The Flight of Wild Oats: An Aerial Adventure 9780773595842

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TheFlight of

Wild Oats

Route taken by WILD OATS in 1936 ".

Outward-Bound route (

dates of return trip London to Karachi 4 800 miles

,, -'

7

• T his map, drawn by C hrisropher Goodwin, shows the Aightpath of Wild Dilts in May-June 1936

The

Flight of

Wild Oats An Aerial Adventure

Letters by Fred R. Goodwin

Edited with an introduction by S.E Wise

+

Copyright © Christopher J. Goodwin and Carleton University Press Inc., 1997

To Bruce Hutton Wise and other brother pilots

Canadian Cataloguing in Publica~on Data Goodwin, Fred R. The flight of Wild Oats: an aerial adventure ISBN

0-88629-294-8

1. Goodwin, Fred R.-Correspondence. 2. Nye, Leslie-Correspondence. 3. Air pilots-EnglandCorrespondence. 4. Goodwin, Marion. 5. Private flying. I. Wise, S. F. (Sydney Francis), 1924- II. Title. TL721.G66G661997

629.13'092'242

DEDICATION

C96-900889-9

Cover and interior: Barbara Cumming, Carleton University Press Cover photographs courtesy of Rudi Haas, Christopher Goodwin Carleton University Press gratefully acknowledges the support extended to its publishing program by the Canada Council and the financial assistance of the Ontario Arts Council. The Press would also like to thank the Department of Canadian Heritage, and the Government of Ontario through the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Recreation, for their assistance.

TABLE OF CONTENTS vi

Acknowledgements

vii

S.F. Wise, Introduction

xxi

Marion Goodwin, Preface

Fred Goodwin, The Flight of Wild Oats (Letters to Leslie)

'1 51

Part /, Outward-Bound Part /L Karachi to Croydon

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In addition to Christopher Goodwin, whose devotion to the memory of his parents made this book possible, I would like to thank Robert Fortier, Director of the National Aviation Museum, Ottawa, for his expert assistance, particularly in establishing the ownership of de Havilland Dragonflies by assoned maharajahs, and a number of colleagues at Carleton University, especially Roger Blockley, Josh Beer and Terry Robinson of the Depanment of Classics, and Basil Moggridge of the Depanment of German, whose linguistic knowledge extends from Deutsch to Yor~hire usage.

S.EW.

INTRODUCTION

S.P. Wise earning to fly is an intensely personal experience, ultimately exhilarating but in its beginnings an ordeal of confusion and dread. So much is unfamiliar and disturbing: the surrounding roar of engines, as aircraft warm up, taxi, land or take off; the shock on discovery of the gap between ground school book learning and the impending test of actual flight; the strangeness of the aircraft itself- its smells, its seeming flimsiness, its awkward form of entry, the cramped confinement of its cockpit with its array of switches and dials, protuberances and projections; the scarcely heard words, after start-up, of the instructor, whose every phrase may be crucial to unlocking the secrets of what is about to occur. The sense of strangeness is diminished after a few hours of dual instruction, only to be replaced, on accepting the controls, by a sense of frustration and helplessness as the aircraft insists upon going its own way, with the ball sliding off centre, the altimeter rising and dipping, and the instructor intoning "get back to straight and level." All too soon comes the moment of truth. I could not believe my own instructor when he clambered out of our Cornell and said, "It's yours. Take it round." How had he overlooked my gross incompetence, so convincingly demonstrated during our scant six hours in the air together? How could he be so irresponsible as to send a person so obviously illprepared round the circuit, in nominal charge of

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a valuable piece of His Majesty's property? But the thing had to be done, and done it was, climaxed by a landing in which the Cornell imitated a kangaroo in a series of bounds across the grassy field of Cap de la Madeleine's Elementary Flying Training School. Soloing is an Everest that comes too soon. So much of one's emotions and motivation are tied up with surmounting it, that it is hard to realize that the real business of flying has yet to be tackled. It is not simply the many hours of solo "circuits and bumps" that of necessity must follow, but also the experience acquired off circuit in learning the handling of the aircraft, and especially in the performance of simple aerobatics, particularly that most riveting of early piloting experience, the solo spin and recovery. As well, there is the accumulation of experience involved in flying in less than ideal weather conditions, and learning to cope with strong winds, rain, snow and low visibility. And beyond this, there is the crucial matter of finding one's way over the landscape, reading a map, using a compass, estimating drift, making simple course alterations, noting the passage of time and waiting for an expected time of arrival (E.T.A.) to come up; in short, all the knowledge that comes from repeated cross-country flying. All these things, and much more, have to be mastered before one truly becomes a pilot. This is the story of the remarkable flight of a young English couple, Fred and Marion Goodwin,

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THE FLIGHT OF WILD OATS

who in 1936 flew a tiny aircraft from London to Karachi and back. In terms of the exploits of aviators who had preceded them, such a flight seems hardly worthy of notice, except for one fact: the Goodwins embarked on a journey of 4,500 miles almost immediately after surmou~ting their Everest! Between them they had less than thirty hours of flying experience, .and a good deal of that was dual instruction time. That two "mug pilots," in the slang of the period, should undertake a flight of this. kind seems inconceivable, yet not only did they complete it successfully, they did so with only minor mishaps. 1 The route they followed, from England over Germany and Austria, down through the Balkans, across Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Persia to India, had been pioneered only a few years before. Its terrain was varied and difficult, and the weather encountered ranged from freezing conditions to blistering desert heat. The Goodwins, innocent of anything but the most rudimentary navigational skills, without adequate instrumentation and lacking any kind of communication equipment, met every challenge, even though their inexperience got them seriously lost on occasion, and Fred Goodwin's elementary flying skills were tested to the limit. Why did they embark on this daring, not to say foolhardy, venture? On the surface, at least, there seems little in their lives to suggest a taste for spectacular exploits. Fred Goodwin, London-born, was 33 in 1936. He had had a solid education at Mill Hill school in London and at Worcester College, Oxford.

His wife Marion (they were married in 1932) came from an Austrian diplomatic family. She had been born in Antwerp in 1912, and was educated both on the continent and in England. In 1935 the Goodwins decided to settle down in Sussex in th~ little village of West Hoathly, near East Grinstead, and very quickly became a part of the community, Fred organizing amateur theatrical productions, and Marion pursuing what became a lifelong interest in the Girl Guide movement. Certainly one would scarcely have prediCted that this respectable, comfortably-off couple, now with a baby daughter, would suddenly decide to take off into the blue, bound for the Indian subcontinent. Their lives had thus far been predictable, except for one thing: their honeymoon. It was spent on the road, or various versions of roads, for the Goodwins had a honeymoon with a difference, driving an Austin 12 from London to Calcutta and back. This adventure took four months, out and back, and roughly anticipated the track they were to follow in the air in 1936. At a period when roads in the Balkans and the Middle East were not only unpaved, but often indistinguishable from the surrounding terrain, this drive was a challenging piece of extended rough driving. Clearly both Goodwins had a pronounced venturesome streak, and a penchant for visiting friends in India. Their own account, singularly modest and straightforward, makes it clear that neither sought publicity or the limelight that attended a Charles

TNTRODUC TIO N

Lindbergh or an Amelia Earharr, or considered thar they deserved such attention . Instead, their aims were private and personal. Fred Goodwin needed one hundred hours of first pilot time to qual ity for his "B" licence; they had relatives and fr iends in Karach i and esti mated that the total flying time there and back would be app roximarely one hundred hours; and beyond these objectives, as Marion wrote in her introduction [0 their narrative, "we set out on an adventure to prove to everybody th at it was perfectly safe, easy and not toO expensive, for ord inary folk li ke us to fly anywhere and everywhere." There were to be, for the Goodwins, no further such exploits. When the Second World War came along, Fred Goodwin was commissioned in the Royal Air Force, and fl ew a desk in the Air Ministry during the war, wh ile Marion stayed in Sussex with the ch ildren. After the war, the fam ily moved to Cambridge, and operated a small hotel for a period, but lost thei r business when the North Sea inundated the fen country and they were flooded out. Sho rtl y after, Fred suffered a stroke wh ich confined him to a wheelchair. He d ied in 1965 . By this time some members of the fam ily had already em igrated; ultimately, Marion, her daughter Elizabeth, and two sons, C hristopher and Jeremy, settled in British Co lumbia. C hristopher was teaching at St. David's School, a small independent school near Sq ua mish, and Marion and Jeremy joined him there. Marion took on the running of the school kitchen, and also resumed her interest in the G irl G uides, becoming

Wi ld Oats

fit

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Kamchi, 1936

D istrict Comm issioner within a few years. The sch ool closed in 1976, but became part of Camp Squamish, an establishment operated by the Lions C lub for the hand ica pped , and Marion continued as housekeeper. In 1978 she retired, and joined her twO sons, who by th is time had moved to Salt Spring Island and here toO she became active with the G irl Gu ides. She died in 199 L I have Ch ristop her Goodwin to thank for the biographical details abo ut his parents, and also for the narrative of their flight and some family photographs. (Unforrunately, there are no photographs taken during their 1936 fli ght.) T he manuscript, variously titled The Flight of the Wild Oats (the Goodwins' name for their aircraft) or Letters to Leslie (the nam e of a fanlily friend), talkes ti,e form of a series of daily letters, corresponding to each day of the fli ght, clearly written up by Fred Goodwin from notes made en route. At some later point Marion

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THE FLIGHT OF WILD OATS

wrote a preface, outlining the circumstances surrounding the origins of the flight. Except for explanatory footnotes and a few alterations in spelling and punctuation, I have not amended the manuscript in any way. It stands as it was written at the time, and should be regarded, in my view, as a minor epic in the history of private flying.

II or Fred and Marion Goodwin to bring off their bold flight, they needed not only considerable good fortune, but also the presence of a number of other factors which had not existed even a few years before. In other words, The Flight of the Wild Oats was made possible by a series of developments in aviation technology, pioneering exploits of longdistance aerial navigation, the emergence of commercial airlines, carrying passengers and freight, and the establishment of the sort of infrastructure on the Britain-India air route which would provide for overflight privileges, between-leg accommodation, fuel, repairs, food and meteorological information. Above all, the Goodwins' adventure was made possible by the development of the safe, reliable single-engine small aircraft, the building block of the whole private flying movement. The path to the emergence of such aircraft, as well as the more general changes in international aviation which made private flying feasible, was a tortuous one, characterized by false starts, major diver-

F

sions, a good many fatalities and as many heroic achievements. In 1936, when the Goodwins flew to India, the great age of heroic adventure had all but ended in aviation, and the age of commercial aviation had already been born. Yet only 33 years separated their unsung flight of thousands of miles from those few seconds at Kitty Hawk when Orville Wright flew 828 feet. Between the two events lay one of the most astonishing revolutions in the history of technology. Within a few years of the Wright brothers' breakthrough, in every country in the Western world and others besides, the sky, or at least the first few thousand feet of it, was filled with argosies of aircraft, looking less and less like box kites or a plumber's nightmare, flown by men and women infused with enthusiasm for the new medium. In Britain, men who were to become giants of the aviation industry were already active, like T.O.M. Sopwith. A.V. Roe, Frederick Handley Page and Geoffrey de Havilland. In France and Germany there was a similar spurt of inventiveness and the appearance of a great variety of aircraft types. In Canada and the United States, the binational team of Alexander Graham Bell, Glen Curtiss, Lt. Thomas Selfridge, J.AD. McKirdy and "Casey" Baldwin, collectively known as the Aerial Experiment Association, pioneered flying in both countries. In certain respects, however, the burgeoning of flying before 1914 was a false dawn, seeming to promise, for the venturesome and the well-to-do, experiences comparable to the automobile revolu-

[ NTRO D UcnON

tion which had so recently occurred. Instead, the development of aviation was fundamenta lly skewed by the outbreak of the Firsr Wo rld War. Even before 1914 all the great powers had taken note of the military significance of the aircraft. When Louis Bleriot flew across the English Channel in 1909, for examp le, an English military commentator observed that "England had ceased to be an island. " Consequen tly, when the war broke out, each belligerent already had an air force, and as the war went on, and the importance of military and naval aviation grew, a higher and higher priority. was given to the development of more and more effective types of aircraft, from fighters and reconnaissance planes to long ran ge anti-submarin e patrol aircraft and heavy bombers, and to improvements in the internal comb ustion engine, since even slight advances in aircraft performance meant the difference between life and death. Aircraft performan ce increased precocio usly, nOt on ly in terms of speed or load-carr ying capacity, but also in terms of operational ceiling and effective range. W ith these developments went improvement in instrumentatio n, enhanced understanding of the theory and principl es of flight, advanced navigational techniques, and th e growth of meteo rology as a vital adjun ct of operational flying. Everyone of these developments would have significance fo r postwar aviation, bur during the war, civi l aviation, so ptomisingly begun in the early days of fli ght, came to an absolute standstil1. 2

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Fred Goodwin (at left) and Marion Goodwin (sitting on ground) with .friends in Kamchi, J936 III

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he end of the war released thousands of trained pilots into civilian life, and many of them turned to aviation as a means of livel ihood. A few among them became pioneers of transoceanic flight. The Atlantic Ocean was the first to be tackled. In 1913 a British press baron, Lord NorthclifFe, had offered £ 10,000 for the first flier to cross the Atlantic between the United States or Canada and the United Kingdom. In 19 19 a series of attempts at direct fli ght across ti,e ocean took place, all of them launched ftom Newfoundl and, which was ti,e closest point geographically to Britain. The first such attempt, by four flying boats of the U.S. Navy, monitored by USN vessels Strung out across the Atlantic, saw one of them, the

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THE FLIGHT OF WILD OATS

NC4, successfully reach the Azores, subsequently flying on to Lisbon and then to England.3 The first attempt at a direct flight was by Harry Hawker with Lt. Commander Kenneth Mackenzie Grieve as navigator. Flying a specially designed Sopwith aircraft called the Atlantic (Hawker was the firm's chief test pilot), they were forced to ditch in the sea when some hours outbound from Newfoundland. Fortunately for them, they did so close to a Dutch freighter, and were picked up. A month after Hawker's unsuccessful attempt, Captain John Alcock and Lt. A.W. Brown left Newfoundland in a twin-engined Vickers Vimy aircraft. The Vimy, a biplane, had been designed as a long range strategic bomber, but had not been used operationally during the war. It was powered by two Rolls Royce Eagle VIII engines, and carried an extra fuel tank. Alcock and Brown wore electrically-heated flying suits, and had, for the time, relatively sophisticated navigational equipment, including a drift indicator and a seXtant. After taking off from a field near St. John's, they found themselves almost constantly battling a succession of storms, during which the air intakes for the engines began to ice up. With incredible courage, Brown got out on the lower wing, inched his' way to each engine in turn, and chipped the ice from the air intakes with a pocketknife. He carried out this task on five separate occasions during the flight. His bravery was rewarded when they spotted the coast of Ireland, and selecting what appeared to be a green Irish field, wound up somewhat ignominiously nose-

down in a bog. But they had completed the first direct crossing, in just over sixteen hours. Often overlooked in the history of transatlantic flights was that of the British rigid airship, R34. Manned by a Royal Air Force crew, it left its moorings in East Anglia on 2 July 1919, and made a successful crossing in 108 hours to New York. The return trip, assisted by a tail wind, took 75 hours. Until this achievement, airship construction had been dominated by Germany. Before the war, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin had pioneered lighter-than-air flight, and during the hostilities, the "zeppelins" of the German navy and army conducted a series of bombing raids on England. The triumph of R34 prompted the decision by the British government to formulate plans for international airship routes to the United States and India in 1923, and to undertake the construction of six passenger-carrying dirigibles. Though airships could not rival the cruising speeds of heavier-than-air craft (typically they cruised at 60 to 70 m.p.h.), they offered stability and apparent safety. In 1928, Germany beat Britain to the punch; in that year the Graf Zeppelin made its inaugural transatlantic flight, offering passengers the unexampled luxury of lounges, bedrooms, a palm coun and a promenade deck. Between 1928 and 1937, the Graf Zeppelin and its sister ship, the Hindenburg, made 183 ocean crossings, carrying a total of 16,369 passengers. The German initiative raised expectations in Britain for their two airships, the RI00, being built by

I NTRODUCTION

private enterprise, and RlO I, being constructed by a government teaDl. In anticipation of their inaugural Aights, mooring masts were erected at St. Hubert, near Montreal, and at Karachi, along with an airship hangar at the latter location. The Rl00 Aew to Montreal on 29 July 1930 in 78 hours, and later went on to Ottawa, Toronto, and N iagara Falls before returning to Britain on 13 August 4 Two months later the RIO I, slated to Ay to Karachi, left England, but crashed and burned in Normandy, with the loss of most of its passengers, including Lord Thompson, the Secretary of State for Air. T his disaster ended the British airship enterprise. In 1936 the Goodwins encountered vestiges of their government's ambitious plans, and also evidence of the continuing German involvement in lighter-than-air passenger Aight. That involvement too was to come to a tragic end in 1937.5 The capstone to Atlantic Aying was of course the solo Aight of C harles Lindbergh in 1927 in a CUStombui lt Rya n monoplane, The Spirit of St. Louis. Lindbergh, an airmail pilot and Air Force reservist, took off from Curtiss Field on Long Island and more tI,an 33 hours later landed at night at Le Bourget outside Paris to the acclaim of thousands. He had Aown 3,6 10 miles. This Aight, the most notable in the history of rwentieth-century aviation, had been accomplished in a civilian aircraft carrying a single pilot and a huge fuel tank. Though it appeared to raise the possibiliry of transatlantic commercial air travel, much had to occur in the field of aircraft design before such Aights were possible in passenger-carrying aircraft.

XlIl

Fred Goodwin, Squadron lead,,; J939 Of more direct relevance to the route taken by the Goodwins were a series of pioneering Aights exploring ti,e Aight path to India, and ultimately to Australia. The most important of these were a number of Aights by Sir Alan Cobham ,6 culminating in a round trip Aight of 1926 from England, thro ugh the

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THE FLIGHT OF WILD OATS

Middle East, on to India and thence to Australia and back again, an exploit which paved the way for the passenger route of Imperial Airways. The Australian pilot Bert Hinkler flew the route solo in 1928, the same year a compatriot, Charles Kingsford-Smith, flew the Pacific from Oakland, California to Oahu, on to Fiji and from there to Brisbane. 7

N uring the same period that these epochal flights were taking place; passenger-carrying commercial airlines were getting under way, using aircraft which were essentially peacetime adaptations of First World War bombers. Frederick Handley Page, for example, simply stripped the interior of his 0/400 twin-engined bombers and installed tables and comfortable chairs. As early as 1919, Handley Page and another British firm began cross-channel flights to Paris, but by the early 1920s this route was dominated by subsidized continental airlines. It was in this period that an array of national airlines emerged, including Air France, Sabena (the Belgian flag carrier) and KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines), to be followed shortly by two German carriers, Luft Hansa and a rival firm operated by Junkers. The British government, for its part, induced a group of private firms to form~ in 1923, Imperial Airways Limited. In 1924 Imperial Airways was declared to be the "chosen instrument" of the British government for the development of commercial air transport, and a substan-

D

tial annual subsidy was provided. The Secretary of State for Air, Sir Samuel Hoare, was convinced that through Imperial Airways the scattered parts of the Empire and Commonwealth could be knit together, and though Canada might have to wait upon the development of aircraft capable of flying the Atlantic, the flights of Cobham and others to India and Australia demonstrated that linkage to the East and the Antipodes was feasible. Largely as a result of Hoare's initiatives, Imperial Airways was able to announce in 1926 the opening of regular air service to India. The first passengers, carried in a tri-motor de Havilland Hercules, left Croydon on 27 December 1926 and arrived in Delhi, via Karachi, on 8 January 1927.

