Mystery of the Southern Cloud

Southern Cloud was one of five Avro X triple-engined aircraft operated by Australian National Airways (ANA). This company (not to be confused with the later company of the same name) was formed in 1929 by Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm. A year earlier, Kingsford Smith and Ulm had made their memorable trans-Pacific and trans-Tasman flights in the Southern Cross. Then in June 1929 they broke the Australia-England record in the same plane. Southern Cross was a Fokker FVIIB-3m aircraft, of which the Avro X was the British version. As well as choosing an almost identical aeroplane to Southern Cross for their new airline, the two aviators also gave the five Avros similar names • each began with the prefix Southern. Services commenced in January 1930 and a daily Sydney· Melbourne flight began on 1 June.

At 8. 15 am on Saturday 21 March 1931, Southern Cloud took off from Mascot Airport; Sydney, bound for Melbourne’s Essendon Aerodrome. It was captained by Travis Shortridge, ANA’s most senior pilot. His assistant was Charles Dunnell, who had been with ANA for more than a year. Six passengers were on board. American Clyde Hood, stage producer for Sydney’s Capitol Theatre, was flying to Melbourne to see his wife, stage star Bertha Ricardo. Julian Margules, partner in a firm of electri· cal engineers, was returning home from a business trip to Queensland. Hubert Farrall of Caulfield had been in Sydney in connection with his own firm, the Delaware Cream Company. Elsie Glasgow was flying home after a three-week holiday with her sister. Sydney accountant Bill O’Reilly was proceeding to Melbourne on business. Twenty-five-year-old Claire Stokes had decided to pay a weekend visit to friends in Melbourne • it was her first plane trip.

Shortridge had read the latest weather report, released the previous evening. ‘Windy and rainy weather’ was forecast. He knew that some instrument flying would by necessary, but the forecast gave no reason to doubt that the flight should be made.

At 11 am; nearly three hours after Southern Cloud left Sydney, the weather bureau revised its forecast. West to south-west gales blowing at more than 100 kph accompanied by massive cloud banks and torrential rain was the new forecast for the area where the airliner was flying into. Yet there was no way of communicating this news to the plane’s crew. Southern Cloud carried no radio.

The aircraft was due at Essendon at 3. 30 pm. As 3. 30 and the rest of the squally Melbourne afternoon passed by, ANA officials started becoming anxious. Delayed arrivals, though, were not uncommon. Kingsford Smith was informed that night of the plane’s failure to arrive but was not overly concerned. He was confident that Shortridge had avoided the cyclonic conditions over the Australian Alps and had landed at an isolated airstrip somewhere to the west of the normal route.

Next morning, however, there was no message from Shortridge advising of an emergency landing in the west.

Reported sightings soon started to flow in. At first it seemed fairly definite that Southern Cloud had come down near Violet Town, 60 kilometres south-west of Wangaratta. By Sunday evening many more reports had come in from the heavily-timbered Yea-Kinglake area, 70 kilometres north-east of Melbourne.

Coordinated by the Civil Aviation Branch of the Department of Defence, the search began. A number of private and commercial aircraft, mainly Moths and Desoutters, started flying over the above areas and Air Commodore Richard Williams, commander of the 10-year-old Royal Australian Air Force, detailed two Wapitis to assist. ANA suspended services so that all its available aircraft could be used in the search. Well-known aviator and experienced ANA pilot G. U. ‘Scotty’ Allan flew Southern Moon to Melbourne and commenced searching; Kingsford Smith, in Southern Sun, and Ulm in his own Avro Avian, flew to Holbrook early on the Monday morning and commenced their search operations from there. Ground parties. were organised at numerous towns in the search zone and began trekking out into the rugged bush.

Despite the wildness of the country that Southern Cloud appeared to have come down in, hopes were high that Shortridge had landed safely but was unable to communicate his whereabouts. A pilot in the Royal Air Force during 1918 and in the RAAF during the 1920’s, Shortridge commanded respect among fellow airmen. He had worked as an instructor for the New South Wales Aero Club and was famous for his stunt flying at Aero Club Pageants. If it was possible for anyone to land Southern Cloud during Saturday’s storm, ‘Shorty’ was the one to do it, according to the consensus of opinion.

