Anzac & Aviator

Anzac & Aviator: the remarkable story of Sir Ross Smith and the 1919 England to Australia Air Race by Michael Molkentin was written to commemorate the centenary of this event.

Ross Macpherson Smith was born in South Australia on 4 December 1842 and was brought up on the family sheep station before attending Queen's School in Adelaide as a boarder. After leaving school  Ross worked in the warehouse of Harris Skarfe.

In 1910 he joined the Commonwealth Military Cadet Corps as a member of Adelaide's mounted cadet squadron. This was the year that a group of cadets, including Ross, travelled overseas to inspect military establishments and armament factories in Europe and North America. It was in England on 1 August 1910 that Ross and the other cadets watched aeroplanes taking off and landing at Brooklands aerodrome. Thus began his desire to be a pilot.

In 1914 Ross enlisted in the AIF's Light Horse Brigade as an NCO - first stop Egypt and then Gallipoli (the horses remaining in Egypt) and then back to Egypt. When the men left Australia they thought that they would be home again within a year. Ross and his fellow soldiers had not envisaged being away from home for four plus years. In 1916 Ross applied to transfer to the Australian Flying Corps as he wanted to learn to fly areoplanes. He eventually was accepted and learned initially to be a navigator before being trained as a pilot.

This book, written by Michael Molkentin, provides an interesting and detailed account of the life of a young pilot encountering the new world of flight, initially during the confines of war but then imagining the possibilities of world exploration. After the war Ross, his brother Keith plus Jim Bennett and Wally Shiers, undertook to fly from London to Darwin - a trip taking twenty-eight days. In 1922 Ross and Keith planned an even larger project - a round the world flight. Unfortunately during final testing of the plane there was an accident resulting in the death Ross and Jim Bennett. Sir Ross Macpherson Smith was twenty-nine when he died.

Molkentin has written not only of the life of this pioneer of Australian (and world) aviation but has provided the reader with an understanding of the the exciting and dangerous times when young pilots and their crews set out to test the possibilities of flight as a form of transport for the future. When you look at photos of the plane in which Ross and his team flew from London to Darwin you become aware of the the challenge of the undertaking that they undertook.

The author includes information about the available resources he had access to for this book as well as suggestions for further research.