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B

ut there was a complication. The development of airlines throughout the world depended not only upon the construction of suitable aircraft, but also upon the willingness of nations to waive an aspect of their sovereignty, namely, the ownership of the airspace over the national territory. Though most countries of the world had adhered to the International Air Convention of 1919, permitting overflights by each other's aircraft, public and private, there were exceptions, one being the Persia of Reza Shah Pahlevi, which refused to grant overflight and landing privileges to Imperial Airways. The inaugural flight of Imperial Airways to India, with

INTRODUCTION

Sir Samuel Hoare and his wife on board, had ignored the Persian refusal and landed at three points in Persia - Bushire, Lingeh and Jask - locations which were to become all toO familiar to the Goodwins. In 1929 the British reached agreement with the Shah, but in 1932 the Persian government terminated the agreement, forcing Imperial to divert its Rights from southern Persia, and instead use a series of land ing fields in the Trucial States on the other side of the Persian Gulf, and therefore to Ry via Kuwait, Bahrein, Sharjah and Gwadar to Karachi. The Persian action mayor may not have been connected with the granting of landing privileges in Persia to Junkers, together with a monopoly of air mail service. Although the Persian government's restrictions did not apply to private aircraft, the Persians, as the Goodwins were to find , were not particularly welcoming to British nationals. s By the time of the Goodwin's Right, Imperial Airways was using Handley Page 42s on its route to India. This large four-engined biplane, a natural adaptation of such successful bomber aircraft as the Handley Page 0/400 and the mammoth Handley Page V1500, was first shown to the public in 1929, at the seventh International Aero Exhibition held at Croydon. On show was a fuselage mockup of the HP42, likened by an observer to "a Pullman of considerable height and width, with accommodation in twO sections, each seating twenty passengers in pairs with a central gangway." In addition to its "remarkable chintz covered seats," electric bell-push and hot and

xv

Imperial Airways at Karachi cold air vents, it had a cocktail bar and a couple of toilets. The HP42 entered service in 1931, and built up an outstanding record of rel iability before being superseded by Boeing-type multi-engined aircraft. The presence ofImperial Airways in the Middle East meant, for the Goodwins, not only improved landing grounds and overnight accommodation, but also advice about routes, landing fields and weather conditions from Imperial aircrew, and actual assistance in engine inspection and overhaul from the Imperial mechanics to be found at every major airfield. Imperial Airways was not the on ly European intrusion in the Middle East encountered by the Goodwins. In addition ro other Eutopean airlines, in both Iraq and Syria they found the actual military presence of France and Britain. Under the Treaty of

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Sevres (1920) the possessions of the Ottoman Empire were parceled out among the victors. As a consequence, France held a League of Nations mandate over Syria and Lebanon, while Britain had a League mandate for Iraq and Palestine. Though these mandates supposedly ended in 1932, both powers maintained a strong military presence in the mandated territories, the British in particular stressing the role of the Royal Air Force in enforcing order. Despite this, there was a political coup in Iraq in 1936, some months after the Goodwins had been there, but there is not a whisper in their narrative of any prospective disturbance. Although the Goodwins received assistance both from the RAP and the French military, much more important to them was the support they got from Shell Oil. Prior to their departure from England, they had arranged for the fuelling and servicing of their aircraft by Shell representatives along their planned route, for which they made a substantial advance payment. There is no doubt that Shell and its facilities were a godsend to them, "and to other private pilots. In a 1934 story in Flight magazine, Shell's services were described as going well beyond the provision of fuel. The company provided "information on aerodromes, routes, and meteorological conditions" as well as "plans of every important aerodrome in the world."9 Shell's prepaid Carnet was the magic wand which made these services available to them, in every country in which they landed.

VI fter the end of the war, aircraft designers and manufacturers were more interested in producing civil versions of military aircraft for commercial purposes, or designing aircraft to replace obsolescent wartime types for air forces. It took some years for them to turn their attention to a growing popular demand, ardently backed by Flight and its rival, C.G. Grey's The Aeroplane, for the production of aircraft suitable for private flying. "With the advent of the light plane," wrote the editor of Flight in 1924, "it may be hoped that many more will obtain a pilot's licence for flying private aeroplanes." 10 Flight particularly encouraged light plane competitions and air shows, and pressed for a reduction in the cost of Air Ministry airworthiness certificates so that the ranks of private owners could be enlarged. The government responded by a modest subsidy to flying clubs, a policy designed to produce more pilots for the RAP but which was of material importance to the furtherance of private flying. A feature article in September 1924 carried photographs and descriptions of a series of new light aircraft built by a number of manufacturers, including the Beardmore Wee Bee I, the Blackburn Bluebird, the Bristol Brownie, all monoplanes, and the Hawker Cygnet, the Avro Avis, the Supermarine Sparrow and the Westland Wood Pigeon, all of which were biplanes. Though some of these aircraft, or their design successors, were to find a market, the dominant designer-builder soon became Geoffrey de Havilland, both in Britain and internationally.

A

INTRODUCTION

Like other British aircraft manufacturers, de Havilland had experienced difficult times in the immediate postwar period, as the heavy expenditure on aircraft for the RAF disappeared, and the RAF itself was reduced substantially. De Havilland had been the designer of a number of notable military aircraft, including the DH4, DH9 and DH9A bombers, and during the Second World War headed the de Havilland design team which built the wonderful Mosquito. But in the twenties he abandoned the military field, and instead decided to design "a private owner's aeroplane ... pardy or perhaps largely because I wanted one for my own use." The main problem confronting him in building a small aircraft was the need for a small, efficient and reliable engine. He therefore hired Frank Halford, a brilliant engine designer during the war, who produced for de Havilland's first small aircraft the Cirrus engine, essentially a cut-down French Renault engine, which generated 65 h.p. It became the power source for a series of small aircraft built by the firm. In 1925-26 de Havilland asked Halford to build a completely new small engine, more powerful than the Cirrus, for the next series of small aircraft. The result was the Gypsy engine of 100 h. p., married to a well-designed de Havilland airframe. This was the Moth I, or Gypsy Moth, as it became known, heralded as "a very fine little aeroplane," "a low power aeroplane with a good performance," "stable and docile" in the air, with a cruising speed of 65 to 70 m.p.h. It was to prove immensely popular with the air-minded public, both

XVtt

in Britain and abroad. It found markets in the United States, where it was manufactured under licence, in Canada, and even in Yugoslavia, where the Zagreb Flying Club and the Yugoslav Air Force each bought a number. De Havilland was to produce a whole series of Moths throughout the 1920s and 1930s, including the ubiquitous Tiger Moth, which appeared in 1931 and was universally used as a flight trainer. I I So successful were de Havilland's designs that by 1935, half the aeroplanes on the British civil register were Moths of one kind or another. In 1930 de Havilland produced the aircraft which Fred and Marion Goodwin were to fly to India- the DHSO, Moth III or Puss Moth. It was designed by de Havilland himself as "his own idea of what the private owner's machine ought to be like." A high-wing monoplane with an enclosed cockpit and cabin seating for two, it had a wing span of 36 feet and a length of,25 feet, and weighed only 1150 pounds. Powered by a Gypsy III inverted engine, it had a top speed of 125 m.p.h. and cruised at 100-105 m.p.h. Flight's reporter found good all-round vision, plenty of leg room, and concluded that "the machine is one of the most delightful to fly in that we have tried."12 Priced at £1,000, the Puss Moth achieved almost the same popularity as the Gypsy Moth, its sales furthered by the purchase of one by the Prince of Wales. Very quickly this handy and comfortable little aircraft attracted the attention of international aviators. Amy Johnson, for example, flew one from Japan over the Soviet Union, landing, among other

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THE FLIGHT OF WILD OATS

places, at Moscow, and reached England after a flight of eleven days. Even more remarkable was the flight of her husband, James Mollison, who flew a Puss Moth named Heart's Content, with extra fuel tanks, across the Atlantic from Dublin to Pennfield Ridge, New Brunswick, landing there with ten gallons of gas left. The Goodwins tell us very little about the preparations they made for their flight after buying their Puss Moth. It is evident from their narrative that they paid some attention to food supplies and various cabin comforts, and it is probable that Shell Oil furnished them with maps and routing advice. Marion tells us that Fred flew one or two cross-country flips, presumably to get accustomed to map reading and elementary pilot navigation, but beyond this we learn little. It is instructive to read the preparations that Francis Chichester made for his solo flight to Australia in a Gypsy Moth in 1929. Chichester had emigrated to New Zealand from his Devon home in 1919, and during the twenties entered into a business partnership, importing Avro Avians, with one Geoffrey Goodwin (no relation to our Goodwins, so far as I know). The partners decided that it would be a good idea if Chichester learned to fly, and so he came to England to do so in 1929, intending, so soon as he felt ready, to buy "a Gypsy Moth and fly it back to New Zealand. Since he had to be back in New Zealand in six months, he had to squeeze in a good deal of flying. Here is his account of what he thought it necessary to do before departing:

Crosswind landings, right and left hand ditto, cross wind take offs, forced landings, heavy load landings and take offs, night flying, compass navigation, sextant navigation, map reading, sufficient mechanical knowledge to do any repairs necessary on my own engine, sufficient knowledge of rigging and repairing to enable me to execute at least rough repairs, drift reading (which can be put in as a separate branch of navigation as it is so important in cross country work), meteorology and the handling of a plane under the different weather conditions likely to be met with, the handling of Customs, police, military and civil authorities, the organization of petrol, oil and food supplies. 13

In his preparation ofhis flight maps, Chichester was almost fanatically well organized. "I joined all the maps together," he wrote, "and cut them into a strip nine inches wide, centering about the projected course. This strip I divided into five portions, small enough to fit on to the rollers of my map case. The total length of the five pieces was 71 feet. I went over them all, first marking the magnetic variation every few hundred miles, next working out the magnetic bearing of each change in direction; again, marking in the final compass course; again, measuring all distances." 14 The Goodwins hardly matched Chichester's degree of organization. On reading their narrative, one imagines a cockpit that from time to time was in some disarray, as landmarks arrived too quickly, or were not recognized as they flew off the map, and being restored to order with the blessed discovery of

INTRODUCTION

a railroad, the pilot's friend, or the sure guidance of the Danube or the Tigris. The Goodwins must have made some organized preparations for their flight, although some of the comments in the narrative suggest that these were perhaps not as complete as they might have been. Whatever they were, they proved just about enough to get by on, and if not slapdash, reveal a certain happy-go-lucky approach. Certainly the Press considered their venture in this fashion. Aeroplane had written about Goodwin's outward journey in a paragraph that conveys the general tone of the contemporary public response to their feat. In the issue of 18 June 1936 under the headline "Goodwin's Good Show," Aeroplane reported that: Mr. ER. Goodwin of East Grinstead, who had but five hours' solo flying time, left Croydon in his Puss Moth GABLB at 8,30 hrs. G.M.T. on May 25th with his wife, who is also an ''A'' licensee, to fly to India to see some friends. They reached Karachi on June 5th in eleven days, flying by way of Brussels, Cologne, Frankfurt, Athens, Belgrade and Istanbul. Mr. Goodwin's only previous solo cross-country flight was from London to Southampton.

The Sunday EXpress headlined its account of the flight, in the edition for 28 June 1936 as " 'L Pilot flies to India and Back," a note that was sounded again by the Daily Express. A number of newspapers, among them the Evening Argus and the Sussex Courier quoted Goodwin as saying, "There is nothing in it and it proves that with ordinary care flying is 100

Xtx

percent safe." Admiration for the young couple's daring and delight in their modesty are the basis both of the straight reporting columns and of the editorial comments. It is probable, however, that for the Goodwins the letter from the Southern Counties Representative of the National Mutual Life Assessment Assurance Society contained the praise they would most appreciate. It reads as follows: Dear Mr. Goodwin, I am writing to congratulate you on your achievement offlying to India and back, and although I gather you are modest enough to say "there is nothing in it" most ofmy friends agree that to fly over 10,000 miles after only five hours' experience was really a magnificent effort. Two ofmy friends and policy holders of the Society being on the Staff of Vickers Aviation compare your successfUL journey to that ofa Learner in a car living in country area tackling a journey through London and on to the Midlands. I trust you will excuse my presumption in writing you but having met you and handled your proposal during August of last year when we fully discussed the question of aviation and knowing the position, I felt I must simply express my admiration. iOurs truly, H.S. lfrynne Any novice pilot, -or any -experienced pilot who remembers early flying crises, will certainly empathize with the Goodwins, and admire their resolution and adaptability.

xx

THE FLIGHT OF WILD OATS

NOTES

1 A "mug pilot" was a neophyte who had just completed the requirements for an "A" licence. Francis Chichester, for example, used it to describe his own status shortly after he had qualified for the licence. See his Solo to Sydney, 1930 (reprinted by Doubleday, 1982) p. 16. 2 For a detailed treatment of the technological progress of aviation during the war, see S.F. Wise, Canadian

Airmen and the First World W'ftr: The Official History of the Royal Canadian Airforce, Volume 1, (Toronto: 3 4

5

6

7

B

University of Toronto Press, 1980). NC4 was shon for Naval Cuniss; the boat was a Glen Cuniss design. The stately progress of the RI00 over my Toronto home, on its way to its mooring atop the Bank of Commerce, is still a vivid memory for me. Nevil Shute Norway's Slide Rule (1954), a classic of aviation history, detailed the process which led to the fate of the RIO 1. On 6 May 1937 the Hindenburg caught fire at her mooring mast at Lakehurst, N.J. This was the effective end of the German airship program. Cobham was an ex-RAF pilot who, after the war, made a series of pioneering flights for which he was knighted. Kingsford-Smith, like Hinkler a consummate professional pilot, flew a Fokker tri-motor with a crew of four. Persia was not the only authoritarian regime Imperial Airways had difficulty with. Mussolini's Italy also forbade it overflight, so that Imperial passengers journey-

9 10

11

12

13

14

ing to the East flew from London to Basel, then took a train to Genoa, from where Short flying boats flew them, via Athens and Tobruk, to Cairo and transfer to the Karachi flight. Imperial's advenising sought to turn this weary peregrination into an advantage, advising passengers that '~r travel offers you immense variety. Your journey is broken at the very stage where medical science says you need mental refreshment." Flight, 20 August 1934, p. 906. Flight, 24 January 1924, editor's note. The Tiger Moth, like the Gypsy Moth, was a biplane, and is not to be confused with the earlier Tiger Moth of 1927, a monoplane which de Havilland designed for speed. This little aircraft set a world record of 186 m.p.h. for planes of its class, and an altitude mark for light planes of 20,000 feet. Unlike its later namesake, this Moth, said Flight, was "decidedly a machine for the experienced pilot." Flight, 25 April 1930, p. 453. The price of the Puss Moth, £1,000, seems inexpensive. However, Peter King, in his history of British aircraft manufacturing, notes that in 1931 the pound was worth £26 in 1989 terms. See his Knights ofthe Air, London: Constable, 1989, p. 14. Chichester, Solo to Sydney, pp. 14-15. Francis Chichester later achieved fame, and a knighthood, for . his round-the-world solo navigation in 1966-67 in a small boat he named the Gipsy Moth Iv. Chichester, Solo to Sydney, p. 37.

PREFACE

Marion Goodwin t seems so long ago we were that young and avia_ tion was young too. The world has grown smaller, planes have grown bigger and fas ter. The globe is enmeshed in a network of flying routes, but private flying has not increased in quite the way we visualized when we decided we would like to learn to fl y and when we set out on an adventure to prove to everybody that it was perfectly safe, easy and not toO expensive fo r ordinary folk like us to fl y anywhere and everywhere. The seeds of adventure were sown some time in February of 1936 when the weather in England is unpred ictable, but mostly bad. One evening we were toasting ourselves in front of a roaring log fire in o ur little three-hundred-year-old cottage in Sussex. T he draught rhat crept under the uneven door and chilled our backs was stopped up with an old rug, the dog contentedly stretched out at our feet. Fred looked up from his book - no TV back then, of course - and remarked tentatively that it might be fun to learn to fly; what did I think? I agreed enthusiastically. Of course we wanted to start right away, tomorrow if possible. We enrolled at Redhill Flying Club and were told to show up at C roydon, tllen London's airport, to meet our instructor and be flown to Redl1ill's small airfield for our lessons. C harles H ancock, "H ank," becanle our instructor and before long, firm fri end. When we reached C roydon , Hank was always to be found with other

I

Charles Hancock, "Hank," Fred and Marions flight instructor and cfose .friend

intrepid aviators, settled in the bar, latest meteorological report in hand, and he would tell us if there was any chance of flying that day. Very often the chances were slim and we hung around with the other grounded pilots hoping for a break. When conditions were fin ally suitable we took off for the club field about twenty miles to the south, and each in turn had an hour's instruction wirh Hank in a Gypsy I Moth, in which I th in k everybody learned to fly back then.' It had twO open cockpits and required leather helmets, goggles and warm leather fl ying suits. The instructor sat in the front cockpit, the pupil behind, it had dual conttols and we could co mmunicate

by intercom.

XXlI

THE FLIGHT OF \'fIILD OATS

Marion Goodwin, 1936

To take off was easy, ro fly level and make (Urns came in one lesson, but ro land ... that (Ook several ho urs of "circuits and bumps" before we could estimate our height from the ground suffi ciently well ro make contact with it without roo great a bump. Many a time H ank's vo ice pointed out that I was com ing in roo high or from the wrong angle and sho uld throtd e up a nd make another ci rcuit. Between each hour of flying lessons there were many weary hours of frustrated hanging around. However, after eight hours of circuits and bumps my great moment came. Hank climbed our of the front cockpit and said casually, "OK, you're safe as houses. One round and down - it's all yours." My first solo! My heart gave a great jump, I didn't dare srop and think, I pushed the throtde in and went.