During the ensuing days, an ever-widening area of Victoria was combed time and time again by a fleet of 20 search aircraft. The Yea district, in particular, was repeatedly searched. Every· effort was made to investigate reported sightings. Reports of strange fires in the hills and flashes resembling distress signals were quickly followed up (even though Southern Cloud carried no distress flares). The task for pilots and observers was an arduous and extremely trying one, requiring relentless concentration. Tall forests, deep valleys, low cloud and morning fogs were some of the difficulties faced by aerial searchers. Wet rock outcrops, glistening in the sun, resembled metal objects and distracted many observers. Planes would return to Essendon to refuel, and, before taking off again crews would be besieged by anxious friends and relatives of those on board the lost aircraft.

Meanwhile, on the ground, 1000 men in scattered search parties had fanned out through the bush – both on foot and on horseback. So great was the involvement of townspeople that normal business operations in several of the affected towns were brought to a standstill.

Yet despite all the effort, no trace of Southern Cloud could be found. An atmosphere of despondency began to settle on the search operation.

About mid-week reports of sightings in the Snowy Mountains started causing excitement. Residents of Tintaldra said they had seen a fire and flashes of light high up on the side of the Toolong Range, about 35 kilometres southeast of Tumbarumba and 15 kilometres southwest of Kiandra. Two lone gold prospectors named Dwyer and Cross were camped just west of the Toolong Range when, during Saturday’s fierce blizzard, they heard a plane pass overhead and shortly afterwards a crash followed by an explosion. An anonymous prospector, sheltering from the snow-storm at Boobee hut to the east, also heard an aircraft pass very low overhead. He came out of the mountains on the Thursday to buy provisions at Adaminaby and his story was immediately transmitted to Charles Ulm. Other sightings in the mountains were also reported.

Kingsford Smith had already flown over the Tumbarumba – Kosciusko area but he quickly returned to the region. Two RAAF Wapitis from Richmond air-base flew through Canberra and on to the mountains to investigate the reports. Three Gipsy Moth aircraft which had been involved in the Victorian search also flew to Tumbarumba. They searched over the Toolong and other ranges, but like Kingsford Smith and the RAAF pilots, saw nothing, not even fire-damaged trees. Captain Follett, pilot of one of the Gipsy Moths, could only say ‘I never saw anything like it before as far as rough country is concerned’. Ground parties from Tumbarumba similarly had no success.

Meanwhile, alleged sightings continued to pour in to ANA and Civil Aviation officials. People from such widely dispersed communities as Bathurst and Bega were sure they had seen the Southern Cloud. G. U. Allan, in the Southern Star, spent an entire day searching the New South Wales south coast and the Blue Mountains as a result.

In Victoria the search went on. The continuing failure to discover wreckage lent weight’ to. the growing belief that Southern Cloud had overshot the Victorian coast and crashed into either Port Phillip or Westernport bays. A number of people reported seeing or hearing the plane near the coast, and the theory was given additional credibility when the press reported that Australia’s famous First World War flying ace, Squadron Leader A. H. Cobby, said he had heard a three-engined aircraft pass over Melbourne on the afternoon the southern Cloud disappeared. So pilots and their observers now started examining Victoria’s coastline.

A week after the Southern Cloud disappeared, hope was just about gone. The press reported that ‘those in charge of the search now admit that there is nothing of a definite character upon which to base future operations’. Whereas ANA confidently asserted the airliner had passed into Victoria, now he was only able to definitely say it had passed Goulburn, New South Wales.

About 500 sightings had been reported. So many were of such a conflicting nature that they hindered search operations. Stewart complained several times of the ‘numerous erroneous reports’ which were ‘misleading’ and had ’caused considerable trouble’. ‘It is regrettable’, he said, ‘that sensation-mongers will create and disseminate erratic and harmful rumours’.

Kingsford Smith and Ulm felt the full brunt of the tragedy. As co-founders of ANA, they felt responsible for finding the Southern Cloud. They flew over every kilometre of the Sydney-Melbourne route, spending 8 hours a day in the air and then studying search reports late into the night. Shortridge was a close friend and colleague. Kingsford Smith later wrote ‘I have never been in such a sorry state of exhaustion as during those nightmare days’.

Many now believed that the fate of the Southern Cloud and its occupants would remain a mystery forever. Civil Aviation called off the official search on Saturday 28 March. ANA, however, continued its search for another eight days. Planes flew along the Victorian coast as far as Wilson’s Promontory, and on 5 April Kingsford Smith and Allan, flying the legendary Southern Cross, again examined the Snowy Mountains. By now it seemed that there was nowhere else to look and ANA too abandoned its search, resuming services the next day.

