A turbulent life: Charles Kingsford Smith
Posted on: Mon 20 Nov 2023
Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and his Southern Cross airplane were household names in the last century. When he flew across the Pacific Ocean in 1928 he was greeted in Brisbane by a crowd of 15,000. He followed that with many more big achievements before he was lost at sea just 7 years later.
Author Ann Blainey talks with Service Voices’ Nicky Page about her thoroughly contemporary biography of this man… including his panic attacks in the cockpit… maybe traceable to flying planes in World War 1 before he’d even reached his 21st birthday.
Image: Sapper Charles Edward Kingsford-Smith, of Neutral Bay, NSW (left) and Spr William Raymond Kingsford, of Double Bay, NSW (right). Both soldiers served with the 4th Light Horse Brigade, 4th Signal Troop. Kingsford-Smith enlisted 10.02.1915 and transferred to the Australian Flying Corps in 1916 where he served as a Sergeant. In 1917 he was discharged from the AIF and later commissioned as a Second Lieutenant with the Royal Flying Corps. AWM Copyright expired
