The Fabulous Flying Mrs Miller

by Carol Baxter

  The rain that drowned Atambua had also drenched Darwin. Bill received a cable from the Shell Company saying that continuous heavy rain had fallen on Darwin since Friday without any sign of it abating. Since visibility was poor and the landing ground boggy, it would be best if they postponed their arrival.

  At least the news distracted them from the frustration of their enforced delay.

  The rain in Atambua cleared the next day and the ground dried quickly, although Bill still wasn’t sure if it would be firm enough for a safe departure. He had already discarded the idea of taking with them the inner tubes, quick-action pump and coils of rope. The take-off would be difficult enough as it was without this extra weight. They both accepted that, if they were forced to ditch into the sea, the Red Rose would float for a mere half hour. Only a miracle would save them.

  When Bill examined the ground the following morning, Monday, 19 March, his concerns didn’t abate. It was still too boggy. Soon the locals brought hundreds of feet of matting which they laid down on the landing strip.

  When Chubbie saw the quantity of matting, she wondered if the walls and roofs of every house in the district had been stripped. She hoped not. The matting wouldn’t be of much use to anyone afterwards.

  With fervent wishes of ‘God speed’ following them, the Red Rose picked up speed. The matting separated the plane’s wheels from the worst of the bogginess although the water-logged ground still seemed reluctant to release them. Chubbie’s stomach was in a knot by the time the plane lifted off the ground, missing the trees by a mere six feet. She hoped it would be the last drama they faced before they reached Australia.

  With such a long distance to travel, they didn’t circle the landing strip and waggle a goodbye. Instead, they climbed 5000 feet to cross the mountains and then headed towards the sea.

  The weather refused to favour them even on this final leg of their journey. The air was hot and humid, and mist shrouded the island. After they crossed the shoreline, rain soaked them again, barely easing throughout their journey.

  For hours, all they saw beneath them was the sea. No passing ships. Nothing else to occupy their attention. Chubbie found it strangely eerie and was glad Bill sat just a couple of feet behind her. She hated to think what it would be like to undertake such a journey on her own.

  They were halfway to Darwin and flying at about 1000 feet when the engine made a strange noise. A popping, spluttering sound. The plane lost height. She turned to Bill and yelled, ‘What’s happening?’ He shrugged to indicate that he didn’t know.

  Soon the alarming noise died away and they began to climb again, as if their gutsy little plane had wrested control from the recalcitrant engine and was determined to get them to Darwin. She took a few deep breaths to calm her racing heart while the plane flew steadily on.

  Then it happened again. The engine coughed and spluttered. The plane sank. As they hadn’t yet regained their previous altitude, they lost even more height. A moment later the spluttering ceased and the engine ran smoothly. The plane gained altitude again. She waited tensely to see if the problem had fixed itself . . . and waited.

  The engine spluttered its indignation again.

  Darwin was still three hours away. Each time the engine misfired, the plane lost more altitude. If the problem continued, they would soon run out of sky.

  When she again asked what was happening, Bill sent her a note saying, ‘I don’t know.’ His next message made her stomach sink into her dirty tennis shoes. ‘I’m afraid she won’t stay the course. But, anyway, we’ve done our best.’

  His words lacked any maudlin sentimentality. There was no evidence of fear, only a calm acceptance of the fate that awaited them.

  The engine spluttered and gravity pulled the plane down again. This time it kept sinking. As the ocean loomed closer, she thought, ‘This is it.’ That strange balance of bad luck and good luck that had kept them going for 158 days was ending with only a couple of hours left to fly. She turned to Bill and saw him kiss his hand to the sea and sky, both a farewell and an acknowledgement that mankind was kidding itself when it thought it had any dominion over nature.

  In that drawn-out fall, she wondered if they could tie the air-cushions and life jackets together and float until they sighted land. The rain was torrential and the heavy clouds made the sea look especially grey and ominous beneath them. Then the spluttering ceased and the engine roared, and they began to regain altitude.

