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BORN
31 October 1888, Hallett, South Australia

DIED
30 November 1958, Framingham, Massachusetts

Sir Hubert Wilkins MC & Bar

Wrap up all the great Australian heroes into one, add a few more adventures- such as pioneering movie coverage of news events that grabbed the world’s attention and trying to be the first to manoeuvre a submarine under the arctic icecap – and you have Sir Hubert Wilkins. Yet few have heard of the man, let alone his exploits.

‘Hubert Who?’ They wonder.

Explorer, Pioneer Aviator, War Photographer, Naturalist, Meteorologist, Author, Student of the Paranormal, Secret Agent; Loyal to Shackleton, Bean and Hearst; The last man from the West to meet with Lenin…

Sir Hubert lived so many lives, all of them exciting and fantastic.

He shot the worlds first movie footage from an aircraft (while strapped to the fuselage) and he was the first to fly over BOTH Polar Icecaps. He was the only member of the media ever to be awarded medals for Gallantry (during World War 1). Australia’s commanding officer General Sir John Monash, called Wilkins “the bravest man I’ve ever seen – Australia’s answer to Lawrence of Arabia.” Wilkins was wounded nine times, awarded the Military Cross twice and mentioned in multiple dispatches.

The first man to attempt to take a submarine under the North Pole, a spy for the British in Soviet Russia and the Americans in the Far East, and an enlightened friend to Aboriginal people in the outback.

Recently, Sir Hubert was inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame and the Cinematographers Hall of Fame. Yet this South Australian farm boy is barely acknowledged here in his homeland.

Born on the 31st of October 1888 at Mount Bryan South Australia, the youngest of twelve to farmer Henry Wilkins and Louisa, née Smith. As a child George (as he was known to the family) experienced the devastation caused by drought caring for his own 200 head of sheep and two horses. This developed his life long interest in climatic phenomena. He worked his influence in Russian, American, Canadian and Antarctic lands to install weather stations.

Exploring the Antarctic and the Arctic Circle he made some of the most innovative scientific discoveries of the early 1900s.

Can you believe that some of what we know about weather came from Sir Hubert Wilkins’ research almost a hundred years ago.

Wilkins spent his life developing food and textiles for the American Quartermasters Store until his passing with a heart attack in 1958 at age seventy. One year later his idea was proven correct when the submarine USS Skate surfaced at the North Pole to scatter the ashes of Sir Hubert to honour his life!

Sir Hubert Wilkins was a hero in every sense.

A fellow explorer exclaimed: people like Hubert take us places we might not otherwise go and reveal truths that might otherwise stay hidden.

BORN
30 August 1912, Wellington, New Zealand

DIED
7 August 2011, London, England

Nancy Wake AC GM

“Nancy Grace Augusta Wake, AC, GM was a secret agent during the Second World War. Living in Marseilles with her French industrialist husband when the war broke out, Wake slowly became enmeshed with French efforts against the Germans, and worked to get people out of France.”

Nancy Wake, a prominent figure in the French Resistance during the Second World War, was born in Wellington, New Zealand, on 30 August 1912. Her family moved to Sydney, where she grew up, when Nancy was just 20 months old. She ran away from home at the age of 16 and found work as a nurse, but a windfall enabled her to leave Australia for Europe in 1932. Wake settled in Paris, working for the Hearst group of newspapers as a journalist.

As the 1930s progressed, the rise of German Fascism formed the basis of many of Wake’s stories. In 1935 she visited Vienna and Berlin where the overt and violent anti-Semitism formed in her a desire to oppose Nazism. In November 1939 she married Henri Fiocca, a wealthy industrialist, in Marseilles. Six months later Germany invaded France. Wake and Fiocca joined the fledgling Resistance after France’s surrender in 1940.

Her growing involvement in the Resistance saw Wake and her husband assisting in the escape of Allied servicemen and Jewish refugees from France into neutral Spain. Fearful of being captured she too fled Marseilles and after several thwarted attempts and a brief period in prison, Wake escaped across the Pyrenees. In June 1943 she reached England where she began working in the French Section of the Special Operations Executive (SOE).

