Ross Smith; A Great Pilot Comes Out Of The East

You see, not all pilots have the same chances of getting big "bags." According to their work some pilots should fight only when they have to. For instance a pilot on reconnaissance or photographic work must do his job rather than break off to secure what might be an easy victory. And, of course, the efficiency of a bomber pilot is decided not by the number of enemy planes be shoots down, but by the "laying of his eggs" and the determination with which he presses home his bombing attack. Then again, the quality and quantity of air opposition vary in different places. All this is to explain why, although Captain Ross Macpherson Smith had only a comparatively small number of enemy machines to his credit, be was not only the outstanding war bird on the Eastern Front but was also one of the greatest Australian airmen of the Great War.

Like so many other crack pilots Ross was first a light horseman. Results have proved that a good horseman usually makes a good flier. So does a good pianist. As the experts put it, they "have hands"-the sensitive feeling and touch that makes for the fullest and the quickest control of an aeroplane or of a horse.

Ross had two years of soldiering before he joined the Australian Flying Corps. He had enlisted in the very first week of the Great War. He had been at the Gallipoli landing; had served in the Sinai campaign. He was a machine-gun lieutenant when he became a soldier of the air-with No. I Squadron. A fine sturdy chap he was, cultured in manner' and speech, and with a happy smile.

With sure bands to guide him and splendid deeds to inspire him be entered this, his third phase of war. First as observer and then as a pilot he learned the mastery of man's newest weapon in the world's oldest land. Here in Palestine skies, over the rugged hills, the grim valleys, the wadis running like huge red scars across the land, over the green of olive groves and barley fields, the villages of Christian and Jew, the Bedouin encampments and the old, old sacred towns, Bethlehem, Jericho, Jerusalem-here, where a boy who was to be the Greatest of Men had said: "And they shall fly in their chariots," this young South Australian learned the sharp, bitter lessons of air war, and lived to out-fly his teachers.

Ross Smith bad all the qualities of heart and brain and limbs. First and foremost be was a magnificent pilot. The time was to come when, of all the pilots in the East, he was chosen, to fly the first and only giant Handley Page bomber sent to this front; when he was chosen as pilot to fly the highest-ranking officers on special duties. He was a dead shot; steady eye at the sights, skilled, unwavering hand at trigger or bomb toggle.

A crack observer-his the trained, all-seeing glance that read the scene below, interpreting every sign, every movement. He was a splendid strategist, daring in attack, skilful in defence. His the quality most valued in the air as in every branch of war-he was a born leader of men. He would never order men to do what he himself would not do. And further to endear himself to his comrades, he was "one of the boys" when there was fun or frolic afoot. Yes, Ross Smith was the complete airman, and very much a man.

Thus it was that within eighteen months he won no fewer than five decorations - the Military Cross and bar, and the Distinguished Flying Cross and two bars. Official citations do not "lay the colour on thick"; official language never aims at vividness; it does not paint word pictures. But in-these, the official reasons why the decorations in question were awarded, you can appreciate the work done by Ross Smith. These are his citations:

Military Cross. 11 May 1917. "For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty when his pilot descended to the rescue of an officer who had been forced to land. On landing, he held the enemy at bay with his revolver, thus enabling his pilot to rescue the officer and to safely fly away with his machine. "

Bar to Military Cross. 26 March 19 18. "For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He was one of two pilots who carried out a remarkable series of photographs in one flight, covering an area of forty-five square miles. On a later occasion be successfully bombed an important bridge-bead from a low altitude, and his work throughout, as well as photography, has been invaluable and characterized by the most consistent gallantry."

Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC)

Distinguished Flying Cross. "During the month of June 1918, these officers (Captain Smith and Lieutenant Kirk, D.F.C.) accounted for two enemy machines, and they have been conspicuous for gallantry and initiative in attacking ground targets, frequently at low altitudes. The keenness and fine example set by these officers cannot be over-estimated. "

Bar to Distinguished Flying Cross. "During the operations prior to October 1918, be took part in numerous engagements involving flights of 150 to 200 miles, and succeeded in doing extensive damage to the enemy's hangars, railways, etc. Captain Smith displayed most consistent gallantry with marked ability in all his work, whether bombing by night or day, or in personal encounters in the air. Whilst operating with the Sheriffian forces, he destroyed one enemy machine and brought down two others out of control in the desert. "

Second Bar to Distinguished Flying Cross. "On 19 October 1918, this officer, with Lieutenant Ashley Vernon McCann as observer, engaged and drove down an enemy two-seater. As it appeared to land intact, he descended at a low altitude and, with machine-gun fire, forced the occupants to abandon the machine; he then landed alongside it and whilst his observer covered the enemy officers, he set light to their machine and completely destroyed it. To have effected a landing in an unknown country, many miles in the rear of the enemy defence troops, demanded courage and skill of a very high order."

	Air Force Cross. The Air Force Cross (AFC) was awarded to Officers and Warrant Officers for an act or acts of valour, courage or devotion to duty whilst flying but not in active operations against an enemy.
	Medal images from http://www.theaerodrome.com

That, in official language, is the picture of Ross Smith winning martial fame. But there was far, far more to it than that. For instance, his association with Colonel Lawrence he who, as "Lawrence of Arabia," lived and dressed as an Arab, and brought to the British aid thousands of tribesmen. Lawrence was to have what was probably the most romantic and adventurous career of any Britisher on any front.

But when Ross Smith was posted to him for special duties, the steel-eyed little Englishman in Arab dress was in grave difficulties. The few out-of-date British planes that had been detailed to support him had been unable to cope with the German war birds. And the Arabs had not only suffered from Hun bullets and bombs, but their faith in the British arms had weakened.

Ross Smith and some other comrades from No. I Squadron were soon to change that. For the German war birds there were no longer easy targets on the ground and weak opponents in the air. And for Lawrence - leader, cameleer, spy, intelligence officer, going his strange ways between Turkish-held territory and British headquarters - there was now swift, sure travel, by aeroplane.

As we said before, in numbers of enemy aircraft to his credit Ross Smith suffered by comparison with his fellow war birds of the Western Front. The East did not have the persistently tremendous air war of the West. Where, in Eastern skies they fought in tens, in the West the fighting was in hundreds. But in the East there were other adventures that demanded no less bravery and skill; there were duties possible only to great warriors of the heavens. And need and choice placed Ross Smith in this sphere. He was indeed the fiercest, the most skilled eagle of a great campaign.

Captain Ross Smith had been summoned to headquarters. He left smiling happily. For the first flight was to be made from Cairo to India and he had been chosen as pilot. The giant Handley Page bomber was to be the machine used. The flight was to be something more than the blazing of a new air trail. It was also to be a thorough survey, and two of the most senior R.A.F. officers were to take part. But the pilot was to be Ross Smith, and the two mechanics to be carried were to be his choice. He chose Sergeants Bennett and Shiers. No. 1 Squadron men they were, tried and proven.

The job was done in the real Ross Smith way. There were two rewards - the ribbon of the Air Force Cross joined the fighting ribbons on his tunic; and be was given the job of investigating (by steamer travel) sites for landing grounds on from India to Timor.

So with this experience behind him, and with a new lustre to his reputation, the announcement made in England in 1919 had an immediate and a close interest for him. The announcement was of the £10,000 prize for the first Australian crew to fly from England to Australia within thirty days, and before 31 December 1919. This was indeed glorious news for many an Australian war bird. The war was over. This would mean an end to the waiting and waiting and waiting at an embarkation camp.

There would be no sailing home by steamer; after aeroplanes boats were so slow. Competing in the flight would mean new experiences, new thrills. At journey's end there would surely be fame, a golden opening for flying in one's own homeland, or a better chance for a better job. Yes, and for the winning plane, that wonderful £10,000 !

