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THE "SOUTHERN CROSS" and COFFEE ROYAL
On Easter Saturday, 30 March 1929, the "Southern Cross" left Sydney on the first leg of a record attempt flight to England. The crew Early in the flight the external radio aerial was accidentally lost and vital radio messages warning the aviators of heavy storms approaching the Kimberley coast from the northwest were not received. By 4am the next morning, the "Southern Cross" was being buffeted by strong winds and heavy rain. Flying blind, the crew passed over Wyndham The plane continued north west until Pago Mission was sighted. Believing they were on the western NT coast, they turned south west but did not see the ground until Kunmunya Mission appeared through the low cloud. By then, fuel was running too low to return to Wyndham, so they put down on a mudflat at the northern end of George Water and on the northern bank of the Glenelg River (see map). All the supplies they had left were a few sandwiches, tinned baby food, a flask of coffee and a half-bottle of whiskey (or brandy) - so the landing place was named "Coffee Royal". To save weight on the trip, the crew had left behind the tool kit, the emergency rations and the spare radio, a decision which haunted the aviators over the next few days as all efforts to generate power for the radio transmitter were futile. When the "Southern Cross" failed to arrive in Wyndham on Easter Sunday, a large air search was organised. However, the plane was 150 miles west of Wyndham, 120 miles NE of Derby and no one knew where to look for it. One aircraft heading for the search area was the "Kookaburra", piloted by Keith Anderson, a mate of Smithy's. On 10 April 1929, the "Kookaburra" left Alice Springs for Wyndham. She put down in the desert near Wave Hill for engine repairs, but was unable to take off again due to soft sandy ground and clumps of mulga. Anderson and his co-pilot, Bobby Hitchcock, perished in the desert from dehydration a few days later. Meanwhile, the "Southern Cross" crew were living on mud-snails and diluted
In June 1929, Smithy's crew broke In 1932, Charles Kingsford-Smith was knighted for services to aviation. Charles Ulm perished when his plane went down in the Pacific in 1934. Smithy and his new co-pilot, Tom Pethybridge, disappeared without trace off the Burmese coast on 7 November 1935 while attempting to break the England to Australia record in a smaller plane, "The Lady Southern Cross", pictured left. The "Southern Cross" survived both Kingsford-Smith and Ulm, and is now housed in her own Museum building at Brisbane's International Airport. Acknowledgments This story has been pieced together from a number of sources. The major source was the excellent book "Kimberley - Dreaming to Diamonds" by Hugh Edwards. Photographs have been obtained from the National Archives website and various other public websites. |
Charles Kingsford-Smith is noted for his record breaking flights; most notably for the flight across the Pacific from San Francisco, USA to Brisbane, Australia from 31 May to 3 June 1928. The photo left shows the crew of Lyon, Ulm, Kingsford-Smith and Warner beside the "Southern Cross" in the USA and the photo right shows Kingsford-Smith standing in front of the "Southern Cross" with her three massive radial engines. 
The "Cross", loaded with nearly 8 tonnes of fuel, is shown left taking off from California before crossing the Pacific Ocean in three non-stop legs and landing in Brisbane nearly 84 hours later. The grim determination to cross more oceans and set more records is clearly shown on Kingsford-Smith's face right.
comprised Kingsford-Smith as pilot, Charles Ulm as co-pilot, Hal Litchfield as navigator and T.H. McWilliams as radio operator. 
without sighting the small settlement on the eastern shores of Cambridge Gulf.
baby food while being eaten alive by mosquitoes and sandflies. At 10 am on 12 April 1929, the search plane "Canberra" appeared over the horizon from the south-west and dropped ration packs to the stricken aviators. The photo (left) was taken on the next day.
Seven days later, on 19 April 1929, when the mudflats had dried after a period of king tides, the "Southern Cross" was flown out from "Coffee Royal" to Derby, then on to Sydney to prepare for the next record attempt. 
the Australia to England record; and in 1930, Smithy, flying solo, won the England to Australia Air Race.