It was perfect. I came down feeling like a million dollars, and yes, I had beaten Fred (0 it. He still had another two hours (0 go! From d,ere it was not long ro an "A" licence for both of us. We had no sooner achieved th is pinnacle d,an Fred annou nced that he now wanted his "B," or commercial, licence. The flyi ng bug had bitten him 2 To clock up the necessary one hundred hours flying time might have taken many months, or at best many weeks, of club flying time and that didn't come cheap. "Let's buy o ur own small plane," said Fred, "and go on a trip that will take about one hundred hours there and back." So we became d,e proud owners of Wild Oats, a neat little high wing monoplane with a Gypsy I engine and a tiny (but enclosed) cabin with two seats, one behind the other, and dual controls. It was a "Puss Mod," and I dlink it was obsolete even then, bur it was a grand litde machi ne and we loved it dearly} We decided on a trip ro Karachi (0 visit our cousin C lyde who wo rked there for Imperial Airways, forerunner of British Airways. This would take JUSt abour one hundred hours, Fred estimated, very accurately as it turned out. It rook 103 hours and 42 minutes - flying time, that is. There was lots of time waiting on the ground for the weather, bur we were used ro that. We collected what we considered ro be suitable clothing and essential srores, including water bottles, Brand's beef essence and Horlick's tablets for survival, and pith helmets, then considered necessary protec-

P R EFACE

tion from the sun. Nobody wears these now, but we thought we looked rather dashing in ours. By May 25 th, about three and a half months from our first lesson, we were ready fo r takeoff. Fred had tried out Wild Oats on one fi ve-ho ur crosscountry journey; there were no problems. Of course he knew the country pretty well; it was nOt much of a navigatio nal challenge. H e was ready for Karachi , anyway. Shell Oi l gave us maps and arranged po ints where we could refuel when away from maj or airports. They arranged all the necessary papers incl uding permits fro m mili tary-minded countries who might have suspected us of spying. I bid my baby daughter, Elizabeth Ann, an emotion-choked farewell - we had arranged guard ianship for her should we nOt return , and there were fo lks who thought we might not. O n May 24th, we drove to C roydon and booked into the Airport Hotel. May 25th dawned grey and chill , we made an early start, and suddenly there we were, on the tarmac at C roydon, our plane fuelled and loaded to capacity, our papers in order, the weather forecast reasonable and our best friends shaki ng us warmly by the hand and telling us we had n't been such bad people after all. In a flurry of second thoughts and what-have-weforgottens and what-have-we-Iet-ourselves-in-fors, we squeezed ourselves into our little machine and taxied away to the takeoff area. In those days there was no air traffic control as we now know it and no paved runways. We taxied out onto the grass, faced

XXlll

Fred Goodwin, 1936 into the wind, a windsock indicated which way that was, and wa ited for a flick of th e light from the tower and we were off. We had no instruments other than a speedometer, an alcimerer and a "fo re and aft bubble," li ke a spirit level, to show if we were flying on an even keel. It was essential that visibi li ty should be good - no flying in cloud for more than a minute or rw0 4 Wild Oats travelled at a ground speed of 100 m.p.h. in still air. A head or tail wind made a considerable difference. A full tank of gas lasted at best five hours - five hunclsed miles, give or take. We sat one behind the other, Fred in front. We each had a compass and "joystick" and control of the rudder by foot pedals. I could relieve Fred in the air, but [ could not reach the throttle and therefore couldn't take off or land the

XXIV

THE FLIGHT OF WILD OATS

plane. We had a course and distance calculator, and knew how to use it, and could read a map reasonably well, once we had got used to the speed with which landmarks disappeared. Other navigational aids or knowledge we had none. Karachi was 4500 miles away and we were irrevocably headed for it. With

more experience the journey across Europe would have been a mere nothing, but to us everything was new and unaccustomed, and the cloudy, squally weather we ran into was no help. And now read on - Fred's letters to Leslie reveal

all.S

NOTES

1 The prototype of the de Havilland Moth was flight-tested in 1925. It was a light biplane two-seater, with open cockpits and a 60 h.p. engine that cruised at about 65 m.p.h. It rapidly became enormously popular, both for flight training and as a private aircraft. 2 The British Air Ministry laid down, as early as 1922, that candidates for an ''A'' licence must demonstrate knowledge of the rules of the air, air traffic patterns at airfields, and "a practical knowledge of international air legislation." Flight skills required were elementary: the flying of a figure-eight pattern, a dead stick landing "not more than fifty yards from a mark," and a minimum of three hours of solo time. Requirements for the "B" licence were frequently revised in the interwar years; a commercial pilot had to have at least one hundred hours first pilot time, demonstrate proficiency in map reading, the use of the compass, elementary air navigation and meteorology, and complete a night flying test. In 1924

the Air Ministry ruled that the holder of a commercial licence "must be of the male sex," a requirement that had a short life. 3 It is possible that the Puss Moth was obsolete, or obsolescent, in 1936, but it had only come off the drawing board in 1930. Designed by Geoffrey de Havilland, this efficient little aircraft had some impressive performance statistics. It cruised at 105 m.p.h., could carry a useful load of nearly 600 pounds, had a ceiling of 13,000 feet and a range of more than 400 miles at cruising speed. Plenty of windows and a high wing made for good visibility; it had comfortable seating and a low noise level. 4 The Goodwins, of course, were licensed only for visual flight rules, not for instrument flying. 5 Leslie Nye, a family friend to whom all Fred Goodwin's dispatches were sent.

'Part! Outward-Bound

Day 1 London to Frankfurt

25 May 1936

Dear Lesl ie, There's no doubt about it; we've arrived at Frankfurt. This is quite a long way further than I, personally, expected ro reach, although four hundred miles short of where we should be. That minutely planned sched ule points Out that I should be writing from Vienna, but the schedu le, as you very probably anticipated, has been blown sky high already. However, the relief at being anywhere terrestrial is sufficient ro counteract disappointment at the breakdown of our staff work under the pressure of its first test. And so we're not unduly worried at the moment. We have been ushered through Cusroms by brown-shirred officials who bristle with Swastikas; and we have seen Wild Oats given into the care of the Shell people (they, incidentally, have acquired a new and more imposing title, ro wit, Rhenania Ossag Mineralolwerk Aktien-Gesellschaft) and so say, that although we're undoubtedly ca reless, we are still, temporarily at least, carefree. One of the biggest th rills of the day has been the successful manipulation of Out new roy - the Shell Camet.' Simply ro arrive and receive service and goods on the production of a piece of cardboard, has given us such a feeling of power, that we've very nearly forgonen already the vast sums paid in advance. The first day of adventure, however, is scarcely the time ro worry over future or present liabilities. At the moment we feel rather imporrant.

* In effect, the Shell Camet was the 1936 forerunner of today's plastic cred it card, bur it was a camet de passage as well, enabling the bearer to take an aircrafi: into and out of a country without paying dury on it, and also a camet de passage des dOl/anes, permitting dury-free passage for articles carried in rhe aircraft.

4

THE FLIGHT OF WILD OATS

And now for the plain tale of todars progress. Marion has, I think, enjoyed herself- I have been more or less terrified all the time - while Wild Oats has been indulgence itself under what must have been trying conditions. So far I've been given the benefit of the doubt; but I suspect that I'm still very much on trial, and that little nonsense will be tolerated. We have all hit the ground three times during the day, on each occasion rather skittishly, but with no apparent major damage. We went to bed soon after you left last night. Marjorie and Hank came up for a final drink and indulged in facetious doubts as to the probability of another similar function taking place, at any rate on a mundane plane. Our mood was then carefree and bold. All was well in the best of possible worlds and the morning promised escape into heroic and possible illimitable horizons. We were on the point of becoming birdman and birdwoman respectively and, primed by more than friendly valedictions, felt we were cutting no end of a dash. Unconsciously we sought in the mirror, a reflection of that legendary piercing gaze; or as the uncharitable prefer to call it, glazed look associated with your true airman. Inspection was not entirely satisfactory, so after what we hoped was a stern and efficient check of the luggage, which by now was assuming gargantuan proportions, we retired leaving ostentatious orders for early calls. We rose at the fairly spartan hour of 6 a.m., and speaking for myself, it was at once obvious that life had lost much of the romance and glory which had tinged it last night. From the inevitable early morning stupor emerged the perfectly hellish fact that the comfortable days of talking and planning were over; to be followed by at least one part of one day of extremely frightening action. To say that woman is made of sterner stuff, but mildly describes Marion and her attitude. Her treatment of sausages and bacon at 7 a.m. commanded the utmost respect, and a calm serenity marked all she said and did. To the best of my ability I tried to give the impression that weighty matters of navigation occupied my whole attention, but the piercing look was becoming more and more glazed, while the sight even of Marion's sausages frankly made me sick. A certain amount of swagger returned with visits to the Met Office and Customs, but the inexorable fact remained, that Wild Oats waited on the tarmac and the hour of departure was at hand. There was .

LETTERS TO LESLIE

something quite grotesque about the heterogeneous mass of stores and general equipment which now lay before Wild Oats. Tins and bottles of synthetic foods, with restoratives for such emergencies as forced landings on mountain or desert or in the sea all inextricably mixed up with topis, macintoshes, course calculators, spanners and water bottles. The discovery of a large ball of string suggested thoughtfulness on some well-wisher's part but not much confidence. However, everything was finally pushed in though not very methodically. At such an hour it was a comforting sight when you and Hank appeared and your further valuable contributions to essential stores have not so far caused us to be too badly overloaded; they also helped largely to impart realism to what was fast coming a shadowy nightmare. I doubt whether we should have ever started without Hank's unkind and pointed remark, "Well don't you think it's time you pushed om" Well as you know, we did start and a nerve racking business it was too, before our critical audience of two. It seemed a long time before Wild Oats lifted its vast load off the ground, and this further acute anxiety caused all details such as producing maps, calculating the course, etc., to be completely forgotten. The next few moments were spent in a frenzied search for the necessary aids to navigation, after which the Horlick's Malted Milk and Brand's Essence were even less tidily stored than before. By the time we had set the course. calculator and upset the compass several times, we happily discovered the railway which leads to Folkestone. Our first essay in navigation, therefore, cannot be said to have taxed us unduly. Visibility was consistendy vague, but we find that railway lines stick out from the haze very pleasandy. Not really believing in the efficacy of maps, or our own ability to follow them, even if accurate, we proceeded down the coast to Ostend before turning off for Brussels. A very pleasant railway leads from the former to the latter and this we methodically followed. Even so we had the greatest difficulty in finding the aerodrome in the thick haze which welcomed us. This our first contact with foreign soil would have been exciting in all conscience; it was made far more exciting by horribly dangerous manoeuvres performed by the Belgian Air Force, who use the aerodrome as well. I forget how

5

6

THE FLIGHT OF WILD OATS

many circuits we made to avoid the exuberant evolutions of half a dozen fighters but we seemed to be going round in circles for an unconscionably long time. More than perturbed by this too boisterous welcome, I came in far too high and had to do a lot of rather inefficient side-slipping before the ground hit us with some severity. It would have been nice to have told you of a perfect three pointer, but the plain truth is that the tail wheel beat everything quite easily, to the detriment of the luggage. . Suffering more than a little from general jitters we advanced with remarkable unanimity to the buffet and tried to make a couple of cognacs last a long time. Meanwhile Wild Oats was refuelled. Mutual replenishment gave us all a little bit of confidence and so, after an hour, during which we experienced foreign customs for the first time, we left for Frankfurt. Fortified by two and a half hours' experience and two cognacs, we found that the next stage presented few difficulties, and indeed it has had none in fact. During the ensuing two hours or so, our unofficial log-book is full of such cocky remarks as "cross junction of single track railways (dead on course)"; "slight drift to port noticed and corrected." All these remarks, you will not be surprised to hear, are in Marion's writing. We crossed the Rhine at Coblenz and were able at last to agree that maps, after all, had something to be said for them. It certainly came as a surprise to find everything where it was supposed to be. We sighted Frankfurt at about 2 o'clock. It was still rather hazy, so the first impression we had was that it consisted exclusively of Zeppelin shed. It appeared to be hundreds of yards long and very probably is. That's all I can tell you about it for we got no nearer, since our aerodrome lay on the other side of the river Main. Here then we eventually landed. We fully intended to stop only for a modest lunch, and then go straight on to Wien. This, our first attempt to live to a schedule, was more than disappointing; it was downright ignominious. The facts are simple. On being asked for my carnet, I was quite unable to comply for the very good reason that it was still in the bar at Brussels where I had left it some hours previously. Everybody was very pleasant about it and no threats of concentration camps were made; still the fact remained

LETTERS TO LESLIE

that we were sunk so far as further progress was concerned, and Wild Oats must stay until tomorrow. Frantic telegrams to Brussels ensure that the carnet will be brought over by Sabena* on their next service which should arrive sometime this evening. And so here we are in Frankfurt, quite unexpectedly, but, apart from obvious self-recrimination, quite contentedly. There are many worse places to be stranded in than Frankfurt. We have bathed and supped, much too extravagantly for the good of the expedition funds but with undoubted beneficial effect on our harassed minds and timid bodies. We have also seen an excellent Variety Show at Schumann's, the highlight of which was a trapeze act performed in complete darkness, with the artists attired apparently in nothing but luminous paint, this providing them not only with clothing but affording their only method of illumination. It was a horrid sight to have glimpses of luminous paint floating about the ceiling. A recuperative beer on the pavement followed, and then we went to bed, a tolerably exciting day having been had, if not always enjoyed by the party.

If you are interested in dull details of the trip, here are a few.

Departure Croydon 08.35 Brussels 12.00

Flying time to Frankfurt Distance Croydon - Brussels Brussels - Frankfurt

Total Average ground speed * The Belgian national airline.

Arrival Brussels 10.49 Frankfurt 14.05 4 hours 19 minutes 208 miles 190 miles 398 miles 92.1 miles per hour

7

Day 2 Frankfurt to Budapest

26 May 1936

Dear Leslie, Not much to report today. As you can gather the carnet had been delivered at the aerodrome and so we proceeded in the endeavour to repair the battered schedule. We don't really look like doing it. A mild mishap occurred as we were about to take off. After warming the engine for at least the regulation time, we taxied away to the far end of the field. Halfway over, for no apparent reason, the engine stopped completely. This in itself was not unduly disturbing, but constituted us a menace to traffic. However no one took any notice, so vigorous propeller swinging had to be adopted. After a few minutes' effort Wild Oats came to life again and we could try once more. Still it took a lot of self persuasion to get us in the air. Unpleasant visions of another cutout as we passed over the adjoining woods persisted until we were well clear. We proposed to call in at Nurnberg, on the way to Wien, for more petrol, but once again the plan miscarried. * The weather got hazier and hazier the nearer we got to Nurnberg and so, although we saw at least two military aerodromes close to the city, we never did find the civil airpon. Accordingly we decided to carry on, landing, if necessary, for petrol at Linz. The country was grand all the way now, and especially after we connected with the Danube just north of Regensburg. We didn't attempt any serious navigation but adopted the pleasanter and probably

* Fred Goodwin preferred local spelling for place names (though not invariably). Hence Wien, not Vienna, and Beograde, not Belgrade. Parenthetical dates on the map refer to the return trip, Karachi to Croydon (see Part II); other dates refer to the Outward-Bound portion of the trip (Part I).

LETTERS TO LESLIE

much safer method of following the river the whole way. From above the Danube looked reasonably clean, and the wooded gorges were more than impressive. We didn't after all come down at Linz, partly through sheer laziness but chiefly I think because lunch at Wien sounded much more attractive. About half an hour later I began to wish we had visited Linz, for petrol seemed to be vanishing at an alarming rate. Still there was just enough to get us in and we landed soon after 1.30 p.m. It had taken us just over four and a half hours from Frankfurt, which seemed a long spell in our novitiate. The aerodrome is really excellent and the Wiener Schnitzel beyond praise. We counted, I think, 8 or 9 different nationalities' air liners on the tarmac, all going to the most exciting places. Off again to Budapest where we arrived shortly before 7 p.m. This is rather a dull stretch so far as country is concerned but since the Danube doesn't play the game all the way, we were able to experiment with the compass. Strange to say, it worked according to the text book. Extensive haymaking was in progress on the aerodrome which made landing a perplexing business and I don't think the haymakers were any too happy about it either. Quite pleasant buildings here too and very helpful officials to smooth out the difficulties of language. The aerodrome is eight or nine miles from the city and the journey was a complete nightmare, for our taxi-driver's methods of progress through thick masses of all kinds of cattle were thoughtless, to say the very least. The road too was in a fantastic condition; no hard core on it at all, mine-like craters everywhere and a constant sea of mud. The prospect was far from enlivened by the presence of miles of cemeteries on either side of the road, all in a rather irreverent state of preservation. It was depressing but I suppose a fitting background for the efforts of our driver. A storm broke out as we got to the station, so we could do nothing'more than find a pub and settle for the night. We are far from the gaieties of Budapest and the only music comes from do~ns of quite the most malevolent trams I've ever heard. We promise ourselves better things on the homeward journey. We hear that rumours of large thunder-storms round about Beograd are rife. That is all for today. It's been an uneventful but interesting day.

9

10

THE FLIGHT OF WILD OATS

More Dull Details

Departure Frankfurt 09.08 Wien 15.25

Flying time to Budapest Distance Frankfurt-Budapest, via Wien

Average ground speed

Arrival Wien 13.29 Budapest 16.45 5 hours 21 minutes 517 miles 97 miles per hour

Day 3 Budapest to Belgrade ·27 May 1936

Dear Leslie, Rather foolishly we employed the same taxi-driver to take us back to the aerodrome. This piece of foolishness has cast a jinx on the whole day, for once again we are in a mess. We should, by rights, be in Istanbul tonight but as usual languish many miles from our objective. This time it isn't our fault although that is precious little comfort. And this is how it all happened. After another paralyzing journey with our driver, we got to the aerodrome, expecting to get through customs in the minimum of time and streak off to Istanbul via Beograd and Sofija. The first stumbling block soon appeared, for our permit to fly over Hungary, which should have been forwarded from London, had not arrived. I don't know whose fault it has been but it cost us an hour before we were finally allowed to go on. We pursued a very tortuous course toward Beograd and the logbook no longer contained anything like a cocky remark. Such remarks now read "Didn't see this railway at all," "Never saw that one either." One reason for these tiresome aberrations was the monotonously flat nature of the ground and scarcity of landmarks coupled with our usual "familiar," thick haze. Another is to be found in the fact that soon after starting we discovered that there was a very substantial difference in the reading of our two compasses. This amounted to as much as twenty degrees or more and so, until we could have them tested we could never be certain which one to trust. Nevertheless, after a period of rather aimless wandering, the Danube hove into sight again, not it is true where it ~hould have been according to our calculations but still obviously likely to lead us to Beograd sooner or later. And to be sure it did, for we sighted the aerodrome and landed at 11.44. The aerodrome lies

12

THE FLIGHT OF WILD OATS

between the river and a steep hill; as the wind was from the river side I hated the approach like hell, though as usual things turned out all right. The aerodrome is on the Zemun side of the river, and has positively model buildings. As happens most times on the Continent, the Air Force are co-partners, but on this visit we escaped any unwelcome attentions~ Efficiency reigned everywhere and a weather report was brought to us before we had even started our soup. Before we had finished the soup, and, naturally, very much to our surprise, a reporter came to the table and started to ask us why, whence and how we had come. He seemed to be astonished that any private plane should appear at Beograd at all. The succeeding interview was an incredible affair as it was carried on in German and neither reporter nor ourselves were particularly proficient. We gave him the essential reasons for our advent and he finally went happily away. We hope to get a copy of the paper in the morning; it should prove amusing if we can find someone to translate the article for us. While we were having a final beer, a Miles Hawk arrived, but the occupants disappeared before we could have a word with them. * We tackled .the next step with a certain amount of trepidation. The map proclaimed that we had to go over mountains up to a height of about 6000 feet, which seemed a considerable distance from the earth. Accordingly we set course for Sofija, climbing slowly over the 60-odd miles which the map gave us before coming to the big mountains, whose name, for the moment, I can't remember. t

* The Miles Hawk, designed by EG. Miles of Reading, was a somewhat newer and certainly niftier aircraft than the Puss Moth. A low wing monoplane with a slightly higher cruising speed than the Puss Moth, it came on the market in 1933. A trim looking aircraft with fine li~es, it suffered from a crucial defect; unlike the Puss Moth, its twin cockpits were not enclosed. t There are two possible ranges, which in fact are linked: the Beljanica and the Kucal, the latter the more likely, since it lies closer to the Goodwin's track to Sofija, the valley of the River Morava.

LETTERS TO LESLIE

The nearer we got to the peaks, the higher we went until we were just about under an unbroken layer of very spiteful looking cloud. It started to rain very hard indeed and we began to get inordinately depressed. What was even more worrying, however, was the fact that the summits of the peaks in the direction of our course, were still completely covered by cloud. We therefore tried snooping round the next valley to the left; and when that promised nothing better, we tried its neighbour. We tried this manoeuvre twice more and then decided that to all intents and purposes we were utterly lost among jagged mountains and in a country that, at the moment, seemed far from friendly. At this stage the logbook positively quivers with emotion, and relevant quotations (written this time, as you may well guess, in my writing) remark "Don't know who this valley belongs to, but I don't think it's Yugoslavia, more likely to be Rumania, and we haven't got a permit." "How do you make forced landings on mountains, because we shall probably have to sometime." After we had been going for about two and a half hours and progress was still in a circular direction, we came to the conclusion that Beograd was the next desirable objective. There was nothing else for it since every new valley was obviously leading to a country for which we had no permits and to reach Sofija was out of the question as we couldn't get over the hills. With a lot of luck in picking up an obvious landmark very quickly on the return journey, we just about had enough petrol to get in, for we hadn't filled up completely at Beograd at lunch time as the journey would normally take a little over two hours. Obvious mountains, which we had passed on the outward trip, now simply had disappeared. Railways had evaporated and rivers were as if they had never existed. All in all, one member of the party was very frightened indeed, and the sex of the member was not feminine. After eons of time we did fmd a river we recognized and the rest, apart from petrol worries, was easy, and we duly reached Beograd, for the second time in one day, after nearly five hours of completely wasted effort. I've looked at the maps again and they definitely do give the heights I mentioned. Accordingly, damn them, for we were doing 8000-9000 most of the time. The aerodrome people did not seem to be at all surprised at our return. It is apparently quite a common occurrence in these parts. Thoughts of possible revelry

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THE FLIGHT OF WILD OATS

in the evening didn't enter our heads and so after a valuable session in the aerodrome buffet we took a taxi to the nearest reasonable hotel and endeavoured to forget a particularly infuriating and frightening day. We are actually in Zemun and not in Beograd which is across the river and nearly two miles away. Such distances at the moment seem' too great to undertake, although if we had experienced the loathsome smells which now assail our noses, before we had taken the room, we might have made the effort. We did try a small walk along the river bank but we just couldn't take it.