In your mind's eye you can almost see the ex-war birds licking their lips. But for most of them the golden glow soon faded. This England- Australia flight was the longest and the most difficult ever attempted. It demanded very special aeroplanes. Nor was mere keenness to "give it a fly" sufficient. The competition rules demanded that the plane should have a range of 500 miles and that in every crew there should be a competent navigator. Also there was the vital matter of money. The good old days were over. Now things had to be paid for. Now there was no plane drawn up on the tarmac; no fuel ready waiting at every stop; no skilled mechanics "on tap." So although so many wanted to try few could reach the starting line.

Vickers Vimy

The most coveted plane was a Vickers Vimy. Originally built as a long-distance heavy bomber, its chief war objective was to have been Berlin. But the Armistice saved the German capital (until twenty years later). The Vimy had proved itself magnificently in another role. With Captain Alcock and Lieutenant Brown as crew, and powered by two 360 h.p. Rolls Royce engines, it had, in that year, made the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic. So although it had five times further to go to Australia, the Vimy had proved it had more than sufficient range for the England-Australia hops, as well as the strength and engine reliability necessary for the new venture. Obviously this was the best machine for the job. And Vickers decided that Ross Smith was the man for the machine-he and the men he chose.

He chose his brother Keith as relief pilot and navigator. Keith was two years older than Ross. Several times he had tried to enlist in the A.I.F., only to be rejected. But be was determined to do his bit. At his own expense be went to England, where, in 1917, he was accepted as a training pilot. He was a lieutenant instructor when his brother called him to the Great Venture. The call also went to Bennett and Shiers. They, too, were delighted.

But it was disappointment, not delight that awaited most of the other Australians, who had striven so greatly to be in the competition flight. Only six teams were left in. And there was an enterprising French crew of two who unofficially, participated, although their nationality and aircraft - it was also French - precluded them from winning the prize. Also they did not start from England, as the competition conditions required. But when, on 14 October, Etienne Poulet and his mechanic Benoist took off from Paris the official competitors regarded the race as being on.

Sopwith Wallaby

Poulet started on 14 October. A week later Captain Matthews and Sergeant Kay took off in a Sopwith Wallaby, a machine specially designed for the flight. Then on 12 November the big Vimy took off. The weather clerk gave it a cold reception. Within a few hours the breath of the crew was freezing on their face masks, and their sandwiches ' were frozen solid. Came dense clouds, snow and blinding rain, and in the face of these the Vimy took five days to reach the heel of Italy.

It had to fly dangerously low most of the way. Bad conditions forced a change of route, and the pioneers made their best one-day flight up to that time when they got from Crete to Cairo, non-stop, in seven and a half hours. By this time one of the competing crews had crashed and been killed. They were Lieutenants R. M. Douglas, M.C., D.C.M., and G. S. L. Ross.

The two brothers in the front cockpit, the two mechanics aft in another cockpit, the Vimy was now over the Sinai desert, the hard-fought sandhills of Romani, of El Katia, Bir el Abd. They flew on over the great oasis of El Arish, so tragic for Napoleon and the Turk alike, and then over the barley fields of Palestine.

Aloft in one of the finest aeroplanes in the world, Ross Smith surely thought of the great desert, and of those wonderful Australian horses he had known as a light horseman. Looking down be must have thought, too, of where he had won his wings.

Over all those old battlefields where he had ridden, fought and flown, he now flew again in a wonder machine. Over Gaza, Nazareth, on, on to Damascus, oldest inhabited city in the world, where they were royally greeted by a squadron of the Royal Air Force. At dawn bad weather broke. But Ross Smith set a course for Baghdad and they roared on into a gathering storm. Across the Syrian desert with the sky turning blood red as howling wind lashed up fine sand and flung it in the face of a blazing sun.

