Mayday! Aeroplane vanishes in foul weather!

By NELSON EUSTIS
YES, ANA the airline belonging to Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm received a setback in March 1931 when their ‘Southern Cloud” vanished in foul weather between Sydney and Melbourne.
The enormous cost of the search coupled with a downturn in traffic owing to the Depression, forced the company into liquidation.
Even so, Ulm did not waver in his attempts to establish an overseas airline. He continued to believe sensational publicity was the only avenue remaining, but the resources available to finance what he had in mind – a flight around the world  – were extremely limited.
Ulm pooled his assets with a few loyal supporters and together they raised enough to purchase the ‘Southern Moon’  VH-UXX, from the liquidators.
In a sorry start, the aircraft had been due for reconditioning when ANA ceased operations. The ‘Moon’ like the ‘Cross’, was a Fokker VV11 tri-motor, known as an AVRO 10 and built in England by AV Roe.
Invited to supervise the restoration of VH-UXX was Wing-Commander LJ Wacket. He prescribed the treatment needed to fully convert the aircraft for long distance record attempts and heavily loaded airmail flights.
Proudly Australia’s most knowledgeable aeroplane designer, Wacket (later Sir Lawrence), was appointed in 1935 as Chief of the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation. At the end of May 1931, the ‘Moon ‘, ready to fly and renamed ‘Faith in Australia’, was wheeled to the tarmac at Mascot for the first time.
Ulm had a tremendous faith in the future of aviation.  He believed with absolute sincerity that Australia must and was entitled to occupy extremely strategic place in the future airline activities of the British Empire.
It was through his strong conviction that Ulm conceived the name, converting a dusty, dejected ‘Southern Moon’ into the sparkling silver ‘Faith in Australia ‘.
In 1933 and 1934 Ulm crossed the Tasman six times in VH-UXX, three times in each direction. He carried the first official air mail between Australia and New Zealand, at all times using the same crew – ‘Scotty ‘ Alan and Bob Boulton.
Bound for Papua and New Guinea the ‘Faith in Australia’ left Point Cook, Melbourne, at 6.40 am on 24th July 1934 with an official air mail from Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia.
Landing in Sydney at 11.15 am, the mail from New South Wales and New Zealand was quickly loaded while the aircraft was being refueled. Ulm left immediately for Brisbane where they arrived at 4.40 pm.
The VH-UXX was flying to a tight schedule, as usually carefully planned by Ulm who was by now recognized as a fine chairman and an astute business executive. Taking aboard another consignment of mail the ‘Faith in Australia’ left Brisbane at 3am on 25th July. They arrived at Rockhampton before the town was awake – at 7.15am.
Here they stayed only five minutes to exchange mail and left for Townsville, arriving in the north Queensland town at 11.15am.
Probably they refueled at Townsville because Ulms stayed for 45 minutes before taking off for Port Douglas, some 80 km north from Cairns, where a beach landing was successful at 2pm. Ulm was overjoyed at their stroke of luck for the same was firm and at low tide proved an ideal ‘airstrip’. After they tied down VH-UXX for the night, the crew and passengers retired for a well-earned sleep.
There were some worries about the night tides but locals were emphatic that the ‘Faith’ was quite safe, anchored as she was on firm sand resting until a planned 3am start next morning for Port Moresby. On schedule the plane left Port Douglas headed across 800 km of ocean to the coast of Papua which they reached at 9am.
It was then two aircraft were seen in the distance headed towards the VH-UXX.  A very welcome sight on any pioneering flight, it proved to be an escort in the capable hands of pilots Orme Denny and Ray Parer, both legendary airmen in the history of Papua New Guinea.
At Port Moresby, Ulm handed over the mail for Papua, about 11,000 letters. He had intended to continue the flight to Lae same day, 26th July, but an extremely bad weather report caused an overnight stay.
Ever anxious to maintain schedules, Ulm decided because of the delay he would omit Moresby as a port of call on the return flight to Australia. This meant the covers (First Day covers) had to be processed, backstamped, postmarked and impressed with a cachet in less than 24 hours.
THE post office called in extra staff so the return Papua-Australia mail was ready for him when he left for Lae next morning. Before he departed Ulm, the business man, had already compiled comparisons in sea and air travel which he quickly drew to the attention of territorians (the white populations of Papua and New Guinea). He pointed out that the SS ‘Montoro’ sailed from Sydney on July 18.