After a period of training, Wake returned to France in April 1944 to help organise the Resistance before D-Day. Working in the Auvergne region, Wake was engaged in organising parachute drops of arms and equipment, and after D-Day, was involved in combat with bodies of German troops sent to destroy the Maquis.

Upon liberation, Wake learned that her husband, Henri, had been killed by the Gestapo in August 1943. In September 1944 she left the Resistance and went to SOE Headquarters in Paris and then to London in mid-October. After the war she was decorated by Britain, France and the United States but, being unable to adapt to life in post-war Europe, she returned to Australia in January 1949 aged 37. Shortly afterwards she ran for the Liberal Party against Labor’s ‘Doc’ Evatt and having been narrowly defeated, made a second attempt in 1951, again unsuccessfully.

Unsatisfied with life in Australia, Wake returned to England. In 1957 she married John Forward, an RAF officer. The couple returned to Australia in 1959. A third attempt to enter politics also failed and she and Forward ultimately retired to Port Macquarie where they lived until his death in 1997. In December 2001 she left Australia for England where she lived out her remaining years.

She received the George Medal, 1939-45 Star, France and Germany Star, Defence Medal, British War Medal 1939-45, French Officer of the Legion of Honour, French Croix de Guerre with Star and two Palms, US Medal for Freedom with Palm and French Medaille de la Resistance for her courageous endeavours. Wake’s medals are on display in the Second World War gallery at the Australian War Memorial.

BORN
5 February 1891, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

DIED
27 April 1974, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Sir John Monash GCMG, KCB, VD

Sir John Monash (1865-1931) was an outstanding Australian soldier, engineer, and administrator.

On June 27, 1865, John Monash was born at West Melbourne, Victoria, the only son of Louis Monash and his wife Berthe, née Manasse, Jewish migrants from East Prussia (Poland). John attended Scotch College, Melbourne, of which he was equal dux (equalled the highest marks made by others in his courses) and won the mathematics exhibition at the 1881 public examinations.

Monash formed a civil engineering partnership in 1894 with J. T. N. Anderson. They made only a precarious living until Monash began appearing in the courts as an advocate on engineering matters and later was employed as an adviser and negotiator by large contractors. The firm also built bridges. They lost all their capital, however, after an eccentric legal judgment in favor of a defaulting client, and until 1905 Monash remained deeply in debt. He was eventually saved by developing his local rights to the Monier patent for reinforced concrete construction. The companies for major building construction which he now formed and managed became highly profitable. By 1912 Monash was a well to do Melbourne businessman at the head of his profession, a radical president of the Victorian Institute of Engineers, a university councillor and a part-time lecturer.

From 1908 Monash was Victorian commandant of the Australian Intelligence Corps (militia). He became closely involved in staff work and educated himself further on all matters military. In 1913 and 1914 he commanded an infantry brigade as colonel. On the outbreak of World War I he was appointed to command the 4th Infantry Brigade, Australian Imperial Force. He was promoted to major general in command of the 3rd Australian Division, trained it in 1916, and led it ably in 1917 at Messines and in the battles leading up to Passchendaele. In early 1918 he led the division in combatting the German offensive. From May, as lieutenant-general, he was corps commander during the battle of Hamel and the succession of great victories from August 8, including Mont St. Quentin, until the breaking of the Hindenburg line.

He was articulate in explaining battle plans, with extraordinary attention to detail and provisions for avoiding unnecessary risks. His military achievement, given his background as a civilian Jew of Prussian origin, remains astounding. He has sometimes been spoken of as the outstanding Allied general. He was promoted to General in 1929.

After the war, Monash was chairman of the State Electricity Commission of Victoria with the task of harnessing brown coal for the use of industry, then one of the most important national tasks. He succeeded triumphantly, building an institution which for a long time was an outstandingly successful state instrumentality. He was the unchallenged spokesman for returned soldiers; in charge of the Special Constabulary Force during the police strike of 1923 and chairman of the subsequent royal commission; university vice chancellor from 1923; Jewish spokesman and an active Zionist. He brusquely dismissed requests around 1930 to lead a right-wing coup. Monash died on October 8, 1931. His funeral was the most largely attended Australia had known. In the 1920s Monash was unquestionably regarded as the greatest living Australian—a tall poppy who was never cut down. Essentially he was a most gifted administrator; a man of extraordinarily wide knowledge, experience, and scientific and cultural interests; devoted to public service; and eventually, nearly all ambitions achieved, a man who wore his distinction modestly.