They had to come down at Ramadie, famous old Turkish battlefield. Here a squad of 10th Indian Lancers hurried out to greet them-and stayed with them all night in the heart of the raging simoon. It came with a wail from the desert, and man and his makings were but straw. But these Indian soldier men were strong, determined. Theirs the job to bold the plane down. And all through the howling fury of the night they held against the wind and sand. Dawn came. The wind dropped. A brazen sun flushed the sky. Yes, the giant plane was intact. But there were gruelling hours of work clearing away the sand for the take-off.

Up again and onward. Now they were over Kut el Amara -Kut where a besieged British army had had to surrender to the Turk. The day the Vimy passed overhead another plane in the £10,000 competition made a belated start from far-away England. This was the Blackburn Kangaroo. It also had a crew of four. Its commander was Captain G. H. Wilkins, M.C. and bar - he who is now Sir Hubert Wilkins, the famous Arctic explorer. The Kangaroo did not last long. It crashed at Crete, fortunately without loss of life.

Vue d'un Blackburn Kangaroo

Blackburn Kangaroo

The Vimy winged on its steady way. Of course there were setbacks; no pioneer flight is a pleasure trip. But although his was a great daring, Ross Smith had care and caution when these were necessary. The night of the simoon had taken its physical toll. Next day there had been eight hours' flying over mountains and desert. So, at Basra he called a halt for a day. More than its crew, the Vimy needed grooming.

Soon they were speeding above the brown of desert again. Then rugged mountain barriers rose to bar their way. Proudly, surely, the big plane soared up and over them. Wild-eyed tribesmen gazed up at them, queerly dressed women and children stared entranced as the man-made eagle sped over and past them, it and its thundering noise dwindling away in the sky.

The crew saw the blue waters of the Persian Gulf come below. Then down they swooped, down on Bandar Abbas and slept the night through.

In the morning they were in the air for India. They sped over the Gulf of Oman and saw below them the Arabian Sea. And the coast of India. Then away below them they saw the maze of roofs that was Karachi taking shape by the sea. Into old Karachi flows the wealth of the Punjab, of Sind and Baluchistan, even wealth from the far-off hills of Afghanistan. Ancient city of the old, old world now welcoming the eagles of the youngest nation on earth.

They flew across India, over majestic mountains and plains intensely cultivated, over rivers and cities and countless villages to the great city of Delhi, city of the Shahs, city of the Peacock Throne. Shades of the old Moguls! An Australian crew flying over their City of a Thousand Tragedies r On they flew across the great Indian Empire to Allahabad, to Calcutta.

Calcutta, City of Palaces, of riches and misery, grim city of the Black Hole. Up from Calcutta and soon they were over the Bay of Bengal. Then Burma. Rangoon! They circled the wonder city staring down at sunlight flashing upon a golden beacon. The Shwe Dagon pagoda with its great dome of gold rearing majestically high above the city.

In the air again, soaring over the jungles of Siam - to the aerial spectators the jungles appeared as a vast, dark green through which gleamed broad silver ribbons.

Then Bangkok, and the plane circling over the King's Palace to come gracefully to earth in this picturesque capital of Siam.

On again-and Singora 1 They saw a gash in the jungle. Surely this could not be the aerodrome! They circled lower and lower. The sight was even more disquieting. There were tree stumps on the landing field. Here, if never before, all the pilot's skill was needed. Carefully he landed. But for all the care and skill the wheels of the giant machine just missed the stumps by inches.

Torrential rain fell at Singora. The plane was unable to rise because of the soggy earth and stumps. That meant the loss of a day, a worrying day. Time was short now. And there were some more of these new 'dromes ahead. The pressure was cracking on.

Only a few more days to go. They thundered along down over the long finger point of the Malay Peninsula. Right at its "fingernail" was their next stop-Singapore.

