Harold Gatty

Home Town Remembers Harold Gatty

By a Staff Writer

The townspeople of the late Harold Gatty’s, Australian birthplace are erecting a monument to the man “who contributed so much to the safety of aerial travel, yet has not received due recognition in his own country”.

fTTHE monument is being erected A in Campbell Town, Tasmania, and takes the form of a 20 ft steel column on which is a globe showing the route he and Wiley Post took in the first flight around the world. On the top of the globe is a replica of their aircraft, Winnie Mae.

The memorial itself has been com pleted, and it will shortly be erected on a grassy site, close to the main Hobart-Launceston road, and with in a few hundred yards of where Gatty was born in 1903.

Gatty died in Fiji in August, 1957.

The committee handling the memorial fund hopes also to estab lish a Harold Gatty scholarship for children of the district.

The idea of the memorial was initiated by a Hobart estate agent, Mr. Gordon Cashmore. During his flying training under the Empire Training Scheme in World War 11, Mr. Cashmore visited the U.S. and was amazed at hearing of the great contribution Harold Gatty had made to air navigation, and of learning

of the high esteem in which he \ held by Americans.

Cambell Town Moves Following Gatty’s death, ] Cashmore wrote to a Tasman: newspaper, enclosing a donation 2 suggesting that a fund be oper at Campbell Town to honour Gal The idea was taken up by 1 Campbell Town Council, and w the assistance of Mr. Cashmore 2 Mr. Angus Wilson a fund was open which soon raised £2OO. The Gi eminent gave a further grant £2OO.

The Hobart Technical Coll undertook to design and constr the memorial free except for 1 cost of materials.

They recently finished it a handed it over to the memorial co mittee in Campbell Town, wh consists of the Warden a Councillors and Messrs. Cashm and Wilson.

The globe is eight feet in diame and built of copper tubing arrant in longitude and latitude lines. 1 land masses are cut out of cop] sheet and attached to the tubes The model of the Winnie Mae si mounting the globe is three f long and built of timber, fibre gl and resin.

Scholarship Plan

Campbell Town Council Clerk, 1 K. J. Worsley, told PIM in Janui that the cost of the work to d had been £206, and that a local c( tractor had agreed to erect 1 memorial free on a small triangu block overlooking the school grou: He said he understood that \ school children would maintain 1

The late Harold Gatty (above) will [?] remembered in his home town, Campbell To [?] Tasmania, with a monument comprising [?] aircraft and globe on the top of a 20 [?] steel column. The detail of the globe and [?] base of the monument is reproduced at [?]

with the idea of making it a park. r. Worsley added: t is hoped that with the balance he money a yearly scholarship be endowed with which it will ible to perpetually honour the Harold Gatty’s name. ’he fund is still open and any ler contributions received will evoted towards fencing and iming the general surroundings of area, to make it really worthy le memory of a man who conited so much for the safety of il travel but has yet not re- ?d due recognition in his own itry.” hat the Campbell Town people i to say about the prophet who no honour in his own country f course true. Campbell Town’s lorial is a much needed tribute. le general Australian public has heard of Harold Gatty, and few le know of his career.

Wiley Post Fliqht

1 , , ie achievement which first won worid fame was his flight with y Post in 1931. Gatty was Post s ?ator when the two flew from York to New York in the then Lomenal time of eight days. r the two wrote a book, Around World Tv Finhf Dnv<t .tty served for f period in the Air Corps and later worked for American Airways in the South Tc where he secured for PAA right to place a trans-Pacific g-boat terminal in Auckland.

In World War II he served in both the U.S. and Australian air forces and gained a Distinguished Flying Cross.

In this period he gave play to one of his ruling passions—the art of navigation—and produced the Raft Book, as a guide to the many ways in which an ordinary person lost at sea might navigate to safety and sustain life. The U.S. Govern ment bought tens of thousands of copies for distribution among servicemen. Because of wartime printing difficulties, Gatty set up his own printing house.

He and his wife made their home in Fiji after the war, where Gatty formed a company to introduce the tuna canning industry to the South Pacific. It failed, in 1951, he established Fiji Air ways, which was a wonderful suc cess. Upon his death it was bought by Qantas, and it is now an import ant British flag carrier, which has just begun international operations in that area. It is owned by three Governments.

After his dea th another of his books was pub i ishe d, Nature Is Your Guide ' .. . - UTn/r ~r w The publisher of ■ Robson, in writing an obituary patty , m •? 57 ’ hp Movable brilliant, pig headed, lovapie, argumentive. hos;PjtaWe man, whom xt was a delight to know.

“His mind at 50 was like that oi an eager youth of 20. He may nave died at a early age, but no one could ever say that he lived in vain .