More dull details

Departure Budapest 09.30 Beograd 13.32

Flying time to Beograd (several visits) Distance Budapest-Beograd Beograd-Beograd

Total Average ground speed

Arrival Beograd 11.44 Beograd 18.15 6 hours 57 minutes 200 miles (probably}420 miles 620 miles 88 miles per hour (rough estimate as true distance travelled not at all certain).

Day 4 Belgrade to Nish 28 May 1936

Dear Lesl ie, As the direcr result of tOday's evenrs, we have definire\y and irrevocably tOrn up rhe schedule. Afrer this maybe things may go more or less according to plan. We're nowhere near Istanbul , our objective, and have advanced only a modest 130 miles. You will soon be getting tired of hearing tales of fai lure, but as God is our witness, maps and weather reports have let us down once more. However that is our story and we're sticking to it. We were at the aetodrome at 7.30 a.m. but found far ftom encouraging news about the ptobable weather. Rainstorms were said to abound on the mountains and clouds were low down over them. Rather naturally, therefore, we had a second breakfast and settled down to wait for better news. T his came through at 9.30 a.m. Storms all gone, clouds up to 7000 feet and well broken. And so tI,e argosy set off again , not very full of hope but at least reasonably optimistic. We had a new plan to follow today. About sixty miles Out of Beograd, at the place where we started to get inro trouble yesterday, a val ley leads off righ t-handed towards N ish. This valley in turn leads to Tsaribrod and the Dragon Pass after which Sofij a is only a small distance away. The map also showed that after N ish, one range of mountains has ro be crossed, putting their height at the apparently standard measure of 5000 feet. After yesterday's experience this in itself was suspicious, but we decided ro try it. We very soon found ourselves in cloud at 4000 feet, although as it was broken that didn't matter a great deal . However after a half an hour or so we began to sight ominous pealrs in our path well over our present altitude, which meant tI,at we had to climb higher to 7000 feet or more through another layer of particularly cold and stormy clouds. We could still see straight down below alright and I yet have tender memories of the river Morava which pointed our our course. A certai n amount of

16

THE FLIGHT OF WILD OATS

worry about possible hidden peaks, however, was bound to persist and we were not really comfortable until Nish* appeared out of a fast gathering gloom. We never had the slightest intention of landing at Nish and so proceeded on to cross the next ridge dividing us from the Tsaribrod valley. t After ten minutes and still at more than 7000 feet we were just under the cloud and couldn't see a possible way over, through or round the substantial mass ahead. No other alternative therefore but to retire to Nish and hope for a later clearance. While diving through the clouds I suddenly looked at the air speed and noticed that it was pointing to 130 m.p.h. I didn't feel at all well. Our arrival at Nish aerodrome was pure pantomime. First of all rain started to fall very hard indeed having the effect of making the landing ground look smaller than it was, and it never looked very large before. Then, as we did a few circuits to study the many contours, we saw dozens of hay cocks all over the place with forty or so attendant haymakers busily adding to their height. Large pools of water too helped further to restrict a suitable space for manoeuvre. Finally we chose a narrow lane between hay stacks and lakes, shut off everything, pulled back the stick, hoped for the best, then found we were coming down wind at a huge speed. The ground simply rushed up at us and we bounded about all over the place; the starboard wing went right down to within a few inches of the ground and we finally ended up by slewing round in the opposite direction. It seemed at the time about a thousand pounds to a banana that Nish woUld prove to be the end of the trip and that the expedition would return to England by the Orient Express. One member of the party was even craven enough to think this no bad idea. However luck was with us and Wild Oats weathered its first ~te of really tough treatment. I can't think it will be the last.

* Or, to use the Slav spelling, Nis. t The Tsaribrod Valley carried the River Nisava, on their track for Sofija. A town by the same name on the Nisava lay within 14 miles of the Bulgarian border, and in fact was part of Bulgaria from 1913 to 1919 as a result of the Balkan Wars. In 1950 the name of Tsaribrod was changed to Dimitrovgrad, and it seems likely that the name of the Valley underwent a similar transformation. Just inside the Bulgarian border is the village of Dragoman; the Dragoman Pass, referred to later in the narrative, was the gap created by the Nisava cutting its way through the mountains.

LETTERS TO LESLIE

Our next immediate worry came when we saw a batch of soldiers marching sternly in our direction. We knew that we had been flying over forbidden territory most of the time, but couldn't remember whether Nish was actually in the area or not. Reprimand however was not to be our portion, and instead we were treated with every circumstance of courtesy, particularly by the Officer in charge who introduced himself as Steve. His full name turned out to· be Stephen Kovartschevitch, and I'm not at all sure that isn't all one word as here spelled. It was still pouring with rain so the soldiers were detailed to wheel Wild Oats into the. one hangar on the field. The haymakers too joined in only too willingly and the wheeling became anything but an orderly progress. The next hour we spent inside a very old lorry. This had previously sheltered eight soldiers, but Steve would have none of that and brusquely turned them all out into the storm. It seemed more than a little brutal. We now had a superb conversation with Steve; his contribution consisted of two personal pronouns, I and You, together with a miscellaneous assortment of verb infinitives, all these being in French. He also said he could understand a v~ry little German although he couldn't speak a word. Our contribution was German of no great merit and the application of crossword puzzle methods in connecting up his infinitives. On the other hand he knew the names of a large number of British professional footballers, and was most eager to talk of league prospects. We couldn't play very well, but achieved merit by repeating the glamorous name of the Arsenal periodically. Poor old Steve; he was very tired of Nish. Eventually a car appeared with a bloke by the name of Cicis, who was the Secretary of the "Banovina."* This we gathered was the equivalent of the mayor of

* In 1929 King Alexander of Yugoslavia, wishing to promote national unity and to erode the ethnic and religious divisions of his new country, abolished the 33 departments into which Yugoslavia was divided for administrative purposes, and created 9 banovinas, a Croatian word meaning "province." These provinces were based upon geographic rather than ethnic or other factors; Nis, for example, was capital of the banovina called Morava, after the River Morava, its most noteworthy geographic feature. As secretary of the Banovina ofNis, Cicis' authority extended beyond the city to include the province as well.

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THE FLIGHT OF WILD OATS

the City and we were rather impressed when he declared his intention of taking us under his wing during our stay in Nish, since, he said, the weather certainly wouldn't improve for a long time yet. Nor indeed has it, and I fully expect to find the aerodrome flooded tomorrow. In which case there will probably be clear skies, but we won't be able to take off. The road from the aerodrome defied belief and for a mile or so the car wallowed along in a trough of mud, inches deep. I can't see how the wheels gripped at all. Thereafter came an improvement, in that great setts* were being laid, but the whole route to the city was pretty chaotic. Cicis spoke English quite well. He obviously liked speaking it and accordingly indulged himself to the full. All we had to do was to sit quite still and listen, a procedure which satisfied everybody save, perhaps, Marion. By the time we reached the hotel he suggested, namely The Orient, he had completed a fairly full description of the city and its history, and reviewed the pros and cons of the Little Entente in so far as it affected Yugoslavia. t This information he continued to supplement during the day as he sat with us on the pavement outside the pub, drinking innumerable glasses of the local schnaps. Still it would be churlish to complain as he worked very hard to entertain us and wrought powerfully to get us the latest weather reports. He also kept a very stern eye on such disbursements as he saw me make, and lashed local tradesmen, taxi-drivers and the like with stinging tongue if he thought they were trying to do us down. For that alone I was grateful enough. For a place like Nish the hotel was surprisingly good and the sanitary arrangements admirable. The food was perhaps rather powerful in taste but wholesome in quality.

*

Though "sett" is unknown to the O.ED., I am informed by a colleague that it is Yorkshire for a cobblestone. t The Little Entente was a military and economic alliance among Czecholsovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia, negotiated in 1920-21, and having the basic objective of preserving the territorial settlement of the peace treaties against the revisionist aims of Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary and Italy. German pressure upon the Little Entente increased after the accession of Hitler to power, and by 1936 there were signs that the alliance was breaking up. The Little Entente ceased to exist after the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia following the Munich pact of 1938.

LETTERS TO LESLIE

In the evening we were made to walk round the city and Steve was pressed into service again. It is no exaggeration to say that Cicis took off his hat every ten yards of that walk, while Steve was similarly employed with more military gestures. We were finally taken into the Anglo-Yugoslav Club which is run by an Englishwoman, Miss Grocer. We gathered that she escaped from Russia after the revolution and after many vicissitudes had deCided to settle down in Nish to earn what can't be a very fat living teaching English. She hadn't seen England for 25 years but having no more relations alive didn't feel like going back alone. It was all rather pathetic, and more than a little brave. We stayed about an hour, during which the ceremonial bottle of port was brought out in our honour, and the entire assembly tried to make Steve join the club. He was weakening badly when we left. And so back to the hotel, escorted by the tireless Cicis. It's still raining hard and prospects for tomorrow are not very bright. Perhaps Istanbul is an unattainable Mecca for unbelievers.

More Dull Details

Departure Beograd 09.56

Flying time to Nish Distance Beograd-Nish

Total Average ground speed

Arrival Nish 11.45 1 hour 49 minutes 138 miles 138 miles 78.8 miles per hour

19

Day 5 Nish 29 May 1936

Dear Leslie, Well, you can tell the worst by merely reading the address. We're still here and quite likely to remain fot days to come, if the clouds don't move ftom the peaks. You'd better have the story in order as usual . At 6.30 a.m . we were breakfasting on the pavement. The weather looked very reasonable but we had a reporr com ing thtough at 7. This was to come from an Aeropur liner due in from Sofija.* Such first-hand information was not lightly to be passed aside. The inval uable C icis had promised to collect it and bting it to the hotel. Soon after 7.30 a.m. however he rang up to say that he could get no news as yet, so we decided to get a taxi to the aerodrome and see for ourselves the chances of advancing. One glance at. the hilltops was qu ite enough for we couldn't see the su mmit of even one. And so we beat yet another retreat after having given a tender scrutiny to Wild Oats. Back then to the hotel to telephone C icis that we were still here; this in response to an overnight promise. He immediately announ ced his intention of coming immediately to the hotel to help us beguile the hours. Apart from the obvious courtesy of the gesture we really were very glad to see him, for we had with us a copy of the Beograd paper which "carried" our interview of yesterday or rather the day before. This gave us a couple of columns, which were ornamented by a photograph apparently of the condemned parties making none too hearty breakfasts before taking the last short walk. We naturally asked Cicis to translate the teading matter, which he gladly did. * Aeroput was the Yugoslav national airli ne, founded in 1927. It linked the country with all its neighbours except for Italy and Albania. Aeroput used Puss Moths as air taxis.

LETTERS TO LESLIE

It appears that after giving some rather unsound personal views on the international situation, I announced that we were on our honeymoon. This confession was coupled with the frank admission that we already had a daughter aged two years old. I imagine the seeds of a really sound libel action are sown here. Miss Grocer passed as this horrid document was being perused and after much persuasion joined us in a schnaps. Very soon after Steve arrived and was immediately bullied by Miss Grocer and Cicis as to membership of the club. He now wore a haggard look during the onslaught. After another full resume of the political situation from the inexhaustible Cicis, with some rather trenchant remarks from Miss Grocer, we announced our intention of proceeding once again to the aerodrome to sum up possibilities on the site. One look at the mountains was quite enough to know that we were probably there for the rest of the day; and this opinion was soon confirmed by an official report, that the clouds were likely to remain for the remainder of the daylight. Everybody, save us, seemed pleased, which argues well for our personality. We were just about to retire yet once again, when we heard the sound of another aeroplane above. This could soon be identified as a Miles Hawk, and we watched its technique in landing with considerable interest. It contrasted by a wide margin with our own, being perfection. We were soon able to recognize the Hawk as the one we had seen at Beograd the day before yesterday. Having landed, it picked its way through the hay cocks and lakes and we finally established contact, when a very English voice asked us, in German, whether it was possible to get a weather report at Nish. We were at least able to supply that miserable information to the Atkeys (for this was their name). They too had tried to get over the next range of mountains, but couldn't find a way through. We all decided to go back to Nish for lunch and try again later in the afternoon. Soon afterwards a further weather report came per Cicis which made it quite clear that we should stay yet another night in Nish. We had, I think, expected this all day, and Nish was, even in this short time, becoming our probable permanent dwelling; but it was an obvious disappointment to the Atkeys, who were due in Sofija that evening, en route for Greece. Rooms therefore were reengaged and more international discussion indulged

2 I

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in. We escaped later and went to visit Miss Grocer again, who seemed quite glad to see us. Her store of books, presented by stray passers-by, was quite extraordinary, and magazines were up to date to the last month. On the second visit her courage seemed all the more astonishing, and her policy more than a model for an effective League of Nations. Just before we left, Miss Grocer insisted that we talk to her latest pupil, who was also her cook or general servant. The latter had only been with her about three months, but the result must have been as gratifying to her as it was surprising to us. Once more the ceremonial port passed, . and then we came back, to what now, very nearly, seems to us, HOME. Weather reports still give 10/10 clouds at peak level, but we're very resigned by now. And to think that we should be in Karachi on June 1st. I notice from the map that we have about 3400 miles to go, including a crossing of the whole of Turkey, both in Europe and in Asia. If Wild Oats can do that, I'll start to believe in fairies.

Dull Details Apart from taxicab fares and potations of schnaps, none.

Day 6

Nish to Istanbul 30 May 1936

Dear Leslie, Part of the miracle has happened and we sleep tonight in Istanbul. As a facr, this is no great advantage, save that we want eventually to reach Karachi, and the further progress may have stopped the rot. As the result of a reasonable weather report we all got to the aerodrome by 8.30 a.m . and after the usual preliminaries, we took off for Sofija just before the Hawk, at 8.50 a.m. precisely. There was still a lot of cloud about but sufficiently broken to enable us ro sneak through the gaps. Getting over the first shoulder of mountain was intensely exciting, but after a few qualms we saw the valley ahead and knew that we were safe, at least until the Dragoman pass. The valley really was superb; rugged mountains on either side, going up to quite 7000 feet, with the O rient Railway picking its way through apparently impassible defiles. T he cloud effects were terrific artistical ly, and equally terrific in substance. We duly turned down the Valley at Tsaribrod and headed for the very sinister-sounding Dragoman Pass. Soon after Tsaribrod we passed over an Aeroput liner bound from Sofija, and wondered at its low altitude. Maybe we were more than sensibly cautious. We now, apparently, approached the crucial test. After experiencing the Dragoman Pass by car, some years ago, we were prepared for the worst. Actually, notlling happened save an immense aesthetic uplift, as we passed over peaks of such rugged design, that on ly masonic terms seemed to fit it. Mind you, the whole coun tryside is as bleak as you will ever see, but the proportions demand the maximum of respect, all the more so, ptobably, since I should imagine it is quite impossible to bring off a forced landing anywhere.

THE FLIGHT OF WILD OATS

The Dragoman Pass is just a mass of harsh looking rock which we cleared by a small margin at 6500 feet. We actually followed the motor road up, and having done the ground trip were quite glad to be off the earth's surface. After the Dragoman Pass, the rest of the route to Sofija is simplicity, consisting merely of a flat plain with hills on either side. We duly landed at 8.45 a.m. after an uneventful but very impressive journey. Within a few minutes, the Hawk arrived, superb as ever in its method of landing. At Sofija, Wild Oats and the Hawk parted company, since the Atkeys proposed to stay a day or so. We shared a dish of hard-boiled eggs and some coffee, said farewell rather sadly, since such meetings are a great boost to timidity, and having received a report which announced a covered sky at Plovdiv, but any amount of height, we took off again at 11 o'clock. The map showed a most unpleasant lot of high hills on the route to Plovdiv but also showed that the Orient Express went the same way. We, accordingly, followed the track faithfully and soon found that most of the terrors could easily be avoided. We crossed one valley which had the exciting name of "Trajan's Gate" but have been unable to discover the significance of the name. * This I suppose is due to our ignorance of important historical events. After leaving Trajan's Gate, we came down to a modest 2000 feet and followed the Orient Express towards Plovdiv. The course here is across a flat plain with hills on either side, those on the north gradually receding. However topography not being our strong point, we'll let it go at that. Navigation, as ever, was childish, since the main railways and a river obligingly lead the way. No one, though, could call this particular stretch attractive. Floods were everywhere, and we visualized, rather contentedly, the time when we had traversed the same country in a car. Pushing heavily laden Austin 12's through mud is not fun.

* Trajan's Gate is on the old Roman road that ran from Serdica (Sofija) to Philippopolis (Plovdiv). It is on the Pass of Succi (elevation 843 metres), and was so named because here the road passed through a monumental gate flanked by protective towers. The gate and towers were probably built by the Emperor Trajan at some point during his reign (A.D. 98-117).

LETTERS TO LESLIE

Plovdiv appeared in due course. We had never meant to land there but as a matter of navigation routine, we looked out for the aerodrome. We even circled twice, to be sure we were over Plovdiv. Nothing like an aerodrome, however, was visible, so, knowing full well that we couldn't be wrong, we bravely pushed on. Much the same kind of country continued, save that the hills on the starboard side gradually receded out of sight. A haze began to gather when we were approaching Edirne (Adrianopolis) and so again we never connected with an aerodrome; and here we definitely had meant to descend for more petrol. Much snooping, however, failed to produce the objective although we saw a great number of cemeteries, where the landing ground should have been. Discouraged by this, we had a consultation in mid-air and decided to go on to Istanbul. We were now 1500 feet under the clouds, just, but with admirable visibility. The country below was dismal to a degree and landmarks few, since you are not allowed to follow railways much longer, as it runs over prohibited areas. And if you fly, or drive through prohibited areas in Turkey, protests are apt to be voiced by Lee Enfields. The weather had changed out of all recognition by now, and we had cloudless skies, and a temperature which approached the tropical. The trip down the Marmora coast was a sheer delight and I think, for the first time, we really enjoyed ourselves. The mosques came into view, looking far more magical than they do when seen from the ground, and presently we saw the aerodrome on a headland about 5 miles from the city. The usual precautionary measures of many circlings was adopted before we came in. All excuses apart it really is a hell of a field. Haymaking we now take as a matter of course, but the surface was worse than untidy. Witching waves describes the many undulations and we hit most of them. Wild Oats, however, is still whole, so what does it matter. We had the usual trouble with Turkish Customs. The camera was eyed with more than reasonable suspicion and finally confiscated. The joke will be on them in the end because we are the only people that know that every exposure is of Elizabeth Ann in the nude, all exposures having been taken in the garden of "Knaves Acre." They propose to print and develop the whole lot which will at least

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save us that trouble. We were taken into Istanbul by a madman in a vast American taxi. The city is about half an hour's run by car and we arrived shaken to the core. We are staying the night at the Tokatlyan Hotel and hope tomorrow to be in Aleppo. Usual Dull Details

Departure Nish 08.50 a.m. Sofija 11.00 a.m.