Next day they were bound for Kalidjati, near Batavia in the Dutch East Indies. For two hundred miles they roared on over the dense jungles of Sumatra. Then turned towards the sea. A great chain of green-clad islands, an emerald necklace set deep in a blue sea. The plane swiftly passing overhead in the bluest of skies.

At Kalidjati the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies received them. But from him came something much more than courtesy. When he had heard of the oncoming airmen he had aerodromes prepared. But aviation was a new science, and the Vimy was the first machine to test out the ground application of this new science. Results were bad at Sourabaya-the big machine bogged deeply in the landing ground. This was indeed a grievous setback. Almost within reach of Australia-and this should happen. Time was pressing and as the precious minutes sped by Ross Smith had speech with the chief authority. Apprised of the desperate need of his guests he took drastic measures.

Near by was a Malay village built of bamboo matting. The authorities gave orders. Quickly the villagers obeyed. Quickly the huts were dismantled. The bamboo strips thus won were hurried out to the aerodrome and there laid in a huge strip stretching ahead from the bogged plane. And so what a few hours before bad been a village was now a pathway of bamboo matting, 350 yards long and 40 yards wide.

Nor was that all. Another order and a swarm of natives harnessed themselves to the machine. Their collective heavings beat the suction of the mud. The Vimy came unstuck, and was tugged on to it's unique runway. The plane was fuelled. The crew clambered to their posts. The engines were started. The plane began to run. The bamboos shuddered and crackled. The machine gathered speed. Then mud and broken bamboo were flying in all directions as the machine roared along. Suddenly, right at the very end of the bamboo road, she was airborne, aloft. What was to be the greatest difficulty in a 13,000-mile journey had been overcome.

From Bima they flew along the coast of Flores, to Attamboa in Dutch Timor. Only one hop to go!

For the twenty-second time they took off. Now it was water beneath them - 500 miles of it. Far below appeared a little speck that developed into a cruiser. H.M.A.S. Sydney, waiting there "just in case." The plane swooped in greeting, and the crew of the warship cheered a mighty welcome. The plane flew on.

The Australian coast, then Darwin. Twenty-eight days of travel; 135 hours of flying. They had won the competition. They had been the only crew to get through in the specified time. They had blazed the world's longest air trail. They had put Australia upon the world's flying map. They had made air history.

Ross and Keith were knighted, and Sergeants Bennett and Shiers were promoted to the rank of lieutenant and awarded the Air Force Medal. It was typical of Ross that be divided the £10,000 prize equally between the crew.

What happened, you ask, to the other competitors? Lieutenants R Douglas and J. S. L. Ross, in their Alliance, crashed shortly after the take-off -in England and were both killed. Captain C. E. Howell, D.S.O., D.F.C., M.C., and Mechanic Fraser left England on 4 December. Their flight ended in the sea at Corfu. Both men were drowned. The Frenchman Poulet got as far as Moulmein in Lower Burma -he reached there the day the Vimy landed at Darwin. Then engine trouble caused the abandonment of the flight. Captain G. C. Matthews and Sergeant T. D. Kay (Sopwith Wallaby) got as far as Bali - by 19 April 1920. They had had many difficulties and when, in a forced landing at Bali, the wings of the plane were smashed the gallant pair had to retire. Parer and McIntosh? Their story is told elsewhere in this book.

But the Smith brothers were not content to rest on their laurels. They planned another and a bigger venture-a round-the-world flight. For this they were going to use a Vickers amphibian called the Viking. Their old colleague Bennett was to be the mechanic. On 13 April 1922 all three were to go up on a test flight. Ross and the mechanic arrived on time. But a fog rolled down. It held up Keith, then on his way to the aerodrome. Fearing if they delayed any longer the conditions would be too bad for the flight, Ross and Bennett took off. What happened aloft no one else will ever know. But as Keith arrived on the aerodrome, it was to see the Viking hurtling down to death and destruction. So, in harness, died one of Australia's greatest sons and his trusted mechanic.