Charles Kingford Smith and Those Magnificent Men

Charles Kingford Smith and Those Magnificent Men

Australia's most popular biographer Peter FitzSimons captures the derring-do of one of our nations greatest pioneers, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith.

Sir Charles Kingford Smith is one of Australia's most loved legends.

In an action-packed life the indomitable 'Smithy' went from fighting as a soldier among the carnage of Gallipoli and the Western Front, to taking to the skies against the likes of the Red Baron- where he won the Military Cross for gallantry- before becoming the greatest peacetime aviator of his generation.

Along with Charles Ulm, he was the first man to conquer the Pacific by air, the first to fly across the Tasman Sea, the fastest man to fly from England to Australia and the first pilot to circumnavigate the globe by crossing the equator.

Beyond Smithy, however, FitzSimons captures with typical flair how, in just 66 extraordinary years, aviation went from just a few feet off the ground to one foot on the moon. He tells the story of the breakthrough in Australia in 1894 which laid the foundation for the Wright brothers' getting off the ground in 1903; the first flight across the Channel in 1908; Germany's Red Baron terrorising the Allies in 1917-1918 before being shot down by an Australian; Ross and Keith Smith being the first to fly from England to Australia in 1919; the formation of Qantas in 1921; Lindbergh's stunning vault between America and Europe in 1927; the Great Centenary Air Race, the loss of the Southern Cloud; the saga of Bert Hinkler and much, much, more…

Peter FitzSimonsis a journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald and the Sun-Herald and has interviewed everyone from President George Bush Snr to Sir Edmund Hillary to every Australian Prime Minister since Gough Whitlam. He is also a popular after-dinner speaker and the only Wallaby sent from the field against the All Blacks- unjustly, he swears. Peter is the author of twenty books- including biographies of Nancy Wake, Kim Beazley, Nick Farr-Jones, Steve Waugh, Les Darcy and John Eales- and was Australia's bestselling non-fiction writer in 2001 and 2004. He is the author of the number-one bestselling military history books, Kokoda and Tobruk. He lives in Sydney with his wife Lisa Wilkinson and their three children.

Charles Kingford Smith and Those Magnificent Men
Harper Collins Publishers
Author: Peter FitzSimons
ISBN: 9780732284879
Price: $49.99