Flying time to Istanbul Distance Nish-Sofija Sofija-Istanbul

Total Average ground speed

Arrival Sofija 09.46 a.m. Istanbul 14.20 p.m. 4 hours 14 minutes 90 miles 324 miles 424 miles [sic] 100 miles per hour

Day 7 Istanbul to Adana

31 May 1936

Dear Leslie, Early risings continue to be our portion. We were up again at 6 a.m. and were taken by the same madman back to the aerodrome. We duly received the negatives and prints of the confiscated films, the officials handing them over with many good-natured guffaws. Strange to say there was nothing to pay, and this must be a record for Turkey. We took off at 8.30 a.m. and after following the coast for a few minutes crossed the Golden Horn to Scutari. This is a bald statement of fact; but the excitement, not only of reciting such names but also of knowing that we were passing into an entirely different continent was quite terrific. Our route today has been compulsory. It is scarcely possible to go anywhere in Turkey, either in Europe or Asia, without finding that you are in or near a prohibited area. We had heard fri ghtening stories of what happens to trespassers so today we have been very careful indeed, and except for one occas ion have abided faithfully by the rules and regulations. For half an hour we passed over pleasantly wooded country at a modest 3000 feet, before coming into sight of the Bosporus. The water quite naturally looked the same as any other, but the name gave yet another sobering thrill. At a smal l seaside village called Shile, we turned off for Ada Bazar and went over a perfectly fl at and dull plain for another thirty minutes. Soon after Ada Bazar we found the Orient Express again. This for some reason is in baulk* all the way from Istanbul and presumably passed through desperate country littered with * Although "baulk" in d,e sense employed here is not to be found in the OED., it seems clear from the COntext that what is meant is something close to "in bond."

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secret munitions and air defence. The meeting, however, has not much comfort, for you can only follow the lines for a few minutes, after which regulations decree that a course must be laid over some very wicked-looking mountains. Reluctantly we climbed up to 6000 feet and had glimpses of snow covered peaks miles away to the East and remember the date is still a day in May. Up to Afium Karshissar there is nothing but horribly spiky hills and one is apt to croon to the engine in the hope of keeping it contented. Shortly before we crossed the final range of mountains before coming to Afium, an eagle came quite close to us with an appearance of extreme ferocity. Wild Oats swerved madly and was plainly very much upset although the eagle soon gave up the unequal struggle. We had a lot of difficulty in locating the railway again but refused to advance further until the most intimate relationship had been established. From Afium to Konia, where we proposed to refuel, there is a flat plain with a more or less uniform height of 4000 feet. It seemed distinctly odd to be cruising just over the level of trees and still see the altimeter registering 4500 feet. The direct course to Konia lies over some fairly high hills, but since these were covered with cloud we determined to take the path of the railway, which is definitely a long way off the course but undoubtedly safe. Apart from a few lakes and the vagaries of the railway there is little enough to see on this stretch and Konia seemed to take a long time to come into sight. We eventually found it after passing over some rugged-looking dunes, through which a caravan of camels was proceeded in rather a dismal manner. The aerodrome lies alongside the railway and from the air looks like a thin pencil of scrub. The surface however is excellent and although the ground is very narrow in one direction the prevailing wind comes from the right direction. We refuelled here and ate the sandwiches provided by the Tokatlyan. Refuelling was a longish job, as it seems officials have to come out from the town, which is about three or four miles away. At any rate they certainly didn't hurry this time. We honoured our first landing in Asia by opening a bottle of sherry presented to the expedition by Charlie Betson, our local publican in West Hoathly (The Cat Irin). It was lukewarm but acceptable and we were able to leave an empty behind. The next stretch was along a plateau precisely similar to the preceding one, that is to

LETTERS TO LESLIE

say for a matter of 70 miles. During this time we could see mountains ahead over which we had to pass and sundry storms seemed to be brewing round about them. Karaman we passed with every degree of confidence, although we disliked seeing the faithful Orient go away to the left. We now made straight for the last range of mountains before coming to the first sight of the Mediterranean at Selefke. It really is a lousy bit of country. We were at roughly 7000 feet the whole time and just scraping the hilltops. We couldn't go higher because of cloud, and we couldn't leave the course as storms were very obviously performing all around us. The country underneath was perfectly hellish; great jagged volcanic rock without a break and not a hope of landing anywhere. We continued to dodge storms, so far as possible, until finally we got over the last of the hills and got a vague glimpse of the sea. Having no more reason for altitude, we came right down 500 feet or so and scudded along the coast. The clouds came down with us too with indecent friendliness and in a very short time we could see nothing but the waves on the shore. We managed to pick out Tarsus but the weather was getting so thick that historical interest was scarcely roused. Since we gathered from the maps that before Aleppo, we would have to cross mountains of at least 6000 feet, we decided to come down at Adana for a weather report. The execution of this decision was not to be so easy in actual fact. Our arrival over Adana synchronized with that of a mature cloudburst, and although we knew from the map exactly where the aerodrome should be, we had to circle the town for twenty minutes before we got even a sight of the field. Clouds by this time were practically right down to the ground and we were not enjoying ourselves at all. Concentrating on what appeared to be a boundary mark, we came in and . made the first good landing of the trip so far in about three inches of water. This minor success was ruined by the intense quivering of every single ganglion that I possess. The usual flurry of soldiery occurred as a matter of course. Weather reports, apparently, could only be obtained in the town since the landing ground's equipment consisted of precisely nothing. Since, therefore, the rain seemed interminable, we decided to stay the night. Wild Oats's wings were folded, and very unkindly we left'it forlorn on the sodden field. Of all the taxi-drivers I've ever

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had, the one we employed from the aerodrome haunts me most. There are no roads, as you know them. We followed a muddy cattle track most of the way, this being quite considerably elevated above swamps on either side. Added to this, large bodies of cattle roamed at will and with no very decided sense of direction. We quarreled most bitterly with the driver the whole way, but the entirely original epithets were wasted on him, since he had not the slightest idea of what we were talking about. We were duly deposited at what has subsequently turned out to be the most horrid of hotels. Sanitary arrangements are of the crudest and the pleasantest smell so far comes from camels. Of the latter, great husky specimens wander through the streets apparently unaccompanied, much the same as dogs do in West Hoathly. We did try a small walk after dinner, but the stench of unpurified sewage defeated us utterly. Tomorrow, with luck, we hope to rest at Baghdad. Here we propose to stay one day to have a twenty five hour overhaul.

Details

Departure Istanbul 08.25 Konia 13.57

Flying time to Adana .. Distance Istanbul-Konia Konia-Adana

Total Average ground speed

Anival Konia 12.28 Adana 16.05 6 hours 11 minutes 365 miles 225 miles 590 miles 95.7 miles per hour

Day 8

Adana to Baghdad 1 June 1936

Dear Leslie, I don't quite know why, but it seems odd to spend Whit-Monday ctossing the Syrian desert. It has also been very uncomfortable. The heat has been proverbially hellish with the result that we've been thrown all over the place and bumped about in literally the most sickening way. Still, we got across in about four and a half hours which compares very favourably with the twenty six we needed , when doing approximately the same journey by car in 1933. Again we were headed for India. We got away from Adana as early as possible, and finding that the aerodrome had dried out surprisingly well, were able to take off at 6.50 a.m. for Aleppo which is roughly 130 miles away. We flew over a lot of attractive broken cloud for some time while getting height to cross the mOllntains ahead. The map gave the height at 5000 feet, but that bit of inaccuracy was obvious from miles away. We actually passed over one of the lower spurs at well over 8500, and there were still a whole lot of summits way above us on either side. Not that it mattered much to us since we could see a long way, but it wouldn't be at all funny flying in thick cloud. We gOt a litrle bit lost after coming down from the ridge and had to start adjusting ourselves to new conditions. One bit of desert looks very much the same as anorl,er and it was some time before we gOt used to it." The invaluable Orient Railway suddenly appeared again and duly led us to ri,e city, from which we could see the aerodrome a few miles further on . I can't tell you anything of Aleppo for we hadn't time to go there. From the air it seems to be dominated by a vast stone building, which is probably a fort.

* When the RAF first began to Ay across the Arabian desert in the early 19205, an enormous furrow was ploughed in the sand for hundreds of miles to give pilots a set of landmarks.

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THE FLIGHT OF WILD OATS

Apart from that and a general impression of considerable size, I can't enlighten or entertain you. Landing here was our first experience of a desert aerodrome and I suppose they will be the same for the rest of the route to Karachi. No grass whatever on them; odd tufts of thistles here and there but generally speaking just a bare expanse of hard baked mud. As we came in to land, we noticed a broad strip running the entire length of the fidd, and, in ignorance assumed that it probably denoted an area which was under repair. Accordingly we gave it a wide berth and chose a part which was apparently covered with grass of a kind. On this then, we descended making a perfect landing on the top of thistles four feet high. I was so surprised that I could do nothing about the next inevitable drop and we rocketed up the fidd in the wildest manner, destroying thistles by the thousand. As you will probably have guessed, the bare strip we had seen was specially prepared for landing. 0 well, I suppose we shall learn in time. A squad of French soldiers soon appeared to investigate our papers and got through the job surprisingly quickly. This duty done we were escorted to the canteen for breakfast. It was still only 8 o'clock but the heat was already formidable and Bombay Bowlers justifiable for the first time. We have therefore become quite tropical, for this morning too, we donned shorts and discarded trousers and skirts. We are very conscious of large expanses of bare, white knee, although tonight a promising pink flush heralds the approach of a rich tan, which will only be earned after ~uch physical torment. We left again at 10 a.m. and headed for the Euphrates at Meskene. Wild Oats probably had enough petrol for the 470 miles to Baghdad but we decided not to risk a succession of head winds and other possible mishaps. Accordingly an intermediate landing at Deir-ez-zor was scheduled. This is a military aerodrome but petrol and oil are obtainable by civil passers-by. There is little to tell of the next stretch. The Euphrates was in position as advertised, and we had nothing to do but follow its approximate course, cutting off corners whenever its further progress could be seen from a comfortable distance. The country is desolation itself, but contrary to expectation, by no means completdy flat. There are no hills of any great size, but for the most part, ugly

LETTERS TO LESLIE

undulations of jagged rock abound. The river itself pursues the most astonishing contortions and a trip by boat must be a nightmare. A lorry road runs alongside, making periodical excursions into the hillocks when the river becomes too fantastic. We didn't see any traffic on the road, but it seemed to be well engineered. After a very bumpy trip Deir-ez-zor came into view. Quite a lot of circuits had to be made before we could decide which particular stony stretch to choose, but eventually we got in by methods undreamed of in an instructor's philosophy. We were at once led away to the Commandant to explain our "raison d'etre" and very charming he was to us, too. While the civil authorities were being particularly persnickety with our papers which had already been adequately cleared in Aleppo, the Commandant made us free of the canteen and treated us as honoured guests. A large breakfast (our second of the day) accompanied by ice-cool beer ad lib was set before us, and although obviously a busy man he further honoured us by sitting down and chatting. The chat was not quite so successful since our part was chiefly monosyllabic. Even when the Commandant had to go, he saw to it that another officer was pressed into service to entertain us. Further he made sure that the officer could speak English. Such courtesy was inspiring. Reluctantly we prepared for departure and took off for Baghdad at 1.45 p.m. Much the same kind of country all the way now until Ramadi after which the Euphrates goes away right handed. We passed a number of smallish landing grounds, presumably military, but there is really very little to look at. Wild Oatss cabin got more and more like a furnace and bumps became increasingly vigorous. One, indeed, lifted a whole pile of luggage off the floor up to the ceiling from which it dropped with painful results on to Marion's head. Nothing much happened to me save that I hit the electric light bulb, neither party being hurt. At Ramadi we connected up with the overland motor route from Damascus and Rutbah Wells, and followed its course in to Baghdad. It really is the most astonishing road; it is anything up to fifty miles or so wide, and the choice of track is illimitable since it is all desert mud. We saw numerous cars and lorries hurtling along at great speed and sympathized duly. Incidentally the countryside appeared to be very much flooded and the river banks were obviously breached at many points.

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Baghdad was visible from miles away and we had no difficulty in finding the aerodrome, which is most impressive, an excellent flat surface with quite a lot of grass on it, and admirable buildings of most modern design. Furthermore there is a hotel on the field so that the odours of the city itself need not be encountered. From past experience, we naturally decided to stay at the aerodrome and have certainly no reason to regret the choice. H. and C. in profusion, baths, an admirable kitchen and a bar of more than ordinary merit. We look forward to a pleasant day tomorrow doing nothing but sampling the fleshpots. After an excellent meal we went into the city to renew acquaintance with the Tigris Palace Hotel and had a few beers on the banks of the river Tigris. But for the incredible smell it would have been very romantic. And so after replenishing the library, we returned to the aerodrome pub just in time to see the arrival of a KLM liner homeward-bound. We have concluded satisfactory negotiations with the Chief Engineer of Imperial Airways and so the success of the "twenty five" is assured. * Dull Details

Departure Adana 06.50 Aleppo 09.54 Deir-ez-wr 13.05

Flying time to Baghdad Distance Adana-Aleppo Aleppo-Deir-ez-wr Deir-ez-wr-Baghdad

Total Average ground speed

*

Arrival Aleppo 8.10 Deir-ez-zor 11.35 Baghdad 15.45 5 hours 41 minutes 129 miles 180 miles 307 miles 616 miles 108.8 miles per hour

A mechanical overhaul is required after twenty-five flying hours have been completed.

.,.. Day 9

Baghdad 2 June 1936

D ear Leslie, T here is very little indeed to tell yo u today. We gOt up very late and had a luxurious breakfast after wallowing in a comfortable bath . The "twen ty fi ve" has been accom plished satisfactori ly, this being entirely due to the kindness of Imp's C hief Engineer, who managed to deal w ith Wild Oats in-between ministrations to a "42.'" We have been into t he city again for a walk and a drink. We also had the satisfaction of seeing the Maude Bridge open to let a boat through . We have watched the "Faithful " tryi ng to perform successful ablutions in the very muddy waters of the Tigris; but these inciden ts scarcely make news. We visited no mosques, altho ugh Baghdad is the seat of the second-largest in the wo rld, acco rding to our information . [n short we have done very little save spend a pleasant day in utter indolence. During the day the hotel fi lled up considerably, after the arrival of the "Helena" o utwa rd bound for Karachi .t There were about a dozen o n board , looking rather jaded after the desert crossing and fa r from enthusiastic at the prospect of a start tomorrow at 4 a.m. • The "42" was the Handley Page 42, so called because of the number of passengers it supposedly carried (it actually carried 40 passengers). A four-engine biplane, fitted wid, extra ranks to extend ill range to over 600 miles, it was used by Imperial Airways on ill route to India. Eight HP42s were built, and flew over ten million miles without a filtal ity after they came into service in 193 1. T he HP42 is generally regarded as the most successful early British airliner. even though, on irs first appearance, it was derisively known as "the flying banana," t "Helena" was one of Im perial Airway's eight HancUey Page 42s ; others included "Hann ibal" and "He racles,"

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THE FLIGHT OF WILD OATS

We turned in early as we proposed to go at the same time. Our last sight was of our good fairy, the chief engineer, getting down to an all night overhaul of the "42." We fel~ rather humble and guilty.

Day 10 Baghdad to Basra 3 June 1936

Dear Leslie, We're nOt SO far as we hoped, but we've at least coped with most of Iraq. We gO[ up at 4 a.m. and afrer a swifr breakfast rook off at 5.10 a.m. shorrly before the "42." We had received instructions rI"t me ordinary course down the Euphrates must not be followed, since bandits were apt ro shoot at any aeroplane they saw. Apparemly, time hangs heavily on their hands when normal agricultural operations cannot, for one reason or anomer, be carried on. When such misfortunes befall mem they JUSt pick up the old fami ly f1inrlock and look for unsuspecting prey. Actually of course mey probably have me most modern armamems. It appears mat they brought down twO machines belonging ro ri,e Iraq Air Force a forrnight ago, so we roo k me warning seriously and made for me alternative route down me Tigris. Apart from passing such an historical place as Kut El Amara' our progress is just anomer story of very dull and extensive sand. Since we were travelling southeast we had the sun in our faces the whole time and for that reason had all manner of optical illusio ns. I kept on seei ng stretches of water which were not there and generally spealting felt emirely disembodied. It was the oddest feeling. Thanks to a tail wind of about mirry miles an hour, Wild Oats ratrled along as never before and in litrle more man two hours we came to me outskirts of Basra. For , Kut EI Amara was taken from the Turks in 19 15 by a British army w1der Gen. Charles Townshend. Forced to retreat afrer an unsuccessful advance on Baghdad, 100 miles farther up me Tigris, Townshend was besieged in Kut EI Amara for 143 days, surrendering to the Turks in April 1916. T he town was recaptured by Gen. Frederick Maude in 191 7 in the course of his successful advance on Baghdad.

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some time we passed along wide belts of palms on either side of the TIgris and this we gather is the main centre of Iraq's date industry. It is an odd sight to see a strip of well irrigated land on either side with hundreds of miles of nothing outside. Basra aerodrome came into sight at 7.30 a.m. and seemed to be very large. The surface consisted chiefly of the usual mud but there are asphalt runways radiating out in star fashion to allow for every vagary of the wind. It is, I suppose, the finest aerodrome in the east. Good as it is, however, the technique to be used in landing on such surfaces in the usual heat, seems to be beyond me entirely. After what I thought was a reasonable approach I flattened out a few feet above ground level and waited for the final drop. Wild Oats simply remained where it was until we were nearly at the end of the very considerable runway, when it suddenly fell like a plummet as I was least expecting it. I imagine this is due to the heat forming a cushion of superheated air close to the ground; but whatever it is the effect is both surprising and upsetting. New buildings are being put up and the finished article should be really excellent. The chief control officer, an Iraqi, was kindness itself, and after seeing us through customs sent us in his car to the Rest House for breakfast. Here we reestablished contact with the Helena passengers, who were bound for Sharjah. We were back at the aerodrome by 9 a.m. and found a weather report all ready for us. This proclaimed that gales were raging in the Persian Gul£ At 1000. feet the velocity was said to be 40 m.p.h. At 2000 feet this would change to 50 m.p.h. until at 4000 feet we should meet a breeze of74 m.p.h. This naturally did not deter Helena, and we subsequently heard that she averaged 150 m.p.h. to Sharjah, which must be a record for all 42s. Such wind however sounded too tough for the likes of us and so we returned to the very excellent Rest House. We were promised another report at 3 p.m. and spent the remainder of the morning clearing up overdue correspondence. The next report was even worse than its predecessors so we're staying until tomorrow. During the afternoon I wandered out to do a bit of shopping and literally ran into a bloke named Roney, who is a dock official. After narrating our humble story, we were invited to the Basra Club in the evening. This was a very pleasant visit and included a bathe in an admirable open-air swimming bath. Feeling cleaner

LETTERS TO LESLIE

and better than for some time, we then spent an hour or so in gossip with various other outposts of empire whose hospitality was embarrassingly boundless since we were not allowed to pay our way. We gathered that Englishmen were gradually but firmly being superseded in official posts by native Iraqis, now that the mandate is over. * This seems fair enough to a mere outsider although the hardship on the pioneers is obvious. All in all, a very pleasant day.

Dull Details Departure Baghdad 05.11 Flying time to Basra

Arrival Basra 07.35 2 hours 24 minutes

Distance Baghdad-Basra

Total Average ground speed

*

310 miles 310 miles 133 miles per hour

Although the the League of Nations mandate held by Great Britain formally came to an end in 1932, a British military and political presence remained there throughout the 1930s.

