Anzac & aviator : the remarkable story of Sir Ross Smith and the 1919 England to Australia Air Race

Resource Information

The work Anzac & aviator : the remarkable story of Sir Ross Smith and the 1919 England to Australia Air Race represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Randwick City Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Anzac & aviator : the remarkable story of Sir Ross Smith and the 1919 England to Australia Air Race

Title remainder

the remarkable story of Sir Ross Smith and the 1919 England to Australia Air Race

Statement of responsibility

Michael Molkentin

Title variation

Anzac and aviator

Creator

• Molkentin, Michael

Contributor

• Thomas, Andy

Author

• Molkentin, Michael

Author of introduction

• Thomas, Andy

Subject

• Air pilots -- Australia -- Biography
• Australia, Army -- Biography
• Australia, Army | Australian Flying Corps
• Australia, Army | Australian Light Horse
• Australia, Army | Australian Light Horse -- History
• Australia, Australian Army | Australian Flying Corps
• Australia, Australian Army | Australian Light Horse
• Aeronautics -- Flights
• London-to-Australia Air Race, 1919
• Smith, Ross Macpherson, Sir, 1892-1922
• Smith, Ross, Sir, 1892-1922
• Soldiers -- Australia -- Biography
• Biographies
• Aeroplane racing -- Australia -- History
• Aeroplane racing -- England -- History

Genre

• Biography

Language

eng

Summary

The story of extraordinary Australian, Ross Smith, who rode to war at Gallipoli on horseback and by the end of the war, was one of the most highly awarded fighter pilots. In the smouldering aftermath of the First World War a young Australian pilot and his crew prepare to attempt the inconceivable: a flight, halfway around the globe, from England to Australia. The 18,000 kilometre odyssey will take 28 days and test these men and their twin-engine biplane to the limit. It is a trans-continental feat that will change the world and bring the air age to Australia. It will also prove to be the culminating act in the extraordinary and tragically brief life of its commander, Captain Sir Ross Smith. Raised on a remote sheep station in the dying days of Australia's colonial frontier, there was little in Ross Smith's childhood that suggested a future as one of the world's great pioneering aviators. He went to war in 1914, serving with the light horse at Gallipoli and in the Sinai before volunteering for the fledgling Australian Flying Corps. In a new dimension of warfare, Ross Smith survived two gruelling years of aerial combat over Palestine to emerge as one of the most skilled and highly decorated Australian pilots of the war. In 1919 he was a pilot on the first ever mission to survey an air route from Cairo to the East Indies, before gaining international fame as the winner of the government's £10,000 prize for leading the first aircrew to fly from England to Australia. His attempt to exceed this by circumnavigating the world by air in 1922 would end in disaster. Drawing on the rich and extensive collection of Ross Smith's private papers, Anzac & Aviator tells, for the first time, the gripping story of a remarkable aviator, the extraordinary times in which he lived and the air race that changed the world

Biography type

individual biography

Cataloging source

VHEI

Dewey number

629.13

Illustrations

• illustrations
• maps
• portraits
• plates

Index

index present

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography

Target audience

adult