  The gut-wrenching cycle of spluttering and sinking, followed by smooth running, continued. Somehow they maintained enough altitude to stay airborne while the plane ate up more miles to Australia. When they were an hour out of Darwin, Bill sent her a note saying, ‘Seventy miles to go and we’re losing altitude again. But we might just do it.’

  Visibility remained poor, so he was navigating by compass alone. According to his calculations, they should soon reach Darwin, although he still couldn’t see any evidence of land. Was the compass working properly? To be lost over this vast expanse of water with a troublesome engine would be their death knell.

  As if a curtain had been pulled back, the clouds suddenly dissipated and they could see Bathurst Island, off the coast of Darwin. Soon they saw Darwin about ten miles ahead. Chubbie swivelled in her seat and grinned at him as she pointed towards the town. She turned up her thumb in the universal signal of success and he did the same. Then they reached out and shook hands over the top of his cockpit windscreen.

  As they flew over Darwin’s airfield, they saw that the landing conditions were appalling. They saw something else as well. Despite the fog and rain and sandstorms they had endured—despite the dramas caused by the persistent engine trouble, the joyriding snake, the forced landing in Rangoon and the crash in Muntok; despite their scrimping and saving, their constant hunger and thirst, and the many other hardships and heartaches they had suffered in their effort to complete this most extraordinary of record-setting journeys—there was no one at Darwin’s airfield to greet them.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When they arrived at Darwin, they had completed all but the last stages of a flight that is perhaps unique in its story of adventure and disappointment.

  The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 March 1928

  Darwin hadn’t intended to snub them.

  The previous day, when its officials received no response to their warning about the horrendous weather conditions, they had assumed that the Red Rose was on its way. Despite threatening clouds and the occasional light shower, hundreds of people had motored out to the landing paddock near the prison at Fannie Bay to greet them. They kept waiting as the dark clouds turned into heavy monsoonal rain. They continued waiting until a message arrived saying that the aviators had received the warning telegram and hadn’t left Timor.

  Deciding that the aviators would wait there until they received word of improved weather conditions, the town’s powers-that-be cancelled all plans for a welcoming party and an official reception. Not only was the rain torrential and the visibility poor, the middle of the airfield was a swamp and the grass was five feet high and impossible to mow because of the monsoonal weather. In fact, it was too long to provide a safe landing according to the sergeant who had attended Bert Hinkler’s plane.

  The officials asked if anyone had any ideas for making the landing field safer. Should they direct the plane to the nearby racecourse at Fannie Bay? No, the racecourse was little better. What about painting a white cross on the landing strip? No, the rain would wash it away. As one bad idea followed another, they decided to delay the Red Rose’s flight until Wednesday to allow time for the rain to clear and the grass to be mown.

  But Darwin’s message to the aviators didn’t get through. And the Red Rose beat Bill’s telegram to Darwin saying they were on their way.

  Only one person saw the Red Rose land: Mrs Dempsey, the wife of the local gaol superintendent. She heard a plane overhead and went outside to see what was happening. Providentially, her husband had taken it upon himself to assist the aviat
ors by laying down a white calico guide and attaching red bunting to the telephone poles, for which Bill would later thank him profusely. Mrs Dempsey saw the plane roll to a stop in one of the boggiest parts of the runway and the aviators step out into knee-high mud.

  When word reached Darwin that the Red Rose had been sighted, fleets of cars raced to the airfield carrying the mayor and other prominent citizens and officials. Far from being ignored, Chubbie and Bill were to be feted.

  Telegrams flooded in, 450 in total, including congratulations from Bert Hinkler and from Prime Minister Stanley Bruce. The Prime Minister wrote, ‘On behalf of the government of the Commonwealth and the people of Australia, I desire to congratulate you and Mrs Miller on the completion of your flight to Australia. We are grateful that despite the difficulties and delays which beset you on the journey your task has at length been safely accomplished.’