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Day 11 Basra to Jask

4 June 1936

Dear Leslie, We do n't rhink much of the Persian G ulf. We've seen quite a lot of ir roday, bur ir does nor improve wirh further acquaintance. Sreamy hear rhe whole way, a horrid haze and a landscape righr our of D ante's Inferno. H aving received a reaso nable wearher report, we gor ro rhe aerod rome early and were away by 7 .15 a.m. More T igris, more palm trees and a lor mo re mud and sand until Abadan, o ne of rhe big depors of rhe Anglo-Persian O il Co. H ere we lefr rhe river and headed for rhe G ulf, passing over mi les of swampy land leading ro the esruary which presumably serves as the ourler ro the rwo rivers. We saw several sandsrorms on either side, bur suffi cienrly far away nor ro cause us worry. By rhe rime we connected with the G ulf a thick haze developed which has accompanied us all day. Navigation has now become a thing of the past and al l we have ro do is ro follow the coast. We've had one bay ro cross so fa r; a matter of forry mi les or so, which seemed a very long way but otherwise we've just scudded along the shore, which is grim ro a degree. For the most part there have been spiky little foo thills running down ro the sea with a chain of bigger stu ff behind. Vegetation has disappeared entirely. We made quite good time ro Bushi re thanks ro a grand rail wind and were over the aerodrome at 9.30 a.m. A most fri ghtening ground it is roo, not being roo level and being crossed by roads down the middle. Everybody was very pleasa nt ro us and this we had not expected ; the doubt may seem unkind bu t fro m past experience thi s is th e o nly place in Persia where we can po int to courtesy co upled with effi ciency. Off again at 10.16 a. m . bo und fo r Lingeh where we had ro get more petro l before fin ally aiming fo r

LETTERS TO LESLIE

Jask. We had the same jagged rocks all the way and blistering heat, and the few times we flew over land, the most appalling bumps. All in all we were very glad to come to the patch of sand which acts as Lingeh's aerodrome. This is about 5 or 6 miles outside the town and there are no officials actually on the site. To get petrol therefore you have to proceed to the town and do a couple of circuits to attract attention, after which you return to the field, land, and hope for the best. These manoeuvres we obeyed punctiliously and then settled down to what we thought would probably be a wait of half an hour. To pass the time we broached a tin of some form of meat extract and prepared for a frugal but filling lunch. One pellet was enough for me; but the tougher member of the party wallowed in them and pronounced them excellent. During this horrid meal we were visited by a couple of peasants and a donkey who sat down within a few yards and inspected us gravely and courteously, particularly the donkey. Of petrol purveyors, however, there was no sign and we began to remember sinister stories told by Hank, of other unfortunate wayfarers at this pestilential spot. Apparently, as subsequently turned out in our case, the cars used for transport from town to aerodrome are of such age that inanition is their usual state. It is apparently a fact that on one occasion, when the car had refused to play, as usual, the officials took to the sea in the local form of sailing boat. After many hours of fretful waiting, the stranded aviators noticed a boat, hove to, a short distance from the shore opposite the aerodrome, but apart from idle speculation as to its probable occupation thought little more about it. Eventually the boat sailed up to the shore and the officials marched on to the aerodrome apologizing for their tardiness with the excuse that they had been becalmed. The fact that they had a dinghy with them doesn't say much for their energy. By this time, of course, it was far too late to go on and so the party had to spend the night in what, from my own experience I can only think is one of the world's foulest plague spots. This bit of waiting was one of the most tedious I've ever known. Inside the cabin it was as hot as blazes and none too comfortable and outside it was just as hot but there was nowhere to sit that offered any hope of shade. And so we rotted

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and became increasingly bad-tempered until at long last a rickety car appeared in the distance. Police and petrol experts embarked on long explanations for the most unusual delay but we were too impatient to listen with any show of politeness. For one thing it was becoming a grave matter of doubt whether we should have enough light to get as far as Jask, and the only other alternative, Bandar Abbas, was said to be impracticable. We finally got away at 3.15 p.m. The direct course is over a hundred miles or so of sea but we, for obvious reasons, had to go the much longer way round the coast. Only one thing of note happened and that was when we sighted a large school of some sort of enormous fish. I rather thought they were whales, although in my abysmal ignorance I don't know whether whales are likely to be found in this locality. Marion has a theory that it was definitely a family of whales which had come to Persia for their summer holidays. You can imagine the kind of conversation that might ensue: Mr. Whale: Well, my dear, where shall we go this year? Mrs. Whale: I really don't know. Cape Town is so overdone nowadays since that Baleanoptera-Musculus family discovered it. Let's do Persia this year. It will set the children up for the winter. We duly passed over Bandar Abbas and I should think the report of its condition was not exaggerated at all. We now began to fight what seemed likely to be a losing battle against the light. We had a slight head wind and the sun was apparently loath to remain above the horizon. Sunset effects were aesthetically grand, but my only impression of the last half hour is one of acute apprehension. We had to cross about ten miles of water before getting to Jask aerodrome but managed this almost light-heartedly since we were within sight of home. We made the usual shocking landing, and were immediately surrounded by the Persian Army. Not unnaturally, as I think, I lit a cigarette and caused a totally unnecessary panic. In point of fact I was ordered away to the verge of the aerodrome at the point of the bayonet, and feelings at one point, started to run high. Doubtless I was too tired to be susceptible to reason. *

LETTERS TO LESLIE

The Shell representative here was an arrant old scoundrel. Refuelling equipment was as usual very efficient, but we noticed that he cooked the time needed for replenishing our tanks in the most brazen manner. He made it two and a half minutes, whereas twenty minutes was much closer. There are no hangars here so we had to leave Wild Oats to take its chance. It spent the night next to a Moth apparently piloted by one Stone, who is flying in the opposite direction. Formalities being finally concluded, we got a taxi to the Rest House which has little to recommend it. The linen is filthy, the beer is lukewarm and the steward looks terribly sinister. We have however had a much needed cold bath. We have, too, met Stone. As an instructor of the Bombay Flying Club, he apparently conducts pupils over to England once a year for purposes of navigational experience. It must be a terribly dull job. And so to bed. Tomorrow we should be in Karachi but we have had from Stone ominous reports of storms all the way there. This seems a silly way to spend a holiday.

*

The Goodwins were fortunate that they encountered only minor problems at Jask. Stories abounded of high-handed treatment of Westerners who landed there. For example, a Capt. Bremer, a Junkers pilot, found no one at the Jask airfield when he landed. "It was some time before a somewhat young customs officers made his appearance asking for my papers. I handed them to him .... The man disappeared and I stayed on to examine my machine and to get it into order. While waiting for the customs officers to return, I tried to purchase some fuel from the Shell representative, but learned that the Persian authorities had forbidden him to sell any till a doctor's examination had taken place. I had to wait three hours for the doctor, a scandalously long time, since the investigation was limited to a handshake of the worthy man and his greeting, 'How do you do?'" Ultimately he was held overnight, watched by the doctor, the head of customs, another customs official, an army officer, and the chief of police. He was not released until a message clarifying his status was sent from Berlin, via Helsingfors and Moscow to Teheran. Flight, 16 November 1933, p. 1155.

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Dull Details

Departure Basra 07.15 a.m. Bushire 10.16 a.m. Lingeh 15.18

Flying time to Jask Distance Basra-Bushire Bushire-Lingeh Lingeh-Jask

Total Average ground speed

Arrival Bushire Lingeh Jask 7 hours

09.30 a.m. 13.45 p.m. 17.42 51 minutes

233 miles 308 miles 265 miles 806 miles 102.8 miles per hour

Day 12 Jask to Karachi 5 June 1936

Dear Leslie, We've spent the entire day passing along the most horrid bit of coast I shall probably ever see in my life . Visibility has been practically non-existent all the time and we are greatly relieved ro finish the first half of the journey. At the moment the thought of returning the same way is q uite revolting. We got away at 6.30 and made for Gwadar about 285 miles away. We very soon ran into some heavy and steamy haze and had to come down velY close to the water to see anything at all. We were just about deciding to go back again when a reasonable clearing occurred and we could continue on our way, even if not rejoicing. During our brief visit to the sea level we saw vast quantities of enormous fish which were probably sharks and were glad to be able to go aloft again where they didn't look quite so menacing. * Most of the landmarks on the map were duly passed and identified but we never saw C harbar Bay at all. We did however go across a very large stretch of salty-looking sand and came to the conclusion that it must have been the bay altl10ugh completely dried up. Counttyside still a Gehenna, but there was quite a lot t11at was majestic in the natural architecture of some of the rocks. Flying buttresses and fluted columns abounded while occasionally visions of modern super cinemas easily came to the mind. And in between, small villages with a few weary-looking trees surrounded by groups of desolate mud huts. Life cannot be very pleasant business hereabo uts.

* Francis Chichester, flyin g along the same stretch of coast in 1929, had a sim ilar experience. The fish "looked so big I thought they were young whales, but was told they were only porpoises." Solo to Sydney. p. 11 4.

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We had a little difficulty in picking out Gwadar aerodrome which is on the base of a long headland some miles from the town which is on the sea end. We knew it was quite close to the Cathedral Rock, which was obvious enough; but the surrounding country all looked the same and the buildings turned out to be very inconspicuous. Boundary marks however were finally discovered and we landed on a level but exceedingly stony ground. Here we refuelled and received letters from Clyde announcing that he hoped to form a reception committee of one at Karachi. In case it interests you, and there is no reason why it should, Gwadar is a stopping-place of Imperial Airways and the only one they can use on the Persian GulE * Persia doesn't seem to like us or them, and although KLM and Air France land at Bushire and Jask, Imps have to go over the other side of the gulf to 5harjah and make an unpleasant sea crossing to Gwadar. 50 far we haven't seen another aeroplane the whole way down the gulf; in view of the prevalent lack of visibility we have probably been lucky. Weather reports gave consistently small visibility and low cloud over the hills just before you get to Karachi. We found however that by following the coast instead of going over the hills we should eventually come to a flat entrance although it meant a considerable detour. The crew were unanimous in adopting the latter method of approach. After taking off, the first thing we saw was the Cathedral Rock and very impressive it is too. Architectural description is not a strong point of mine so I'll send you a photo, maybe. It is certainly a noble pile. The usual spiteful mountains persisted on our left and the clouds got so low that we had to spend most of the time down among the sharks again. The map wasn't a great deal of use now so we just followed the breakers which had a hungry and eager look. After making our detour we caught sight of Karachi Harbour and began to zig-zag about to find the aerodrome which as usual is miles from the town. Having established contact we swooped down with bosoms swelling with pride and self-satisfaction at having completed our job; only to have the balloon of. conceit instantly pricked. First of all we couldn't move as the tail wheel had got jammed and so had to wait until we were manhandled away; and then, worst of all,

* See the Introduction pp. xiv-xv, for an explanation of the Imperial Airways route.

LETTERS TO LESLIE

we were told, politely but bitingly, that we had arrived at the military aerodrome which is always out-of-bounds. It appeared that the civil aerodrome was not more than a couple of miles further on although I'll swear it wasn't in sight from the air. And so, once again we had to take off and soon saw the vast hangar which was originally prepared for the RIO I. * Here the expedition's worst landing to date was made, probably through over anxiety to put up a "good show" before the reception committee. Clyde had managed to get there and had apparently viewed our previous performance at the military aerodrome with grave misgivings. He was extraordinarily useful in getting us through customs with the minimum of delay. With great pomp and ceremony we handed over the family mail bag and the bottle of beer presented by Charlie Betson. The former was still in good shape but the beer had suffered badly. We are staying at Stanyons Hotel and have bathed luxuriously. We have also been to the Karachi Boat Club of which we have been made honorary members during our stay. This is very pleasant indeed and we are already skilled in the art of calling a whiskey and soda a Chota, or preferably, Burra Peg. t Waiters too have become "Boys." And so to bed much surprised and relieved at our arrival and thankful to think that Wild Oats remains in its shed for the next week. We look forward keenly to a week of complete inertia. For a day or so, good-bye.

* For the fate of the RIOI, see the Introduction p .. xiii. t Chota Peg - a small whiskey; Burra Peg - a large one.

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Dull Details

Departure Jask 6.35 Gwadar 13.12 Karachi (military) 16.45

Flying time to Karachi Distance Jask-Gwadar Gwadar-Karachi (military) Karachi (military)-Karachi (civil)

Total Average ground speed

Anival Gwadar 09.25 Karachi (military) 16.20 Karachi (civil) 16.50 6 hours 3 minutes

285 340 3 628 104

miles miles miles miles miles per hour

Karachi

14 June 1936

Dear Lesl ie, This is a digest of a week exclusively devoted to accepting stupefYing hospitali ty, with the inevitable result that the thought of starting back tomortow is misery. We have been wantonly spoiled by all, and fallen into a torpor which abhors the idea of present energy. You won't be very interested in a bare recital of parties, so I'll pick out a few oddments for your inspection. I've been up to the aetodrome once or rwice to arrange for Wild Oats's overhaul , and seen Imps and KLM arriving and departing with impressive regularity. I've been shown the foundations of the proposed new buildings and duly inspected the entirely useless airship mast. But apart from these excursions, anything to do with aircraft has not been markedly courted. Most of the time we have spent down at the Boat C lub, very pleasantly waiting for Clyde to finish his day's labours. Here we have met many of Imp's seco nd officers and wasted large amounts of rupees on foul fruit machines. This operation has usually been conducted on a syndicate basis, and on one supreme occasion the jackpot actually fell out. O ne of the better moments was a bathe at 2 a. m. , after a dance, in water whose temperature would not have disgraced the usual morning bath at ho me. There has, toO, been a regatta and one of my pleasantest recollections is of C lyde swimming a quarter-mile race, against a current that was very strong indeed; he even won it after swimming an astonishing long time, but only because the other three competitors made a retrogressive progress and finished the wrong side of the starting line. O n another occasion we went to dine with people called Columbine. We had of course brought no evening clothes, so Marion went in a quite orthodox, though borrowed dtess, while I was

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draped in various component parts supplied by three different men. I even wore what I believe is called a cummerbund. The difficulty has been to return hospitality so profusely lavished, but we were allowed to give one dinner party at the club, at the end of which, we were gratified to see a respectable bank manager and an air traffic officer performing a human wheel around the deck, not it is true very efficiently but with great determination and enthusiasm. . We have been to a cinema three times, on one occasion seeing the incomparable Claudette Colbert, and on another Chaplin in Modern Times. Cinemas in Karachi are a very dressy affair and dinner jackets, at least, apparently de rigeur. We were not able to uphold this particular tradition of the British Raj. It has been far too hot to do much walking round the city, and so most of what we have seen has been swift glimpses from a taxi on the way to or from the river, or during excursions to shops to replenish our scant library. On the whole I imagine, and am told by those who should know, that it is dull in the extreme as a station. Our personal memories, however, are more than pleasant. It has been very windy all the week and what is worse, blowing consistently from the direction we take tomorrow. We look like having a slow journey at least as far as Baghdad. It is a horrid hot wind and Wild Oats's cabin is likely to be more than ever a fiery furnace. No more for the moment. We are due for breakfast at 4.30 a.m. and hope to take off as near 6 a.m. as possible. We aim to have a leisurely cruise back particularly after we get into Europe, where odd days here and there will be spent in "doing the sights." If money holds out we should be at Croydon round about June 27th. Don't fail to read tomorrow's further thrilling installment. Details These refer mainly to bar accounts and are omitted for obvious reasons.

Part II Karachi to Croydon

Day 1 Karachi to Jask 15 June 1936

Dear Leslie, Back again at the plague spot Jask. We were escorted ro the aerodrome by Clyde and wem through the ghastly business of loading, once more. A presentation bottle of whisky received very careful attemion since we knew the kind of landing I was li kely ro make at Gwadar. Weather reports still confirmed a strongish wind in our faces with low cloud over hills. We had therefore ro follow our inward course round the coast, with every prospect of taking a long time on the first stretch. Still we couldn't very well require 5 hours, which is roughly the limit we can coum on. In the telling, the srory of the trip is dull indeed . Suffice it ro say that the heat was beastly, the visibility lousy and the coumry as we last saw it. We rook nearly four hours ro get ro Gwadar and were dripping wet when we gor there. An admirable breakfast awaited us and being in no particular hurry we lazed in deck chairs for so me time afterwards. W hile doing this we saw Imp's H anna come in easrward-bo und, and an RAF Vickers Vicroria troop-carrier taking off on the unenviable crossi ng ro Sharjah, having arrived from the comparative Mecca of Karachi .* We fin ally got away at 11.30 a.m . and pounded slowly down the same monoronous coast, sweating and bumping in the most abandoned manner. We could see much further this time and the wind died down considerably so that Jask appeared after nor much more than 3 hours. * Hanna was yet another of Imperial's HP42s. The Vickers Victoria was the troop-carrying variant of the V ickers V irginia. a medium bomber. It carried 23 men and a crew of 2.

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At the aerodrome the same vultures awaited us, with bayonets still well in evidence. We were charged the equivalent of 35 shillings as a landing fee and had to ask Shell to pay it as rupees are frowned on for some reason. Refuelling turned out to be the same ramp and the petrol crew once more credited themselves with a quite impossibly fine performance. This time we were allowed to have chairs during these operations and mine was placed a significant distance away from everybody, presumably in case I wanted to smoke. At the rest house we met the pilot of the Maharajah of Kashmir, whose Dragonfly we had seen at the aerodrome. * The Dragonfly was the most terrific affair, with cocktail cabinets and other luxuries in profusion. Apparently the pilot's chief job is to fly to England at least once a year to acquire yet another new aeroplane. We heard harrowing stories of flying conditions in Kashmir and almost became reconciled to the Persian Gul£ After the most frightful meal we walked along the coast for an hour and found that a closer acquaintance made it no less unattractive. We went to bed early with a warning that Lingeh, our next halt for petrol, is subject to morning mists up to the middle of the morning. We've got to start early to make sure of getting to Basra so we 'must risk it.

* The Dragonfly was a de Havilland design (DH90), a scaled down version of the Dragon Rapide, and sold by the company as a five-seat luxury tourer. It was of monocoque construction, with struts and braces eliminated; in sum, a smooth looking twin-engined high wing monoplane. In 1937 two Dragonflys were registered to Indian Maharajahs, #7450 to the Maharajah of Mazurbhatj, and #7545 to the Maharajah of Indore. Presumably, therefore, the Maharajah of Kashmir had changed brands in 1937.

LETTERS TO LESLIE

Details

Departure Karachi 06.24 Gwadar 11.46 Flying time to Jask Distance Karachi-Gwadar Gwadar-Jask Total Average ground speed

Arrival Gwadar 10.12 Jask 14.41 6 hours 43 minutes 330 miles 285 miles 615 miles 91.1 miles per hour

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Day 2 Jask to Lingeh 16 June 1936

Dear Leslie, A few lines while we wait hopelessly for petrol to arrive. After a good early start, and better conditions than we've had as yet, we have been greeted by the same infuriating delay at Li ngeh, and accordingly like Persia even less than befo re. We were away at 5.30 a.m. and made quite good progress round the Straits of Hormuz with a wi nd that varied from head ro beam. V isibility was consistently excellent until about 10 miles from Lingeh where we ran into the promised early morn ing mists. However it wasn't bad enough ro keep us away for very lo ng and after a quarter hour or so we were able ro observe the rite of circling to indicate our needs. T his time of course we hadn't had much hope of punctual service, which is just as well since we've been here nearly two hours already. We had one bit of excitement when landi ng; I suddenly noticed that we seemed ro be approach ing the ground at an enormous speed and discovered that the wind had changed completely round . So we had to go up again and start all over again. T hese petrol people really are hell. A car, presumably containing them, has just appeared in the distance about two miles away and making very heavy weather of it too. In the meantime we have gOt down ro the iro n rations again and they have turned ou t ro be as dull as ever. We are now being refuelled, and have heard the san1e Lies about the sudden breakdown of the only car. We have also been rel ieved of 35 shillings landing fee. All in all one cannot help thinking that stray aeroplanes are far from welcome in Persia. And now they've fini shed, and so have I, until the srory is taken up again at, we hope, Basra.