The ‘Faith in Australia’ left on July 24 and landed at Port Moresby at 9.10am on the 26th. The ‘Montoro’ did not berth until 3pm that same day – a saving of six days using his aircraft.
Although the weather report was not the best, he believed there were no risks. And Ulms, restless to maintain his schedule, was anxious to leave.  A formidable obstacle en-route was a 31,000 km mountain range with its peaks hidden in the clouds.
Unfortunately the weather worsened and as they reduced altitude it became obvious with the poor visibility over Bulolo Valley, landing at Lae was an impossibility.
A stop was made at Wau, only about 30 minutes flying time from their destination. After lunch the weather cleared sufficiently and following an uneventful flight, a safe landing was made at Lae. The tremendous volume of philatelic mail unloaded from VH-UXX undoubtedly presented the Lae processing staff with what appeared as an insurmountable problem in the available time.
In 1934 Lae was only an unofficial post office administered by Hugh Lyons from Guinea Airways Ltd. Confronted with 18,000 covers to be postmarked, backstamped and cached, Lyons had to act promptly –  it was Friday and Ulm wanted to leave on the Monday morning. Additional space was allocated at Guinea Airways bungalow and countless company and administrative staff were seconded at short notice ( to clear the sorting and backstamping process).
They worked from dawn to midnight right through the weekend so that Ulm was able to leave Lae as scheduled and with about 20,000 covers. When added to the mail uplifted from Moresby the total was about 30,000. Mail in each direction was reported to be about the same quantity.
Ulm lifted the ‘Faith in Australia’ off the Lae airstrip early on Monday, July 30, heavily loaded with fuel and mail.
As planned, he bypassed Port Moresby making good time over the territories of New Guinea and Papua to cross the island coastline shortly after 9am. Cape Flattery, 50km north of Cooktown was their first sighting of Australia and they were overhead at 2pm.
As on the scheduled flight, a landing was made at Port Douglas where the crew rested in readiness for an early morning departure. The worst was now over. With the Fokker running to the crew’s satisfaction, they had an armchair ride right down the coast to Brisbane, landing en-route to Townsville and Rockhampton.  Mails had been exchanged at all points except Cairns. There the bags were handled at Townsville on both the onward and return flights.
On the morning of Aug 1, Ulm began the final stage of the flights with landings at Sydney and Canberra before reaching Melbourne in the afternoon. The Canberra stop was unscheduled. Maybe Ulm was anxious to show the flag following the success of the flight, or perhaps he only wanted to drop the Prime Minister’s representative, Halligan, back in his home town.
Whatever the reason ACT (Canberra) first day cover stamp collectors missed the opportunity to send a philatelic mail from Canberra to Melbourne. Not a letter was dispatched. Had there been a small package of perhaps 10 covers today *(July 1984 the 50th anniversary of this airmail historical event) they would be valued at $A200 each.
The epic flights of the ‘Faith in Australia’ proved the ocean to New Zealand and Papua New Guinea could be safely spanned.  But Ulm was fated not to see the historic beginning of scheduled services on the routes he had pioneered with such dedication.
On Dec 4, 1934 he was lost at sea on a flight from America to Australia in the ‘Stellar Australis’ (Star of Australia ), VH-UXY, an Air speed A S6 Envoy land plane. Accompanied by GM Littlejohn and JL Skilling, Ulms is thought to have missed the Hawaiian Islands and gone down in the sea when their fuel was exhausted.
The loss of Ulm was a tragic blow to the all-too-small band of Australian pioneers. Shortly after Ulm’s death his reputation was accurately expressed in an emotional eulogy by his partner, Charles Kingsford Smith who said: “Charles Ulm was many other things besides being a flier and a navigator.
He was gifted, and possessed in his usual character and temperament many of the qualities of greatness. I have been associated with him in many hours of stress and strain, and I shall always retain a strong sense of his forcible character, determination and sheer grit.
“He had great business capacity, punch and vigour, and had he lived I am sure he would have fulfilled his dream of becoming the chairman or managing director of a great Australian world-wide aviation organisation, a position for which he was, in so many respects, admirably suited.
“Had he lived there is no saying to what goals his abilities would have taken him.”

• Editor’s note: Sydney International Airport now bears the name Sir Charles Kingsford Smith in honour of him. The National and freelancer Biga Lebasi acknowledge Nelson Eustis for his original article (Charles Ulm blazed the airmail track to PNG) amended, compiled and reproduced here.