Suva Plans Memorial

Pioneer Trans-Pacific Flight

To "Smithy"

A NUMBER of public-spirited citizens in Fiji have opened a subscription list, with a viev to placing in Albert Park —alongside Victoria Parade and opposite the Grand Pacific Hotel, where mosl travellers will see it —a stone memorial to Charles Kingsforc Smith, Australia’s most famous pioneer aviator.

The memorial will state simplj that “Smithy,” in the course of his (the first) Trans-Pacific flight arrived in Suva on a certain date in 1928, and performed the almos' incredible feat of landing the Southern Cross safely in tha' pocket-handkerchief park.

It probably will say that Kings' ford Smith was accompanied b: Messrs. Ulm, Lyons and Warner and that “Smithy” also was the firs man to fly across the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zea land, and the first to fly the Nortl Atlantic from England to Ne\ York.

It is an intriguing fact tha “Smithy’s” radio operator on tha North Atlantic flight was Join Stannage, and that Stannage no\ is manager of the Fiji Broadcastini Corporation in Suva, and is takini a leading part in organising th memorial to his old chief.

Mascot airport, in Sydney, i officially “Kingsford Smith Airport, but most people call it “Mascot, and there is no other memorial i] “Smithy’s” home town. There is small plaque, not easily found, o; the grandstand in Albert Pari Suva. The most notable memoris is the one erected by the American in San Francisco, starting-point c “Smithy’s” most famous flight.