The Minister for Defence, future Prime Minister J. B. Chifley, announced on 1 April that an inquiry into the Southern Cloud’s disappearance would be conducted by the Federal Air Accidents Investigation Committee. The inquiry commenced on 10 April, sitting first in Sydney and then in Melbourne. Charles Ulm was the first witness examined, and the questions put to him covered most of the areas that the committee was to investigate during the next few weeks: weather conditions on 21 March, liaison between the weather bureau and the airline company, the aircraft’s air-worthiness, the absence of radio on board, Shortridge’s qualifications.

Assistant State Meteorologist Harold Camm, ANA pilots James Mollison and G. U. Allan, ANA chief engineer F. W. Hewitt, the Controller of Civil Aviation Colonel H. Brinsmead and Civil Aviation’s senior aircraft inspector T. E. Johnson were among those who gave evidence at the inquiry. On 29 April, the committee published its report. No definite cause could be given for the aircraft’s disappearance, although the committee was ‘of opinion . . . that the extreme weather conditions contributed greatly to the loss’. The report contained a number of recommendations, the major one being that ‘as soon as practicable the carrying of two-way wireless and a qualified operator be made compulsory in aircraft engaged in regularly scheduled passenger services’. The legacy of the Southern Cloud tragedy was safer air travel for all Australians.

The Southern Cloud story did not die quickly. In June the people of Tarcutta mounted their own search. In July a prospector reported that he’d seen the wreck in a valley near Nerriga, north-east of Braidwood. Allan and Ulm searched the area, but without result. At Port Kembla a boy picked up a piece of wood with a ‘message’ from Shortridge written on it; a message in a bottle was found on a South Australian beach in October – obviously the ‘sensation-mongers’ were still hard at work. In May, Hubert Farrall’s relatives approached Prime Minister Scullin requesting that a RAAF plane resume the search. Six months later various relatives of the Southern Cloud’s occupants financed their own search at Benalla.

The loss of the Southern Cloud, the tremendous expense involved in conducting the search, lack of government subsidization and the Depression spelled the end of ANA. The company ceased operating in 1932. Both Ulm and Kingsford Smith broke the England-Australia record in 1933, but both were soon to meet tragic ends themselves while attempting long-distance flights. Ulm was lost off Hawaii in December 1934 and Kingsford Smith disappeared of Burma eleven months later.

As the years progressed, the Southern Cloud mystery passed into folklore. Stories circulated saying that the aircraft carried a load of gold bullion. Spiritualists tried to contact the relatives in a less-orthodox attempt to locate the wreck. Around the Snowy Mountains, locals who remembered that stormy day in March 1931 discussed the aircraft’s disappearance. Some mounted expeditions into the high country but were unsuccessful, many being rebuffed by rugged forests of snow gum and mountain ash. Meanwhile, crews and passengers flying the Sydney-Melbourne route continued to pass over the wreckage, unknowingly, hundreds of times per year.

In 1949, the Snowy Mountains hydroelectric scheme was launched. The commencement of the scheme meant that many previously inaccessible areas were now being opened up. . In June 1958 construction of Tooma Dam and the diversion tunnel from the dam to Tumut Pond Reservoir began. One of the tunnel’s functions was to be the collection of water from several streams in the area, one of which was Deep Creek. Deep Creek winds across part of the Toolong Range and then plunges down its western side into the Tooma River.

On the afternoon of Sunday, 26 October 1958, Tom Sonter, a carpenter employed on the Deep Creek project, decided to explore the area. He was a keen bushwalker and photographer. At a certain point on the hike, Sonter noticed what seemed to be a rusty metal frame lying in the thick undergrowth about six or seven metres away. Thinking it was an old mining rig, he approached and, stumbling, fell through part of the framework. On looking around, Sonter realised that what he had discovered was the remains of an aircraft. He spent some time examining the wreck, collected pieces from it and returned to the construction camp.

He had not heard of the Southern Cloud but one of his workmates suggested that the wreck could well be the ANA aircraft and mentioned that a reward had once been offered for the plane. Centre hitch-hiked to Cooma the next day and booked a seat on the 4. 00 pm Sydney flight. He was planning to consult his solicitor and the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA). But police at the hydro construction town of Happy Jack heard of Sonter’s find and requested Cooma police to intercept him. Sonter was brought back to Happy Jack.