  Unfortunately, Chubbie and Bill also received word that no steps would be taken to officially recognise Chubbie’s achievement, even though she was the first woman to travel by air from England to Australia and her flight was the longest ever undertaken by a woman. If she had piloted the plane, the government’s response would have been different.

  Others, however, recognised her contribution. The Shell Company’s telegram said: ‘Please convey our heartiest congratulations to Mrs Miller on her safe arrival in Darwin. Her success in being the first woman to fly to Australia is a fitting culmination to the splendid achievements of her countrymen: the Smith brothers, Paver, McIntosh, and Hinkler.’

  Back in England, the editor of The Aeroplane—one of the few aviation experts who had supported the venture—praised the Red Rose’s trip as one of the pluckiest flights in aviation history and declared that Bill had proved himself a first-class aviator. He added, ‘Perhaps the greatest credit is due to Mrs Miller, for it was her undefeatable enthusiasm and optimism which made the attempt possible.’ He explained that she had raised the necessary capital by hard work and persistence, and had never lost her sense of humour.

  The press in general were more interested in Chubbie’s achievement than Bill’s and knew the public would be as well. Of Bill, the reporters provided only a bare description: he was five feet eight inches tall and weighed ten stone seven pounds. Chubbie, by comparison, was tiny, only five feet and a half-inch in height and weighing a mere seven stone. Dressed in shorts and a white open-necked shirt, she had dark smartly shingled hair and a smiling sunburnt face—a ‘chubby’ face indeed, observed one of the journalists, deciding that this was the reason for her nickname. And her cheery nature and charm enchanted everyone she met.

  After a few days to rest and to recondition their plane, they farewelled Darwin with a low flyover of the mayor’s house, terrifying the local citizens who thought the plane was about to crash. Onwards they flew to Newcastle Waters, Brunette Downs and Camooweal (just inside the Queensland border).

  Chubbie would later tell the press that, when they were about twenty-five miles out of Newcastle Waters, they couldn’t find the windmill shown on the poorly marked Civil Aviation map. Not wanting to get lost, as Hinkler had done, they decided to land and question two men on packhorses. The horsemen were so casual—in that outback Australian kind of way—that they showed no surprise at the sight of a plane dropping from the sky onto the ground beside them. One of the pair, an elderly man, remarked that he had travelled 500 miles in five months as if it were quite an achievement. When he asked Chubbie where she had come from and she replied London, he showed no more interest than if she had said Darwin.

  They hopped across the countryside until they reached Brisbane. There they were given a civic reception and both were asked to address the gathering. Bill spoke first, offering his thanks for the welcome and saying how much aviation could do for those living in Australia’s back-country. Chubbie stood up to loud cheers and applause and a hearty rendition of ‘For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow’. Speaking in a soft voice, she told the audience that she had never felt so nervous in all her life, that she was no speaker and felt rather silly. All she could say was that she was grateful for all the kindness shown them throughout the trip and that she was proud to be Australian. She thanked them all from the bottom of her heart and sat down again.

  While the audience heard only a terrified but nonetheless gracious speaker—a housewife who had privately said that she wanted to turn tail and flee back to England when she realised she would have to speak in front of an audience—the press encountered a feisty record-setting aviator, who was peeved at being pipped. When asked about her greatest disappointment or frustration, she replied, ‘That Hinkler butted in before us—which of course he could not have done but for the crash.’

  A short time later she retracted the comment, saying that she hadn’t used the expression attributed to her and that she had never seriously implied anything of the kind. She had learnt the first of many lessons of fame—that those in the public eye have to think carefully before they speak.

