High Adventure

While this is ostensibly a biography of John Stannage, it is more a hagiography of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, the well known Australian aviation pioneer, who was Stannage's close friend.

John Stannage was a radio operator who worked on various ships, including the TSS Manuka which was shipwrecked off Long Point on 16th Dec 1929, between Invercargill and Dunedin. However it was his accompanying of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith on his many pioneering flights that gave Stannage the content of his book.

I picked up a worn but intact copy of this privately published book locally for around $10. It is very small, bound by staples and noted as first published in Christchurch New Zealand in 1944, 10,000 copies. I doubt too many of them have survived, and I think the condition of my copy is pretty good, all things considered - albeit without the slightly thicker rear cover. I expect a privately published book in 1944 was a much more rare thing than now.

And so to some of the content. First up Stannage joins a search for Kingsford Smith's Southern Cross which has been lost in the wilds of North Western Australia, as a part of the crossing the Pacific series of flights. After many days they find the grounded plane, which needs a refuel, and then it sets off again. The crew required food and water, but there was some dismay that cigarettes were not in the first drop!

Stannage then shares a chapter on the wrecking of the Manuka, which I mentioned above. After this, Stannage heads to the UK to visit family, at at this time meets up with CKS. At this point he is invited to join him on the first east to west crossing of the Atlantic, again in the Southern Cross The foreword of this book praises the actions of Stannage for making this crossing successful. This was related to the compasses going haywire - something attributed to electrically-charged fog, and reliance on radio communication to navigate. Stannage himself is very modest.

After the crossing, we are entertained by stories of their time in the USA, where CKS is recognised by the general public, politicians and the like as a heroic pioneer. They are treated to many public welcomes, receptions and celebrations making stops from New York to San Francisco.

Recounted also were a couple of stories from Smithy's time in WW1 - how he lost the toes on his left foot in an aerial dogfight, and one of his earliest forays over German lines - when he won his Military Cross.

After their time in the USA, CKS and Stannage head back to Europe where CKS is planning to tackle the solo flight from the UK to Australia. Stannage takes the position of radio operator on a ship the Union Company purchased that was to be relocated from the UK to New Zealand - it was to become the Monowai, which took on the run from Sydney to San Francisco (via NZ). On the first leg out of NZ he meets with with CKS in Sydney, meets his niece and is married within 12 months! Conditions of this marriage were that he give up his life on ships, which was seen as ‘one of the lowest forms of humanity' by her family!

It was at this point that CKS asked him to partner in his business. They had the Southern Cross refitted, and were to operate joyrides throughout Australia. This was so lucrative that they decided to cross the Tasman and run them in NZ for a change, and this was equally beneficial. It was at this point that they began researching a commercial airline venture. Eventually in a different form this became TEAL (Tasman Empire Airways Limited), which made its inaugural flight in 1940.

In one of the closing chapters we hear of the final flight of the Southern Cross, a Tasman crossing from NZ to Australia, which very nearly ended with Southern Cross in the Tasman. Some open air heroics from Bill Taylor, the navigator, taking oil from one engine and transferring to to another, while flying and using very inappropriate vessels, certainly saving the plane, and possibly their lives.

Also covered is the demise of CKS, and while the full story of the loss of the Lady Southern Cross while in route from India to Singapore, Stannage explains his theory of the crash.

The one thing Stannage doesn't really talk about is his life in New Zealand, and how that came about. He mentions his parents being in Britain; he mentions that at age 17 he left NZ as a ship's boy to round the Cape, from Wellington; and he mentions being incredibly homesick for New Zealand at one point. I found an article that he managed a radio station (3ZB) in Christchurch, which may have been around the time he wrote this book. I also found a aviation forum which mentioned his parents moved about a lot spending time at least in New Zealand and South Africa.

Around 6 years after this book, Stannage published a biography of Sir Charles Kingsley Smith entitled ‘Smithy'.

A nice piece of history recorded in this short book.

4 stars.