BORN
17 February 1864 “Narrambla”, near Orange, New South Wales

DIED
5 February 1941, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Andrew ‘Banjo’ Paterson CBE

Andrew Barton (Banjo) Paterson (1864-1941), poet, solicitor, journalist, war correspondent and soldier, was born on 17 February 1864 at Narrambla near Orange, New South Wales.

By 1895 such ballads as ‘Clancy of the Overflow’, ‘The Geebung Polo Club’, ‘The Man from Ironbark’, ‘How the Favourite Beat Us’ and ‘Saltbush Bill’ were so popular with readers that Angus & Robertson, published the collection, ‘The Man From Snowy River and Other Verses’, in October. The title-poem had swept the colonies when it was first published in April 1890. The book had a remarkable reception: the first edition sold out in the week of publication and 7000 copies in a few months; its particular achievement was to establish the bushman in the national consciousness as a romantic and archetypal figure. The book was as much praised in England as in Australia: The Times compared Paterson with Rudyard Kipling who himself wrote to congratulate the publishers. Paterson’s identity as ‘The Banjo’ was at last revealed and he became a national celebrity overnight.

While on holiday in Queensland late in 1895, Paterson stayed with friends at Dagworth station, near Winton. Here he wrote ‘Waltzing Matilda’ which was to become Australia’s best-known folk song.

His most important journalistic opportunity came with the outbreak of the South African War when he was commissioned by the Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Age as their war correspondent; he sailed for South Africa in October 1899. Attached to General French’s column, for nine months Paterson was in the thick of the fighting and his graphic accounts of the key campaigns included the surrender of Bloemfontein (he was the first correspondent to ride into that town).

When World War I began, Paterson immediately sailed for England, hoping unsuccessfully to cover the fighting in Flanders as war correspondent. He drove an ambulance attached to the Australian Voluntary Hospital, Wimereux, France, before returning to Australia early in 1915.

Almost immediately promoted captain, he served in the Middle East. Wounded in April 1916, he rejoined his unit in July. He was ideally suited to his duties and promoted major, commanded the Australian Remount Squadron from October until he returned to Australia in mid-1919.

He retired from active journalism in 1930 to devote his leisure to creative writing. He was by now a celebrated and respected citizen of Sydney, most often seen at the Australian Club where he had long been a member and where his portrait now hangs. In following years he became a successful broadcaster with the Australian Broadcasting Commission on his travels and experiences. He also wrote his delightfully whimsical book of children’s poems.

In 1939 he was appointed C.B.E. He died, after a short illness, on 5 February 1941 and was cremated with Presbyterian forms.

By the verdict of the Australian people, and by his own conduct and precept, Paterson was, in every sense, a great Australian. Ballad-writer, horseman, bushman, overlander, squatter—he helped to make the Australian legend. Yet, in his lifetime, he was a living part of that legend in that, with the rare touch of the genuine folk-poet, and in words that seemed as natural as breathing, he made a balladry of the scattered lives of back-country Australians and immortalized them.

BORN
19 May 1861, Richmond, Victoria, Australia

DIED
23 February 1931, Darlinghurst, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Dame Nellie Melba GBE

“Vocalist Nellie Melba (1861-1931) rose from a childhood in provincial Australia to become a world-renowned opera soprano who performed regularly at London’s Covent Garden and the Metropolitan Opera in New York. A diva with a commanding stage presence and a beautiful voice, Melba was the outstanding coloratura of her era and one of the biggest celebrities of the early 20th century.”

Born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1861 as Helen Porter Mitchell, the future opera star was the third-born and first surviving child of Isabella and David Mitchell. Seven more children would follow. Melba grew up in the country estate of Lilydale, near Melbourne.

