the window to the bottom is shown the King’s Crown for George V, Edward VIII and George VI, The RAF Eagle, the Entry dates and number, the apprentice wheel on a laurel wreath and banners showing the trades, the two wings and the apprentices unwritten code, “Honour”.

I think that unwritten code is particular apt when applying to someone involved in the Great Escape.

 

The Escape window commemorates the 3 former 'brats' who took part in the Great Escape but were caught and later executed: Flt. Lt. William Jack Grisman, 23rd Entry- Navigator, Flt. Lt. Edgar Spotiswoode-Humphreys, 25th Entry - Pilot, and Flt. Lt. Thomas Barker Leigh, 32nd Entry - Air Gunner.

 

The Halton archivist kindly allowed me to 'borrow' the Great Escape and 32 Entry window. They are just a small handful of the many stained glass tributes. Others who want to see these and all of the windows (and many have descriptions of the iconography) can go to www.oldhaltonians.co.uk Click TRIBUTE and then stained glass windows.

 

I have lots more to discover about Thomas Barker Leigh and his fellow Australian escapers but I have been working on this quietly for over a year now and it will keep me busy for some time yet.  I am keen to get cracking on a worthy tribute to these men! Happily, my publisher is also keen and is looking forward to the results of my Stalag Luft III/Great Escape research. Book No Four is in production, Book No Five is almost finished, so now I can really start focusing on Book No. Six!

 

If anyone has stories of Australians in Stalag Luft III they would like to share with me, please get in touch. alexfax@alexanderfaxbooks.com.au

Desmond Sheen's inspiration. 9 May 1927

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/lifestyle/question-time-with-kristen-alexander-20140508-37x7h.html

This appeared in today’s Canberra Times. A little bit of publicity never goes astray, especially with a new book (mentioned in the article) coming out in September 2014.

The article mentions Des Sheen, Canberra’s own Battle of Britain pilot, who features in Australia’s Few and the Battle of Britain. Coincidentally, the ‘Did You Know’ at bottom right, also links to Desmond and the day he caught the flying bug. Here is an extract from Australia’s Few that explains all.    

 

 

Canberrans took the day off work or escaped from household duties on Monday 9 May 1927 so they could witness the Duke and Duchess of York open Parliament House. It was an occasion full of colour and pomp, punctuated by the impressive forces’ march past, the boom of the royal salute, Dame Nellie Melba’s rendition of ‘God Save the King’ and formal guards of honour. Nine-year-old Desmond Frederick Burt Sheen was just one of the crowd enjoying the day’s events. He was excited by the aerial pageant and couldn’t believe his luck when one of the RAAF’s de Havilland DH9s landed in a paddock near his home. From that moment, he was hooked. He thought, ‘that’s for me ... I decided as soon as I was old enough I would join the air force’.

 

 

This photo of Des, holding a canine friend, and his younger brother Gordon was taken in 1928, the year after the flying bug bit. Looks like he has his eyes closed. Perhaps all the better to see those flying machines in his mind!