Day 2 Forced Landing Somewhere in Persia 16 June 1936

Dear Leslie, Well we're not in Basra, but more than usually in the soup. Indeed but for a lot of luck it is doubtful when we ever should have seen it again for it is a very long walk. As it is we have mi ld hopes of not completing the journey on foot. And this is the trouble. Soon after leaving Lingeh we came in touch with a wind which seemed to have collected most of the heat in the Gulf. This gradually increased in strength and heat until Wild Oats was fast becoming unmanageable and the crew's stomachs felt far ftom healthy. I've never been in such bumps before and am qu ite sure I don't want to agai n. The last straw came when we were JUSt about a hundred miles ftom Bushire and saw a few miles away a vast sandstorm which spread well out to sea and went up to H eaven knows what height. It was the most horrid sight; a great yellow blanket across the sky coming towards us at the most alarming speed. Now the coast hereabouts is far from favourab le to forced landings since the hills mostly run straight down into the sea. and stretches of flat sand are few and far berween. We had the great luck of having passed such a flat. so me miles beh ind; particularly, as Lingeh was unpleasantly far away. And so with the fear of several kinds of unpleasant death in our hearts we made for th is haven with Wild Oats bucketing about in the fi lthiest manner. I doubt if I've ever been so frightened in my life especially as the wings seem to be waving up and down from their point of con tact with the body. After many weary and timid flights up and down the stretch of sand to find the most level approach we had. in the end, very reluctan tly. to chance it, hoping fervently that the sand was hard and not soft. Fortunately it was hard, for with another change of wind as we gOt near the

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ground we touched down at well over 100 m.p.h. rocking allover the place and with each wing in turn doing its best to scrape up the sand. We did stop finally but were no longer pointing in anywhere near the same direction. For a long time after we had stopped, we sat silent while more than heat-caused sweat dripped off in profusion. Gratitude to a beneficent Providence was predominant in our hearts. Very soon afterwards the sandstorm arrived and breathing became an unpleasant business; the landscape, too, just disappeared, obliterated by a whirling mass of yellow dust. So far as we had seen from above, there were no signs of a village anywhere and we were not quite clear where we were; not that it mattered a great deal since presumably the storm must blow itself out sooner or later. But the matter of thirst was becoming acute and one taste of hot whisky was one too many. As so often happens after accidents in lonely parts of the country people began to appear from sandhills and other retreats. These soon turned out to be Persian soldiers and we have since discovered that they form a small detachment presumably with coastguard duties, since there can be precious little to protect. After much pantomimics and pointing, we gathered that they suggested an adjournment to a hut which we now noticed for the first time about 600 yards away. The journey there was one I hope, sometime, to forget. At the moment it is still very present in our minds. 600 yards doesn't sound a long way, but in the heat and sand we only just about made it, and Marion nearly passed out half-way over. * With their very limited resources, the soldiers were hospitality itself and immediately produced an enormous pitcher of water. We buried our faces in the trough for an indecently long time with no thought of whether the water was pure or not. Apparently it was for we are still as hale as this infernal sand will allow. A sense of duty returned in time, and I steered an unsteady course back to Wild Oats

* Marion Goodwin subsequendy added the following note: "I was resuscitated by a bucket of water poured over my head when 1 finally staggered in, some way behind Fred & the soldiers who all seemed remarkably indifferent, 1 thought. M.G.»

LETTERS TO LESLIE

to rescue maps, papers, and the whisky. I was even foolish enough to try the last part of the stores again, but it had got so hot that I was at once horribly sick. And there is no doubt that it served me right. The chief anxiety now was to keep Wild Oats from being blown away. The , gale was so strong that it was quite impossible to fold the wings and it is a regrettable and reprehensible fact, that our beautiful stores do not contain pickets. All I've been able to do, therefore, is to go out periodically and be sure that we're keeping well into wind. This at the moment shows no sign of abating and it is at any rate far too late to get to Bushire even if complete calm suddenly fell. If we get blown away during the night, God knows what will happen, for I imagine the nearest mechanics and spares must be at least as far away as Bushire, and I wouldn't bet that there are any there. The alternative seems to be a not too enjoyable walk with a vague hope of getting a lift in one of the very infrequent lorries which apparently run along the coast. Such gloomy prospects promote prayer. This really is the oddest settlement. So far as we can gather at the moment, there are about five soldiers with an adequate number of wives and far too many children. There are a few mud huts around the official building where we are lodged, and a few scrawny chickens scratch optimistically for the very few scraps. Everybody has been in to inspect us, this inspection being conducted in complete and embarrassing silence save on the part of the nurslings. Attempts at conversation have been made but so far no common basis has been discovered. We have been identified as British by pointing to the RAF badge on a chart hanging on the office wall but histrionic performance has not been good enough to ascertain where we are. Our maps mean nothing to our hosts and we can only think from our own studies, that our provisional headquarters is a stretch of sand called Urn el Karam. This puts us, as I have said, at roughly 100 miles from Bushire and although, apart from a matter of interest, the identification, if true, means little. The gale still shows no sign of departure and we are lying on rugs on the roof, swallowing quantities of sand with the unalterable fact that the dawn is another 7 hours away. A special chicken was killed for us and cooked in a manner quite

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unique. Still we were very grateful for the kindly thought, although most of our generous portions went over the side of the wall. With luck we should get away· at 5 a.m~ or earlier. We are rather wondering what, if anything, Bushire is making of our non-appearance, since I imagine Jask have advised them, as usual, of our scheduled arrival. However we can do nothing about it, since neither telephone nor telegraph are available.

Details

Departure Jask 05.49 Urn el Karam? Flying time to Um el Karam Distance Jask-Lingeh Lingeh-Um el Karam

Total Average ground speed

Arrival Lingeh 08.37 13.15 4 hours 58 minutes 265 200 465 93

miles miles miles miles per hour

Day 3 To Basra

17 June 1936

Dear Leslie, Thank God we're out of Persia at last. True it has only been three days but a lifetime seems nearer the mark. The night was perfectly foul; the gale kept up until quite 4 o'clock and sand blew OntO our roof all the time. W hy it was evet suggested that we try ro sleep there will always remain a mystery. The roof was eventually shared with sundry soldiety all of whom slept robustly. We scarcely slept at all , especially after being awakened from a light snooze by bloodcurdling yells accompanied by the cracking of a whip. Apparently one husband and wife were nOt seeing eye ro eye on some matter of domestic routine. For quite an hour, too, we were constantly disturbed by an over-zealous samaritan who continually brought us cups of very sweet tea. Pantomime was nOt any good to him and despite voluble protests on our part, in every possible combination of gesture, tea continued to arrive until, presumably, he fell asleep from excess of ministration. At 4 o'clock, ti,e wind died down a li ttle and dawn began to break. One anxious glance showed that Wild Oats had ridden out the storm although it was covered with sand. When we arrived there, we found that fWO soldiers had been left on guard all night, or maybe had chosen the scan t shelter of the wings for their night's bivouac. W hatever the reason, their influence had been good for I was very surprised to see Wild Oats in tact. A good deal of prel iminaty walking over the ground was necessary first, in order ro find our the best "take off." It all seemed rather soft and lumpy in the early morning light. By heading across wind, however, we marked our a reasonable stretch, and, after much handshaking and shouting from the entire settlement we lurched unsteadily into the air.

/

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. Apart from a strongish head wind, things were much better now and we even felt pleasantly cool. It was a long time before Bushire hove into sight but when it did we welcomed it as an oasis. Persia had one last dig at us here, for on landing we promptly nearly capsized, at first quite inexplicably. Wings again sought to establish contact with the sand and alarming manoeuvres were made by the tail wheel. On further investigation we discovered the port side tyre was punctured and flat, but whether this happened taking off from the village, or whether we collected it landing at Bushire I haven't the slightest idea. Doubtless the matter is one of academic interest only. Officials greeted us next, surprised at our non-appearance yesterday. They had had the advice from Jask, and gratifyingly alarmed when we didn't arrive had exchanged further telegrams. But Jask had of course lost all track of us and could make no suggestion. After clearing customs once more we were taken to the town which so far as could be seen had nothing to recommend it whatsoever. The hotel itself was pleasant enough for a passing breakfast but the whole place scarcely suggested a pleasure resort, being the usual conglomeration of decrepit huts. At least it did in that part into which we personally penetrated. The same mechanic who was performing on the tyre at length came to fetch us back to the aerodrome and he had obviously suffered much during the operation. The important fact was, though, that he had succeeded and so we took off from Persia for the last time. And this very gratefully, with the sole reservation that in Bushire we met with the maximum of helpfulness and no small measure of efficiency. . By this time (9 a.m.) of course it was considerably hotter and the further we got the bumpier it became; especially after the Gulf fell behind and the desert took its place. Nothing of much note happened before Basra save a few qualms when more sandstorms were sighted, although we had no difficulty in flying round them. After doing this a few times we managed to lose ourselves for a while and met strange railways that had no business to be there at all. However, by a little judicious snooping we finally found the Tigris and then Abadan, after which we only had to follow the date palms home.

LETTERS TO LESLIE

The time to Basra had been three hours but it was still only midday which left us plenty of time to reach Baghdad before dusk. But the flesh was weak and a unanimous decision to remain overnight at Basra was carried. The Chief Pon Officer was again grand to us and solved one major worry by arranging for a cheque to be changed at the rest-house. Here we stayed once more and after a meal of gross proportions, passed out for the rest of the afternoon. In the cool of the evening we had quite a pleasant stroll up to Roney's bungalow, and since he was out, left a message for him to come and share whatever the rest-house had to offer. He duly appeared later and we fed romantically on the roof; or that it would have been romantic but for the mosquitoes. The crew are once more restored to bodily health and propose to proceed to Baghdad early tomorrow. Present reports hint at head winds up to 15 m.p.h. and our average will therefore suffer accordingly.

Details

Departure Urn el Karam 05.18 Bushire

09.00

Flying time to Basra Distance Urn el Karam-Bushire Bushire-Basra

Total Average ground speed

Arrival Bushire 06.36 Basra 12.00 4 hours 18 minutes 120 miles 246 miles 366 miles 84.5 miles per hour

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Day 4 Basra to Baghdad 18 June 1936

Dear Leslie, We woke up ro the usual brilliantly sunny day, but d idn't get off as early as hoped, as the weather report was a bit late in comi ng through. When it did it merely confirmed the one given me yesterday. Off therefore at 6.30 a.m. with three hundred miles of T igris ro follow. We flew at only a few hundred feet over the desert ro escape as much wind as possible, but after an hour when it was discovered that Wild Oats had advanced a paltry 60 miles we came ro ti,e conclusio n that ti,e report hadn't been worth the wait. The next ho ur, despi te increasing bumps, we rushed along, comparatively speaking, at 80 miles per hour but thereafter this dropped again and abo ut 75 was all we could manage. It rea lly was the most wretched journey, and not at all helped by disturbing doubts as ro the petrol supply. The last hou r helped a bit and so after over four hours we landed, very nearly rolling into a d itch which wasn't very clearly marked. We intended ro srop here for the day, chiefly ro have another overhaul , and this was eventually done by two engineers who came over from the RAF aerodrome at Hinaid i.* Their services we owed more or less entirely ro the good offices of a bloke in the IAOe who spent much time on th e telephone negotiating with the e.0. of the aerodrome. Leith Ross, for such is the name of our samaritan , even drove me over ro Hinaidi ro clinch arrangements. On the way we passed through the more modern part of Baghdad and were agreeably surprised ro find , nor only praiseworthy atremprs at grass-growing, but even ditches lined with flowering shrubs. I don't know their name but their colour was quite exotic. The bungalows roo were very pleasant and at least up ro Karachi standard . * At this time the RAF maintained rwo squadrons at Hinaidi.

LETTERS TO LESLIE

Back through the appalling smells of Baghdad to the comforts of the aerodrome pub and the usual afternoon siesta. At 4 o'clock we were called for by the indefatigable Leith Ross who had arranged a picnic tea some miles down the banks of the Euphrates. On the way, we were duly taken to the Arch of Ctesiphon* and beset by hordes of beggars and would-be guides. A long time was needed to get rid of these and settle down to a more private inspection. There is very little of the old building left now but the arch itsel£ This must be at least 100 feet high, probably more, and seems to be formed without anything like a keystone. A small boy was running about the top of the roof, apparently for our entertainment and in the hope of reward. He got it, for the climb is a considerable effort. Other sights round here are old Turkish trenches and the arch itself bears plenty of marks of bullets. Or at least so I was told. They might equally be the effects of time. Plunging through rapidly increasing armies of beggars we made for the river and fared regally at Leith Ross's expense. An incredible sunset rounded off the meal and delayed the return to the aerodrome considerably. A mass arrival of liners (KLM, Air France, and Imp's Hanno) occurred just before we turned in; the latter homeward-bound from Basra and very late indeed. For the first time we have seen night landings for which Baghdad is admirably equipped. Off tomorrow at the crack of dawn. Details

Departure Basra 06.30

Flying time to Baghdad Distance Basra-Baghdad

Total Average ground speed

Anival Baghdad 10.47 4 hours 17 minutes 310 miles 310 miles 74.6 miles per hour

* Ctesiphon was the summer capital of the Parthian kings, and after 226 A.D. became the capital of the Sassanid dynasty, the last native rulers of Persia. The Arch of Ctesiphon is more properly the Arch of Chosroes or Khosru, one of the Sassanid kings. Ctesiphon fell to the Arabs in 636.

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Day 5 Baghdad to Aleppo 19 June 1936

Dear Leslie, I've made the most frightful muck of things roday and we are completely stym ied for at least twO days. One would have thought that one lesson was enough for anyone, but then I am no ordinary man. And now you must contain yourself until the climax of the srory is unfolded. For the first time Wild Oats roday beat the sun in starting, not it is true by much, but we were inspited by Hanna's example. Ir gave quite a thrill ro prepare for the start with lights still switched on aU over the aerodrome. Up as far as Deir e:z Zor we had as pleasant a ttip as you would wish. Really cool and with perfectly asronishing visibili ty. Indeed, although on a divergent course we kept Hanna in sight for more than half an hour, by which time she must have been well over 50 miles away. Probably through roo much interest in Hanna we missed both Fellujall and Ramadi bur could not very well miss the Euphrates for lo ng. Still a fa ir head wind and so we went along not very far over the dunes; even so making a rather poor ground speed. There are quite a number of landing grounds along the ro ute, used by the French Air Force; bur I gather that petrol and oil are not ro be had without very special arrangement. After 3 112 hours Deir Ez Zor appeared and, mindful of the last ghastly landing there, made a precisely similar one; a horrid sickening drop and much conseq uent bumping. "Puss" undercarriages certai nly can take it. We found the

* France's League of Nations mandate in Syria had supposedly expired in 1932, but does not seem to have affected either the French military or bureaucracy.

LETTERS TO LESLIE

same lavish hospitality on the part of the commanding officer and the same infuriating dilatoriness on the part of the Civil Customs. The latter was largely discounted by breakfast in the officers' mess, the members of which vied with each other in inventing opprobrious epithets for the ways and habits of all civil institutions, particularly Customs. After leaving Deir Ez Zor bumps began again as heat started to work up to its usual midday form. The peace of the early morning was exchanged for less pleasant lurchings, which could hardly be avoided by going up higher, since the wind continually freshened; or rather became stronger, for there was precious little freshness. The only time that navigational efficiency was necessary was when we had to leave the Euphrates at Meskene and set out over the desert for Aleppo, a mere 50 miles away. Our trouble was that we couldn't recognize Meskene, especially as the aerodrome was not to be seen. We did skirmish round for a quarter of an hour but being none the wiser for the reconnaissance, finally headed towards a large lake which seemed slightly familiar. A policy of zig-zagging proved quite fruitless until the quick-witted member of the crew managed to identify as a main road, what the dullard had imagined to be a ditch. Aleppo then soon appeared and a landing was carried out, this time on the carefully prepared runway. Blithely we taxied up to the hangars, relishing the prospect of lunch and beer. Happily we reviewed the desen crossing in retrospect and found Aleppo good. And then we arrived at the spot where a reception committee of military and customs officials awaited us, and our bubble was at once exploded. Congratulations on an intrepid flight were not forthcoming; far from it. The first words indeed were to the effect that the sooner we started back to Deir Ez Zor the better for us and everybody. The very thought was enough to make us blench and at first we mistrusted our slight knowledge of French, and hoped we had misunderstood. Eventually the dismal story was unfolded. It appears that I had left both carnet and passports behind at Deir Ez Zor. The humiliation is intense but the fact unalterable. After much hectic negotiation it was finally decided that as I could not very well escape, I should be allowed to stay in Aleppo until such time as the documents could come along by the

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not-too-frequent lorries, or at best by an aeroplane calling here. I know it sounds horribly lazy not to have gone back at once, and we may bitterly regret this sometime, but at the moment the thought was absolutely intolerable. For us, the desert has not one iota of romantic appeal. I imagine it will take at least three days before we get away again and so our knowledge of Aleppo should be considerable by that time. With the present troubles more or less satisfactorily settled, we went into the town by one of the more advanced forms of American taxi and are staying at the Hotel Baron, which is replete with most forms of modern convenience. It is indeed very comfortable and a welcome haven from the town which we have tentatively inspected. This inspection consisted of a short walk before dinner but finding the local smell to be at least the equal of Baghdad, we gave up an unequal struggle after no more than half a mile and took preliminary refuge in a cafe near the hotel, where the most excellent ices are obtainable; after which a permanent retreat was beaten to the Baron where we are likely to remain until the vital papers arrive. In the reading room we came across a copy of Flight and found quite by accident a paragraph entitled "Goodwins' good show" and announcing our safe arrival in Karachi. This was mos.t surprising and most gratifying. We once again felt important, despite the monstrous breakdown in the staff work. I suppose one's first appearance in the papers is always exciting. A further bulletin will be forthcoming as soon as it seems likely that departure is imminent. With luck this should be in two days and be written from Istanbul but I doubt it somehow.

LETTERS TO LESLIE

Details

Departure Baghdad 04.42 Deir Ez Zor 09.36

Flying time to Aleppo Distance Baghdad-Deir Ez Zor Deir Ez Zor-Aleppo

Total Average ground speed

Arrival Deir Ez Zor 08.15 Aleppo 11.42 5 hours 39 minutes 307 miles 184 miles 491 miles 86.75 miles per hour

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.~

Aleppo 22 June 1936

-- ... Dear Leslie, Three days since I last wrote and we're still here. A furth er unexpected setback (for once nOt ou r fau lt) occurred today, otherwise we should have got at least to Adana. In view of our past memories of that pestilential town, however, this delay may definitely be a blessing. Smell for smell , I suppose there is nOt much to choose between the two towns, but Aleppo is larger and its smells can be spread out over a larger area, and there is no question as to the relative merits of the hotels. The Baron has done us very well and but for the delay which will undo ubtedly rob us of the promised stops in Wien, Buda Pest, etc., we have sojourned pleasantly and fared wel l. We have found yet another samaritan, by name Maxlownian, who we rather gather is the owner of the pub. H e is, I believe, an Armenian and has spent many years in England, and speaks English of purity fur beyond me. It seems too tim he took his ''A'' licence at Heston. As days have gone by without a sign of ti,e passport he has been indefatigabl e in ringing up every combination of embassy and military authority; it is true without much success, but the matter has not been allowed to stagnate. By ourselves we should have been completely helpless. His library too has been a godsend since Aleppo is definitely no good at bookshops, at least not in any language that is avai lable to us. There is nothing to say of our enforced stay here. Walks have been attempted but the stench really has been toO much. A taxi-ride round the town has left merely an impression of deserted cemeteries on ti,e outskirtS, whi le the centre of the town is much the same as any other eastern town of reasonable size. Same

LETTERS TO LESLIE

cinemas, same shops, same cafes in profusion and same shrieking trams. The native quarter is just as ramshackle, and pervading all, is the same offence to the nostrils due to inefficient sewerage. To stay at home quietly with books has been far more attractive. Shortly after lunch today news came through that the papers had arrived, and subsequent investigation proved that they had in fact come through on Sunday morning, having since lain forgotten in the military post office. Suitable curses were not hard to invent for the future of those responsible for the neglect. At any rate, as soon as the news was brought, we paid bills and hurtled off to the aerodrome hoping to get as far as Adana. Even this hope was soon quashed since, immediately Wild Oats was wheeled out it was apparent that we had collected another puncture; and there is no need for you to say that I should have gone to inspect before during our excessive leisure of the last few days, because I know it. The time estimated by the mechanics available on the spot for repair and fitting, meant that we should have little time to spare to get to Adana in anything like comfort, so, after extracting faithful promises that everything wi~ be in order by 4 o'clock tomorrow, we beat our usual retreat, and duly arrived once more at the Baron. No one seemed very surprised to see us again. We at least have the consolation of knowing that we shall spend a far more comfortable night than if we had actually been able to advance. Tomorrow we have the foul prospect of a day in Turkey with an enforced landing at Adana for customs, another advisable at Konia for petrol, and a final objective in Istanbul as "good pull up for man and beast." We confidently expect something quite absurd to happen tomorrow.