Her entire family was musically inclined, but Melba was the only child who persisted in music. She attended Presbyterian Ladies College in Melbourne, where Peitro Cecchi recognized her singing talent as a powerful and lilting soprano.

For her stage name she took the name Melba, short for Melbourne; Nellie was the family’s nickname for her. She made her debut in Brussels in 1887, playing the role of Gilda in Rigoletto.

In 1888, Melba made her London debut at Covent Garden, playing the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor. Until 1926, she would be a fixture at the famous London opera house. She also debuted in the United States in the role of Lucia, singing at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, where she would also perform regularly until she was in her mid-sixties.

For most of the nearly four decades of her career, Melba was the greatest diva of her time, even though she was not a great stage actress. Her immaculate, unforced coloratura singing was immortalized in a series of recordings made between 1907 and 1916, including a moving scene from Hamlet.

At her impressive home she entertained many of Europe’s royal families and was a powerful personality and celebrity. When she had an affair with the Duke of Orleans in 1900, her husband divorced her. She did not remarry and had no other children. During World War I, she was unstinting in her war work, often performing at benefit concerts, and in 1918 she was made a Dame of the British Empire.

Melba bade farewell to her native Australia in 1924, releasing a letter that said: “I have tried to keep faith with my art … to make the big world outside, through me, understand something of the spirit of my beloved country.” She then made farewell tours and concerts worldwide, so many so, in fact, that a sarcastic expression arose: “More farewells than Nellie Melba.” She sang at the opening of the nation’s Parliament House in Canberra in 1927, and her final concert in Australia was in 1928. In 1931, refusing to accept her aging, Melba got a facelift, but the operation resulted in a blood infection, and she died in St. Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney, the cause of her death not released to the public.

Ever concerned about her public perception, Melba had even orchestrated her funeral in advance. She had had a photograph taken of her portraying the dead Juliet of Romeo and Juliet, and after her death she was made up to look like the photo, with her bed strewn with frangipani, before anyone was allowed to see her. The funeral attracted national and international dignitaries to Melbourne, and she was buried at Lilydale Cemetery under a monument that depicts her reported last words: “Addio! Senzor Rancor”—”Farewell, without bitterness.”

BORN
9 February 1897, Hamilton, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

DIED
8 November 1935, Andaman Sea, Burma

Sir Charles Kingsford Smith MC, AFC

“A wartime pilot and pioneer of civil aviation and air mail routes. To his generation “Smithy” became as much a national symbol as Phar Lap or Don Bradman.”

Sir Charles Edward Kingsford Smith (1897-1935), aviator, was born on 9 February 1897 in Brisbane, fifth son and seventh child of William Charles Smith, banker and his wife Catherine Mary, née Kingsford.

In February 1915 after three years with the Senior Cadets, Kingsford Smith enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force. He embarked with the 4th Signal Troop, 2nd Division Signal Company, on 31 May as a sapper and served in Gallipoli and as a dispatch rider, in Egypt and France. In October 1916, as sergeant, he transferred to the Australian Flying Corps. After training in England he was discharged from the A.I.F. and commissioned as second lieutenant, Royal Flying Corps. In March the next year; he was appointed flying officer in May and in July joined No.23 Squadron in France. Wounded and shot down in August, he was awarded the Military Cross ‘for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty’; he had brought down four machines during his first month at the front and done valuable work in attacking ground targets and hostile balloons. After promotion to lieutenant in April 1918 he served as an R.F.C. flying instructor.

After the war flying became his passion and he piloted joy-flights overseas before returning home in 1921. In the following years he tried to establish viable aviation companies. It was an expensive business and he regularly sought publicity and sponsorship for record-breaking flights.

One epic flight, above all his many others, established “Smithy” as one of the greatest pioneering pilots of all time. On 31 May 1928 he took off from California with Charles Ulm and two American crewmen in a three-engined Fokker, the Southern Cross. For aircraft of this era it was an immense distance, over water all the way. They flew via Hawaii and Suva to Brisbane, fighting storms and near exhaustion, completing the journey in under 84 flying hours.

For his achievements, Kingsford Smith was given honorary rank in the RAAF and awarded the Air Force Cross. He continued on more record-breaking flights to show the feasibility of air passenger and mail services. In 1932 he was knighted for his contribution to aviation.

