Closure for Bellingham man as new book details father’s mysterious disappearance
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- Bellingham man finds closure as new book documents his father's 1935 disappearance.
- Damien Lay published “Of Air and Men” about legendary pilot Sir Kingsford Smith.
- The book posits that the pilot’s plane went down after being struck by bats near Myanmar.
A Bellingham man is watching the final chapter of his father’s legacy unfold in a new book exploring the mystery of his disappearance that happened 90 years ago.
Legendary Australian pilot Sir Charles Kingsford Smith disappeared along with his co-pilot Tommy Pethybridge in 1935 during an attempt to break the flight speed record from England to Australia.
Their Lockheed Altair 8D aircraft, known as “The Lady Southern Cross,” went down somewhere along the way, sparking a nearly century-long mystery surrounding their disappearance.
Sir Charles Kingsford Smith’s son, Charles Kingsford Smith Jr., was two years old at the time.
“I’ve often thought of the disappearance of my dad when I was a child, as an interrupted or incomplete last chapter of his life,” Kingsford Smith Jr. told The Bellingham Herald.
Now, Australian documentarian and filmmaker Damien Lay has published “Of Air and Men,” a book documenting Smith’s life and disappearance, and its impact on the world.
Lay said he was drawn to the international mystery surrounding Smith’s disappearance because he wanted to help Australians remember someone who may have been forgotten by history. Kingsford Smith was perhaps one of the most famous people in the world at the time of his disappearance, but Lay said Australians do not remember their heroes the same way Americans do.
“In Australia, we tend to lose them over time,” Lay said. “For me personally, I don’t think it is history that should be forgotten in Australia, and it is certainly history that should be presented to the world.”
For Kingsford Smith Jr., this is the opportunity to find an ending to his father’s story.
“He had a very interesting life, and interesting chapters, but this was the last one, and you don’t really know how it ended,” Kingsford Smith Jr. said.
Smith Jr., now 92, moved to the United States from Australia in 1941 and has been living in Bellingham for the last 25 years.
Smith Jr. doesn’t have many memories of his father. But he does remember standing between the pilot and co-pilot seats of his father’s plane. He could see the propeller spinning out the window as the plane was idling on the ground.
“I’m proud of my father. My main regret is, I wish he had been a part of my life as I was growing up, especially through my adolescent years and entering early adulthood. Because a boy can learn an awful lot from his dad, and I was deprived of that,” Kingsford Smith Jr. said.
Lay has spent more than 20 years searching for the wreck of the “Lady Southern Cross”, which was suspected to have crashed off an island near Myanmar, known as Burma. This location was suspected after a wheel from the aircraft washed up on shore just under two years after his disappearance.
Over the decades, three more pieces of the aircraft were discovered.
In recent years, Lay and his team have recovered about 45 more pieces from the aircraft.
“This one (historical event) was such an international story,” Lay told The Herald. “Sir Charles Kingsford Smith was probably and undoubtedly one of the most famous men in the world at the time through his accomplishments.”
Lay suspects Smith’s plane crashed after being hit by bats near Myanmar. The pilots were flying about 500 feet above sea level. The trees at the summit of the island were about 480 feet tall and were home to hundreds of bats that were likely stirred up by the sound of the plane, Lay said.
The island would not have been marked on the pilots’ maps. Smith and Pethybridge would have been flying directly over the summit of the island at night around 2:45 a.m. with no idea the island was beneath them, Lay said.
The bat strike likely forced an emergency landing, according to Lay, which he suspects could have been done on a large sandbar on the island. After making the landing, they would have had limited time to make repairs before the tide came in, Lay said.
“As the tide turned, they were forced to take off again, but with a very short runway directly in line with the eastern headland on the island. I believe the aircraft actually collided with the trees on takeoff, and they tried to perform a water landing,” Lay said.
“As a result of the damage to the undercarriage, which we know exists from the wheel that was recovered, during the water landing, the undercarriage failed to retract and then caused the aircraft to flip on impact with the water.”
Lay made a total of 18 trips to Myanmar looking for answers. He said after all this time, he feels he has done his part in solving the mystery.
“I personally am satisfied with the work that I have done,” Lay said. “There is more work and further work that could be done. Personally, I’m kinda at that point where I feel like I’ve completed what I set out to do.”
“Of Air and Men” is available online and at bookstores. It was officially released Nov. 7, the 90th anniversary of the disappearance.
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