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Day 6 Adana to Istanbul

23 June 1936

Dear Leslie, We're back again in Europe, although only after a bitter Struggle, not so much with the elements as with Turkish officialdom and certain errors of omission, due I fear to the usually infallible ''A.A.'' [Automobile Association] . Owing to a misunderstanding with the Shell people we were not away until 5.15, having cooled our heels at the aerodrome for close on an hour. We had brilliant weather as far as the mountains which separate the desert ftom the Mediterranean, and crossed the latter near a large lake, El Bahra, at a height variously given as 4000 feet by the map and 7000 feet by the altimeter. On the other side of the hills we found impressive rain clouds underneath us but they had the decency to be reasonably broken. Accordingly we plunged an unsteady way downwards and through them and arrived over Alexandretta in a m ild cloudburst. The part of the country seems to specialize in such phenomena as we had the same thing on the outward trip. Dodging about lost us a fair amo unt of time and we didn't get into Adana until 6.30. Here the usual assortment of military and civil blokes awaited us, rather aggrieved that we were so late. We had a great shock here on arriving, for as Wild Oats was preparing for its final glide, we caught sight of masses of Turkish infantry apparently taking up strategic positions round the landing ground. Possible misdemeanours came to mind and we were far from confident as we taxied up to the small shed which acts as control bui lding. Fortunately the military were quite indifferent to our arrival which is more than can be said for the police, as soon as they had had one look at the passports. All the visas are of co urse written in the language of the country of origin, and therefore, save for

LETTERS TO LESLIE

two exceptions are so much indecipherable calligraphy. It appeared that the A.A., in providing visas, have done all they can do to get us -into the country, and out again on one occasion only, and have omitted to do anything about getting us back again. We were therefore ever so politely, but very firmly, steered into a waiting taxi and haled off to the town to the police headquarters. A special dispensation allowed us to stop first at the horrible hotel for a much-needed cup of coffee. This light breakfast over, we all proceeded to the local gaol prepared for the worst. In all it took just about 3 hours to sort out the trouble and telephones and telegraph were busily employed. While these negotiations were pending, we had perforce to sit in the Superintendent's office on extremely hard chairs, but being very kindly treated withal. The sweetest of sweet tea was lavished on us although we were obviously an encumbrance in the official machine. Towards the end of the vigil we were allowed out on a visit to the bank to negotiate some travellers' cheques as money was running very low. The rather pleased smile of acquiescence which greeted our request to perform this necessary business might have warned us of their avaricious anticipations, although we were certainly not ready for the shock when it came. In point of fact the cost of the visas, with the accompanying penalties, came to roughly £4, which seems more than enough for the doubtful privilege of flying over singularly unpleasant country. During these excursions we saw a lot more of Adana and our dislike increased in proportion as our acquaintance grew. You may say that the delay was again our own fault, but I hardly think that our preparations could be expected to include a working knowledge of all the languages we were likely to encounter. We took off again at 9.15 and after climbing through broken cloud got very pleasant views of the sea and mountains, a lot of the latter being still snow-clad. Nothing frightening happened on this crossing of those perfectly.beastly peaks and Konia was reached without a single ganglion quivering. A little more than an hour was necessary here to get through all formalities and we were off for Istanbul via ARum and Eskisheir at 12.45. Most of the way it was more than pleasantly bumpy but otherwise we had little to grumble at until

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shortly before Adabazar when storms started to collect on either side. To miss these we had to make sundry detours and so saw more of Turkey than we might otherwise have done. I should like to do this stretch by train sometime, just to see if it looks as inhospitable as it does from above. Snooping through these valleys is not my idea of fun. We left the mountains at Adabazar with only the plain to go over, to get to Shile and finally Istanbul. Storms come up with alarming suddenness, although they were easy to dodge up as far as the Black Sea. Thereafter we had to go through them with a visibility of next to nothing. A small slit of water was identified with some confidence as being the Bosporus. Knowing that Istanbul is just across the water I immediately headed west, expecting to see minarets within a matter of seconds; I should probably still be heading in that direction, if Marion hadn't calmly pointed out that I was at that moment proceeding on a steady course down the middle of the Sea of Marmora. Sympathizing with this entirely justifiable stricture, Wild Oats more or less of its own accord turned to the right direction and we all arrived over the aerodrome at Ye§ilkoy in the middle of a squall that really seemed to be trying to show how things could be done in Turkey. It is as well that the landing was blotted out by the rain. We didn't actually hit anything save the ground, cind that, with even unusual vigour; but we missed every kind of obstruction from haycocks to tractors in a manner most upsetting to all parties concerned. Wild Oats was finally and safely stowed away in a hangar with various military aircraft; an' extremely dirty object with great festoons of hay, poppies and other crops hanging all over it. While being inexorably examined by Customs, we met the crew of a "Leopard" outward-bound to Kenya. * They were able to tell us that a perfectly good hotel existed in Ye§ilkoy itself, which was no more than a few hundred yards from the aerodrome. Here, then, we have all moved in the oddest kind of horse-driven cab.

* The Leopard was another variant of the DH Moth, but a larger version. It had an unhappy history, being subjected to serious structural damage.

LETTERS TO LESLIE

Very comfortable it is too, although a patient search has not yet revealed the location of the bath. There is however a bar of more than usual excellence, and this modern convenience, at least, has been thoroughly tested. The pub is on the shore of the Marmora and as the rain has stopped the prospect is quite magnificent. If you take a map you can probably guess the rest. Tomorrow we hope to be in Buda Pest although we have, first, to cross the Serbian Hills, that were our Waterloo before.

Details

Departure Aleppo 05.10 Adana 9.16 Konia 12.46

Flying time to Istanbul Distance Aleppo-Adana Adana-Konia Konia-Istanbul

Total Average ground speed

Arrival Adana 06.50 Konia 11.25 Istanbul 16.42 7 hours 45 minutes 148 miles 223 Miles 365 miles 736 miles 94.97 miles per hour

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Day 7 Istanbul to Budapest

24 June 1936

Dear Leslie, I can foresee one major snag developing fast. The camet having had pages ripped off it continually for some weeks, is now quite exhausted and only the old stubs remain. What the procedure is, I haven't the slightest idea, but to wait for a new one to be sen t from England is out of the question, not o nly from the point of view of time, but far more serious, from that of fast-diminishing funds. The latter are getting low indeed, but with care we can just about manage to struggle home so long as no further delays occur. If anything does happen, it will require all the magic of the Shell Cam et to keep us from a debror's prison. Turkey let us go reluctantly. This was chiefly due to th e police at Adana, who, in providing us with "exit papers" from that horrid dump, had failed to provide us with any means whatever ofl eaving Istanbul, which they should, apparently, have done. Further delay therefore was incurred , while the crew's photographs were taken, to be added subseq uen tly to what appeared to be a "rogues' gallery" on the wall of the superintendent's office. And there, so far as I know, we may hang indefinitely.' , Fred Goodwin was not alone in complaining about Turkish bureaucracy. Flight published a number of letters in the early 1930s from aggrieved pilots, one of whom wrote, "Repeatedly the Turkish authorities have been asked ro issue a written permit showing that the bearer has permission to fly over Turkey. They refuse on the grounds that the permit is unnecessary; when permission for a fl ight over Turkey has been given every man, woman and child along the route to be flown has been told the name and address of the pilot and passengers and the manufacturer's number on each engine." Flight, 27 April 1933, p. 403.

LETTERS TO LESLIE

While this piece of tediousness was going on, the "Leopard" got hold of the petrol people first, and so made a smart getaway. While dismally waiting for our turn, we had an opportunity of looking over a couple of "Dragons" which are apparently being flown over to the military aerodrome at Eskisheir for the Turkish Air Force. No terrors have smitten us today, and, but for indifferent visibility, we have paddled on happily enough. The Marmora was at its bluest and it was a pity to turn off toward dull country leading to Edirne. We weren't really very clever on this stretch and found it far more by luck than any kind of judgment. After this however the perfectly splendid "Orient" took us in charge and led us unwaveringly to Sofija. Quite a lot of the higher peaks were snow covered, and I cannot remember snow being there on the outward trip. Aesthetic enjoyment was possible since we hadn't to go over any of them. Weather reports were not obtainable at Sofija for some reason or other; probably the telephone wires were down; and so we decided to go and inspect for ourselves. The Dragoman Pass presents no difficulties westward-bound, but the sky had a malevolent look further on towards our old friend Nish. Getting as high as the top layer of clouds would allow us, we just scraped over the last few peaks in a blinding rainstorm and thankfully descended at once to lower and warmer altitudes as Nish came into sight. The weather got decidedly better after leaving Nish, and we had nothing to do but follow an admirable river until such time as the railway took on the job as escort again. We landed at Beograd for lunch, and while you imagine us enjoying that, I can tell you of another piece of infuriation that befell at Sofija, which I have forgotten to relate. Our visas, once again, turned out to be "one way" only, and so we had no right to be in Bulgaria at all. The whole Adana pantomime, therefore, had to be reenacted and we left Sofija a matter of £3-£4 the poorer. This explains some of the financial embarrassment which rears a hideously grim head before us. No more reporters appeared at the aerodrome, and so we had perforce to continue to Buda Pest without this fillip.

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Buda Pest was under a heavy pall of haze and we took a long time to find the field. Every time we saw a cemetery we sighed thankfully, thinking that the aerodrome would be alongside, but we had to flirt with death a lot before the right scene of desolation came into sight. Agricultural operations were still proceeding in full blast and our erratic appearance had the usual unsettling effect on the toilers. The carnet was at once viewed with the gravest displeasure and it was very rightly pointed out that it had long since ceased to be a carnet. However, as the hour was late, everybody decided to call it a day and leave all possible difficulties until tomorrow. We are staying at the same pub as before, but again have done nothing save a small stroll which included a few visits to humbler beer houses, since funds deny us a more luxurious entertainment.

Details

Departure Istanbul 08.26 Sofija 13.00 Beograd 16.30

Flying time to Buda Pest Distance Istanbul-Sofija Sofija-Beograd Beograd-Buda Pest

Total Average ground speed

Arrival Sofija 12.03 Beograd 15.15 Buda Pest 18.36 7 hours 58 minutes 337 miles 228 miles 205 miles 770 miles 96.25 miles per hour

Day 8 Budapest to Wien

25 June 1936

Dear Leslie, We had a very late and leisurely breakfast today and idled over some week-old English papers. We liked it. At the aerodrome weather reports were very unpromising as to visibility, although the fact that the Danube goes the entire journey discounted that piece of pessimism. More serious was the question of the carnet, which met with little favour in the cold and calm light of day. Much debate was necessary before a compromise, satisfactory to all parties, was obtained. This in effect was simplicity itself, but had its annoying side, in that I was asked to write out in triplicate the form, which is otherwise so usefully printed. The customs officials were as kind as it is possible for anyone to be, but it does take a long time to write out three specifications. In the mist we saw little of Buda Pest as we flew over and were more and more concerned in determining the correct direction of the Danube. This we followed faithfully though rather slowly since at times we were only making as little as 60 m. p.h. However the view got gradually better and, with no navigational problems to worry us, we duly arrived at Wien in the rather poor time of an hour and three quarters. A most unseemly swerve occurred as we touched down, which prompted me to have the wheel brakes tested. The result of the inspection shows that the starboard brake was all gummed up, and not even our landings could free it. I suspect that our acquaintance with agricultural operations at other aerodromes is largely responsible for the malady. After an admirable "Wiener" we taxied to the city and are now staying at the "Bristol." Far too expensive of course, but very, very pleasant. We could only afford to stay overnight in Wien and that not too extravagantly, so we had to

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content ourselves with rather aimless wandering on our flat feet during the earlier part of the evening, such wandering being naturally helped by pavement refreshment. We did go a bust, however, in the late evening and had a completely sumptuous dinner at the Bristol grill room; a dinner which would have delighted even your .proud and haughty stomach. Even I enjoyed it to the full, and I can't say more than that. By the time we pay the not-inconsiderable bill due to the hotel, there will be precious little funds left and so it is imperative to get home on Saturday. We trust that tomorrow night will be spent in Frankfurt, so we should be in Croydon during the next afternoon, a day earlier than the schedule dictates. We never did think much of the schedule anyway, but it would be a change to be in advance of its predictions once.

Details

Departure Buda Pest 10.45

Flying time to WZen Distance Buda Pest-Wien

Total Average ground speed

Arrival Wien 12.24 1 hours 39 minutes 138 miles 138 miles 83.13 miles per hour

Day 9 Wien to Frankfurt

26 June 1936

Dear Leslie, We really did try to get as far as Brussels, but without any success. And so once again we are profligate in Frankfurt and nearly down to the last penny. We got on very well today until well past Linz. Plenty of rain on either side but with a course so admirably marked, any amount of snooping was possible and certainly performed. Soo n after leaving the Danube near Regensburg we had our first experience of fog and didn't think a great deal of it. We circled a small village JUSt outside the fog for fifteen minutes or so to gain height but still co uldn't see very far. That was in itself infuriating as Nurnberg was only a matter of minutes away and a retreat is always annoying. No appreciable difference was discernible at 5000 feet so we just pushed on with the idea of seeing what hap pened after five minutes. Beginner's luck held, as it invariably does, and when we came down to see what, if anything, was below, we found the aerodrome at N urnberg immed iately underneath. Really, many angels of mercy have flown with us this journey. A half-hearted fog persisted all the way to Frankfurt but never made things imposs ibly awkward. H ere we lunched and had further difficulty about the depleted carnet. Th is time I wasn't made to copy out the form but I was given to understand that the incident defied all textbook regulations. Hoping to reach Brussels for the night we left at 5 o'clock with rather a dismal outlook ahead. It soon turned Out to be quite impossible and we didn't even reach the Rhine. With Storms all round us we retired and headed for Frankfurt once again, getting there in the growi ng dusk and with the sale

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consolation of seeing the Graf Zeppelin* returning from America to its berth at the other aerodrome. There was no glamour about us, however, and we came in more like whipped curs. I'll wire you tomorrow our probably hour of arrival but at the moment the reports are anything but hopeful. We can just about pay for the hotel but the telegram will have to be brief indeed. Until tomorrow, then - perhaps.

Details

Departure Wien 09.37 Nurnberg 14.10 Frankfurt 17.00

Flying time to Frankfort Distance Wien-Nurnberg Nurnberg-Frankfurt Towards Brussels

Total Average ground speed

Arrival Nurnberg 12.34 Frankfurt 15.37 Frankfurt 18.00 5 hours 24 minutes 267 miles 118 100 485 miles 91 miles per hour

* For details about the Graf Zeppelin, see the Introduction, p. xii.

DayJO Frankfurt to West Hoathly 27 June 1936

Dear Leslie, It may seem rather silly to be writing to you now that we are back, especially as I shall indubitably see you tomortow to tell yo u verbally of the events of today. However, since the record of the trip has so far been faithful ly indited, you may as well have the positively last installment. After all, I haven't seen much of you since our return a few hours ago and, although much may be reiteration, some of the story, dull as it will be, may be new. Not very full of hope we were at the aetodrome at 6.30 and at once repaired to the "Met" office. The report was quite hopeless; low cloud and mist all the way to Brussels and Q .B.1. at both Croydon and H eston. ' Disconsolate and far worse, penurious we had to sit in the restaurant and wait for "something to turn up. " At a more reasonable hour I bearded the Shell representative in his den and managed, after somewhat protracted negotiations, to borrow sufficient pfennigs to wire you of our probable late arrival, and have something in hand for an odd meal or two. It was therefore possible to have a last Wiener on German soil. We got hourly reports of weather, bur not until 12.30 could we move off Even then we were told to miss the direct course to Brussels as the hills wete still covered . Accordingly we had to follow the Main as far as W iesbaden, and the Rhine thereafter to Koln. It was a short but entirely lousy trip and the ground was only occasionally visible. After passing Coblentz we also passed off our map, for our route was never supposed to embrace Koln. A certai n amount of snooping round was therefore necessary to find the aerodro me which we have been told • Q.B.I. was the ai r control code for fog.

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vaguely was somewhere on the north side of the city. It duly appeared of course, but it took quite twenty minutes to find it. At Koln we only stayed long enough for a drink, and this was much curtailed as our more important need was to secure a map of the country between Koln and Brussels. At first we were offered what appeared to be a hiker's map which was not viewed by us very confidently. At length we managed to borrow a regulation Lufthansa map, through the usual beneficent channel, Shell. Even their influence, however, failed to save us from depositing twenty marks for the loan. Very reasonable of course but it took our last bit of specie. There was much the same kind of weather up as far as Brussels but since it seemed to be clearer ahead we decided not to land here but to pound along for Croydon. Visibility was excellent all the way to the coast, which we found close to Ostend, . and indeed as far as Griz Nez. Over the channel it wasn't nearly so funny; very hazy and no horizon, and the result was an erratic porpoise-like progress as far as Dover. There seemed to be a strong possibility of Q.B.I. but as the panel was not out at Lympne we came along the railway line to Redhill and undertook the intrepid cross-country from there to Croydon. More than a little surprised we thus completed the round trip and duly celebrated the fact by shaking hands in the middle of the field. This rite performed we taxied up to Customs, to be greeted by Joe Chamberlain, who beat Anne and Tris by a short head. And that, Leslie, is that. Generally speaking, I think an amusing time has been had by all. Of one thing I am certain and this is that Wild Oats is without exception the finest aircraft the world has known, for what other would have suffered the slings of such outrageous piloting and, having suffered, still brought us back safe home?

LETTERS TO LESLIE

Details

Departure Frankfurt 12.36 Koln 15.30

Flying time to Croydon Distance Frankfurt-Koln Koln-Croydon

Total Average ground speed

Arrival Koln 13.55 Croydon 18.45 4 hours 24 minutes 90 miles 310 miles 400 miles 92.35 miles per hour

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SUMMARY Total mileag~ outward-bound

5037 miles

Total time outward-bound

51 hours 27 minutes

Average ground speed outward-bound

97.9 miles per hour

Total mileage inward-bound

4679 miles

Total time inward-bound

52 hours 15 minutes

Average ground speed inward-bound

89.55 miles per hour

Total mileage covered

9716 miles

Total time taken

103 hours 42 minutes

Average ground speed for trip

93.72 miles per hour

Fuel consumption

Petrol 624 gallons Consumed 6 gallons per hour Got 15.5 miles per gallon

Oil

32 gallons Consumed 2.5 pints per hour Got 304 miles per gallon