Most Australians loved Smithy’s dare-devil attitude and his larrikin streak: “a drink and cigarette in hand … he lived hard and fast”. But he was dogged by tragedy: a former colleague, Keith Anderson, died during a search when Smithy went missing briefly in the Northern Territory in 1929; then in 1931 a company aircraft Southern Cloud was lost with all passengers and crew. Finally, in 1935, Kingsford Smith disappeared off Burma while attempting yet another record-breaking flight.

His contribution to civil aviation was an effort of faith and stamina and places him among the world’s notable pioneers. Lean, with ‘cool blue eyes’, generous mouth and terse manner, he is featured on the Australian $20 note. Sydney’s airport is named after him and there is a memorial to him, Taylor and Ulm at Anderson Park, Sydney. The Southern Cross is on view at Brisbane airport. Kingsford Smith was the author of The Old Bus (1932) and with Ulm, Story of ‘Southern Cross’ Trans-Pacific Flight (1928). His autobiography My Flying Life was published posthumously in 1937 and the story of his life was filmed in Australia in 1946.

BORN
5 February 1891, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

DIED
27 April 1974, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Jack Mathewson

Jack was born into one of Queensland’s pioneering photographic families. His father, Thomas, was regarded as the Father of Photography in Queensland and so, when the First World War began it was quite obvious that Jack’s skills, developed in his father’s studio, would be invaluable in the fledgling field of aerial reconnaissance.

He was part of the Australian Flying Corp’s, 3rd Squadron and was responsible for the processing of photographs taken by crews of the RE-8s. These photographs were then pieced together into a giant mosaic of the battlefields. As Jack was helping to construct maps for the allies’, a German officer, Wilhelm Filchner, famous for leading the first German Expedition to Antarctica, was mapping the battlefields for the German army. In a few years’ time, both these men, once enemies, would have their lives inextricably linked…

After Jack’s return from the war he resumed his life working for his father in his photographic studio but his adventurous spirit and the effects of the war, made settling down to a humdrum existence difficult. Jack always had a strong Christian faith and when a call went out for missionaries to serve in China, Jack enthusiastically responded.
After training, Jack was sent to the western frontier of China, near the Tibetan border. China was in the midst of turbulent times as civil war was brewing. Things became so bad that the order was given to leave China immediately. This of course, was impossible given the remoteness of their location.

At this time Wilhelm Filchner again re-emerged. He was recovering from an overland trek from Moscow and was cared for by the Christian missionaries in Sining. Jack, having become good friends with Filchner, saw the opportunity to escape through Tibet and to be one of the first missionaries to enter this land. And so the journey began…

A caravan was formed and soon the intrepid group crossed the frontier into the mysterious and largely unexplored land of Tibet. The plan was to journey to Lhasa, cross the Himalayas into Kathmandu and then onto British controlled India. Unfortunately, the plan did not work out that simply. Some 60 kilometres from Lhasa the Dali Llama sent 600 armed guards to prevent their entry to the Forbidden City. They were kept under arrest for three months as diplomatic negotiations ensued. Eventually, the Dali Llama still refused them entry but gave a pass which would enable them to be resupplied with fresh yaks and provisions. Because of the delays, they were now into a fast approaching winter. Their destination was Kashmir, a perilous journey across the Tibetan high plains in the shadow of the Himalayas. It soon became a battle of survival as they were forced to cross mountain passes of up to 18 000 feet in the depths of winter. Their supplies ran low and equipment failed. Their footwear became little more than rags and frostbite resulted. They faced death at the hands of robber gangs and on more than one occasion they were able to save each other’s lives from avalanche, rock falls and the extreme conditions they faced. They eventually reached Kashmir in a desperate state… but alive.

Meanwhile back in Australia, the news had been passed on that Jack had been killed, as those who had remained at the mission station had been murdered. A memorial service was held for him. His mother died not knowing he had survived but his long-suffering fiancé never gave up hope that he would return.

Brisbane residents greeted him in their thousands as they welcomed home their hero of this epic adventure.