Where Smithy’ Landed
p. 15 · Read in the full issue
'Southern Cross , In Albert Park, Suva
ALMOST exactly 23 years ago— on June 5, 1928—the first overseas aircraft to arrive in Fiji, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith’s Southern Cross, came in low and slow over the lagoon in front of Suva, touched down on the outer edge of Albert Park at 60 m.p.h., and raced for the hillside. The crew (Charles Ulm, co-pilot, Jim Warner and Harry Lyon) held their breath. A crash seemed inevitable.
But the wizard “Smithy” somehow ground-looped the plane at the end of the Park and brought her safely to rest.
They had left Honolulu 3-H hours
will be 30 ft. high. On a base with red marble steps, the memorial in bronze will represent a young Fijian in ceremonial dress springing up to provide landing ground on his land for a silver bird, representing the Southern Cross.
Today, only 23 years after “Smithy’s” great flight, nearly 1,000 aircraft, carrying over 20,000 pas sengers, call at Fiji each year. That is the measure of the amazing growth of commercial aviation in the Pacific.
Second and third class mail may now be sent by air from Australia to French Oceania. The fee is 1/3 for two ounces or part thereof.
This class of mail includes com mercial papers, printed matter samples, newspapers and small packets.
earlier, carrying 1,300 gallons of petrol, and had made the then ex traordinary flight of 3,150 miles through continual tropical storms without accident.
The landing in little Albert Park was a miraculous thing. They nearly “pranged’' the Southern Cross as they landed, however, be cause “Smithy” did not know that the surface of the Park was about 12 feet below the surface of the surrounding land.
They could not take off from Albert Park with a loaded plane.
So after three days’ rest they flew the plane, empty, to Naselai Beach, Ailed up there with petrol from drums that had been lightered to the beach, and made the third hop to Sydney.
It has been decided to erect in Albert Park a memorial to the fact that Charles Kingsford Smith landed there at the end of the second hop in his great pioneer flight from San Francisco to Sydney. The memorial, designed by Australian artist Mary Edwards,
This photograph, taken by Mr. G. S. Chisholm on June 5, 1928, shows the Southern Cross just after it had landed in Albert Park. —Photo kindly loaned by Mr. A. S. Smyth, of Apia.