  Around 5 pm on Saturday, 31 March, a welcoming party of silver-winged aircraft set out from the Australian Aerial Derby at Sydney’s Mascot aerodrome to meet the Red Rose on its journey south from Newcastle. The late afternoon sun was hiding behind golden banks of clouds when, around 5.30 pm, the returning squadron could be seen against the darkening sky. ‘Here they are!’ cried the 100,000-strong crowd. Looming larger and larger, the planes flew in a perfect formation towards the airfield and then circled for ten minutes as the crowd cheered. The crowd cheered even louder when one silver bird detached itself from the flock and descended towards the aerodrome, landing gracefully in the middle of the water-logged fields. Taxiing to the foot of the official stand, it stopped in a sea of muddy water and sodden grass.

  An Aero Club captain waded to the plane and held his arms out to Chubbie. She climbed from the cockpit and looked askance at the surrounding water. Another man could be seen splashing his way to the plane, dressed in his best suit; it was Chubbie’s husband. But Keith had time only for a perfunctory kiss before Chubbie, with a wry smile, let the Aero Club captain pick her up and start carrying her to the waiting car.

  Behind them came Bill, riding piggyback on another muscular frame. Once in the car, they were driven around the inside fence of the aerodrome so the crowds could get a close-up look at them. Then they were officially welcomed and taken to a reception at the Town Hall.

  Over the next two months, Chubbie saw more Australian cities and towns than she could later remember. They travelled to Canberra, where they were the guests of honour at an official luncheon held at Parliament House; then on to Melbourne and to Hobart. When they landed in Tasmania, Australia’s southern-most state, their flight became the longest ever made in a light plane. But few cared by then. Hinkler’s triumph meant that those extra miles were no longer of any importance.

  After touring the island, they returned to Sydney to begin a paid speaking tour of New South Wales. Bill flew them around the countryside and was always the first to speak. He would then introduce Chubbie, who was the main attraction. With practice, she transformed from being nervous and softly spoken to a professional speaker: confident, amusing and always charming. ‘I was just the baggage,’ she would declare with a twinkle, her self-deprecating humour delighting her audiences.

  As Chubbie and Bill spoke in theatres and halls and clubs across New South Wales, the Southern Cross roared across the Pacific, arguably the greatest flight ever made until Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. Twenty-five years after the first heavier-than-air flight, the Earth had at last been circumnavigated. And Australian aviators had been responsible for covering much of that distance through multiple flights from England to Australia and the Southern Cross’s flight from North America.

  Chubbie first met the Southern Cross’s four-man crew in Sydney on Sunday, 11 June, the day they arrived at Mascot aerodrome. She and Bill joined them at a number of functions in the aftermath, including a celebratory luncheon hosted by the New South Wales government. There sh
e sat among the state’s cabinet ministers and other political and aviation elite. She was the only woman present.

  She met them again in Canberra on 15 June at a federal government function. She and Bill stood on the welcoming platform with the Australian Prime Minister and the federal political elite as Stanley Bruce praised Kingsford Smith and his crew and handed them a £5000 cheque.

  The six adventurers felt an instant affinity, which developed into a strong friendship. Who else knew what it was really like: the ecstasy of flight, the tedious yet exhausting hours in the air, the moments of terror, the compulsion, despite everything, to go back up and do it all over again. The Southern Cross’s navigator, Captain Harry Lyon, who was about to return to America, told them that he and his colleagues had been approached about participating in a Hollywood motion picture for a hefty payment. Make-believe flying, seemingly, was more lucrative than real exploits. But the Southern Cross’s two Australian pilots, Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm, were not planning on returning to America, so he wondered if Chubbie and Bill would be interested in becoming his Hollywood pilots.

  A few days later, Harry telegraphed them to ask for a speedy decision as he needed to book their passages. They met up in Sydney for further discussions. It turned out that Harry was thinking about more than just a Hollywood film. An Atlantic flight, in fact. A successful crossing would mean that, between them, they had circumnavigated the world. He had also seen the attention bestowed on Chubbie for her part in the Red Rose’s flight. And everyone had just heard about Amelia Earhart’s flight across the Atlantic—as a passenger, like Chubbie—and the attention it was generating. What if Chubbie was to co-pilot an Atlantic flight?