To commemorate the Silver Jubilee of King George V in 1935, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith planned a trans-Tasman airmail from Sydney to New Plymouth and a return from New Zealand to Sydney. Connection with the Australia - UK airmail would give the first official airmail from New Zealand to the UK.
The plane was the Southern Cross which had made the original trans-Tasman flight in 1928. P G Taylor was co-pilot and J Stannage radio-operator. The flight was planned for 14 May, but was postponed due to bad weather and eventually left early on 15 May at twenty past midnight [3]. During 14 May, further mail had arrived and was put in 7 small bags. A total of 28,279 items of mail was flown.
500 miles out from Sydney, one of the three engines was damaged and they were forced to return to Australia. To save weight, they dumped fuel, freight and the mail bags.
The port engine began to overheat and P G (Bill) Taylor, climbed out of the cockpit window and drained oil from the dead starboard engine into a thermos flask and from there into an attache case. He then climbed out on the other side and added the oil to the overheating port engine. This was repeated six times!
On return to Sydney, they found that the 7 small bags of late mail, containing 1100 items, had not been dumped along with the rest of the mail. Two of the bags were from Melbourne, one from Adelaide, one from Launceton and three from Brisbane.
Mail from Melbourne
One bag from Melbourne contained mail for Christchurch and the other for Dunedin. This cover to Timaru would have been in the Christchurch bag.
It is postmarked Shipmail Room, Melbourne on 12 May. The shipmail room was where overseas mail was handled. The letter is part of the late mail that had been flown from Melbourne to Sydney in a special plane [1].
The saved mail was sent on 18 May by sea from Sydney arriving in Wellington on 23 May where it was backstamped with a special relief handstamp. The presence of this backstamp is the only proof that a cover was flown and did not miss the flight.
As the airmail postage rate was only 7d, this cover is overfranked by 11d.
Mail from Adelaide
The next cover is from the bag that contained mail from Adelaide addressed to Auckland. It is postmarked on 10 May in South Australia and again has the special Wellington relief handstamp.
However, it is a boomerang cover and, as well as Australian stamps, has New Zealand stamps to pay for the expected return airmail.
Due to the failure of the outward flight, the return flight never took place. The waiting New Zealand mail was sent to Australia by sea arriving on 20 May. However, this cover did not arrive in New Zealand until 23 May.
As it is addressed to Auckland, it might be expected that it would be sent there where it would be up to the recipient whether or not it was posted to Australia.
However, the New Zealand stamps are postmarked using the special Wellington relief handstamp and so the cover clearly started its return journey from Wellington and was never sent to Auckland. I have not seen any previous reference to the use of the Wellington relief handstamp providing a postmark rather than a backstamp.
The cover is backstamped on 29 May in Adelaide which suggests
that it arrived in Sydney on 27 May.
That supports
the notion that it was returned to Australia from Wellington on 23 May
rather than being sent to Auckland.
It is franked at the correct rate of 7d in each direction.
Mail from Launceton
The mail from Launceton (Tasmania) was for Wellington. This rather crumpled cover is postmarked and backstamped at Launceton on 11 May.
It has the usual 23 May Wellington relief backstamp.
There is a very smudged autograph by P G Taylor on the left.
Special covers, printed in deep blue, were produced for the flight.
They were printed on three different colours of envelopes;
this one is on white while
the cover below from Brisbane is printed on a blue envelope.
Printings on envelopes described as Old Gold are also known.
Although the literature states that the bag from Launceston
contained mail for Wellington, this second cover from Launceston is addressed to Dunedin.
It is postmarked in Launceston on 9 May although there is also an 11 May
Launceston backstamp along with the required Wellington backstamp of 23 May.
Mail from Brisbane
Two of the three bags from Brisbane were to Wellington and one was to Auckland.
This cover is postmarked in Ipswich, Queensland on 10 May and would have first been sent to Brisbane before being sent to Sydney to join the Jubilee Air Mail. However, the Brisbane backstamp appears to be 8 May, which does not make sense, although the cover also has the required Wellington backstamp of 23 May.
This cover is franked with 1/2 as it was to be returned to Australia on the
planned return flight.
Late Mail
Mail continued to arrive after the Jubilee Air Mail had left. This cover is postmarked at Albury in Victoria on 14 May and backstamped in Sydney at 12 noon on 15 May.
Two large purple cachets were applied to show that the cover arrived too late and was not flown, but was to be delivered by ordinary mail.
The cover is grossly overfranked with 2/11 in stamps, being the Australian Jubilee set plus a 6d airmail. The 2/- Jubilee stamp is quite a pricey item!
This cover is shown in the article by Legg [3].
Postscript
There is a full description of Captain Taylor's exploits including pictures from a 1946 film showing a re-enactment of the transfer of oil.
For his bravery in the Jubilee flight, P G Taylor was awarded the Empire Gallantry Medal which became the George Cross in 1940 [2]. Previously, during the First World War, he had been awarded the Military Cross. He was knighted in 1954 for his services to aviation.
Although Charles Kingsford Smith survived this flight, he was killed with J T (Tommy) Pethybridge several months later in November 1935 when his plane disappeared in the Bay of Bengal on a direct flight from Allahabad in India to Singapore. Charles Ulm had been killed with his crew in December 1934 on a flight from America to Hawaii. With their deaths ended the experimental trans-Tasman airmails.
However, P G Taylor carried on their tradition. He made the first flight from Australia to Africa in 1939 and the first flight from Australia to South America (Chile) in 1951. He died in 1966 at the age of 70.
This cover was carried by P G Taylor
on the experimental flight to Valparaiso, Chile.
It left Sydney on 14 March 1951 and is backstamped in Valparaiso
on 26 March.
The return flight left Valparaiso on 6 April and arrived back
in Sydney on 21 April when this cover was backstamped.
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All scans were made by the author.
Information on this page is taken from:
Airmails of New Zealand, volume 2 (1986) compiled by
Douglas A Walker, and
The New Zealand Airmail Catalogue, (2nd Edition, 1994)
by James Stapleton.
Both are published by the
Air Mail Society of New Zealand
[1] N Eustis, The Australian Air Mail Catalogue, 7th Ed, 2002.
[2] A Gardiner,
The Kiwi, vol 40, pp 99-100, November 1991.
[3] B Legg, Jubilee Airmail: A New Zealand Connection,
Air Mail News, vol 36, pp 46-50, March 1993.