Before dawn next morning, Tuesday, 28 October, he led a team of police, DCA officials and pressmen to the site. so rugged was the country that it took the group two hours to walk the final three kilometres.

The party reached the wreckage just as dawn broke. In the freezing early morning air DCA officers identified the aircraft as the Southern Cloud. The twenty-seven-year-old mystery had at last been solved – and solved totally by accident.

Saplings were growing through the rusty, twisted, metal framework of the plane’s fuselage. The police and DCA investigators set about sifting through the soil underneath the wreck and found that all that remained of the eight people aboard the aircraft was a small quantity of charred bones. They also discovered a range of passenger’s belongings. Several sovereigns, a perfume bottle, a man’s dinner jacket studs, a pair of broken binoculars and a sealed thermos flask were some of the items unearthed. A nameplate, possibly from a keyring, bore the words ‘Clyde E. Hood, Capitol Theatre, Sydney’.

The Southern Cloud’s three engines were buried one to two metres into the ground, such had been the force of impact. Melted metal parts showed that, although several bushfires had burned through the area, the plane must have burnt when it hit the mountainside. Many instruments were scattered about the site, obviously ripped out by the force of the crash. Some press reports speculated on the possibility of one or two of the plane’s occupants surviving the crash and dying later in the bush; the majority opinion, however, was that given the force of impact and the resultant fire, chances of survival were nil.

The most curious aspect of the wreckage was that the plane was facing northeast – the opposite direction to the way it should have been pointing. The DCA officials also found it had come down on its starboard side, indicating that the Southern Cloud was banking when it crashed. A watch found at the site had stopped at 1. 15 and it too was taken into account to explain what had happened to Southern Cloud on its last day (though there is no proof that the watch stopped on impact).

The south-westerly gales that Shortridge encountered, actually blowing at up to 160 kph, could have forced his aircraft tar to the east of its course and would have greatly reduced its ground speed – at times Southern Cloud would have been making no progress at all. Consequently, it is possible that by 1. 00 pm, Shortridge (flying blind), thought he was west of the mountains and could descend and look for a landing ground, but in reality he was over 1600 and 1700 metre peaks. Another theory is that Shortidge had been forced to descend because of the icing of the aircraft. Hail could also have severely damaged the plane’s three wooden propellers. It is a further possibility that Shortridge entered the northeastern edge of Victoria but turned back, lost in the clouds, and was eventually forced to descend through lack of petrol. That the aircraft was banking when it crashed strongly suggested that Shortridge and Dunnell, at the last minute, saw . the mountainside in front of them and attempted to steer away from it. Had they been only a few hundred feet higher, they would have missed the Toolong Range.

Tom Sonter’s find brought peace of mind to the relatives of those lost in the aircraft. For all of them there was a sense of relief that the mystery had at last been solved. It also brought a time of reflection for the surviving searchers. G. U. Allan, now assistant general manager of Qantas, remembered how he and Kingsford Smith must have flown over the wreck on 5 April 1931. ‘Because of the dense country we saw nothing. We watched closely for broken tree tops and pieces of fabric but without success’ he told newspaper reporters.

Within days, hundreds of sightseers had climbed to the wreck site, most of them returning with a souvenir piece of the aircraft. Some visitors to the site were of a more macabre mind and took passengers’ belongings and some, pieces of bone.

The remains of the passengers and crew were taken into custody by the police. The Cooma coroner, Mr Quamby, said that ‘a lot of research (would) have to be made into old court records’ before a burial ceremony could take place. There must have been a huge number of ‘old court records’, for the burial did not take place at the Cooma-Mittagong cemetery until December 1960.

Nearly two years later in October 1962, the Cooma Lions Club memorial to the Southern Cloud was opened. Its distinctive-shaped roof is no doubt familiar to those readers who have passed through Cooma on their way to the snowfields.

Last December, some friends and I walked to the crash site. A Snowy Mountains Authority four-wheel-drive road now runs to within a few hundred metres of the site and from the end of the road a marked foot-track winds up through the mountain ash to the wreckage. Though the site is of relatively easy access today, the trees are so thick that we had no difficulty in agreeing with Sonter’s statement that ‘you could go within five yards of (the wreck) without knowing it was there’.

Little now remains of the Southern Cloud. But we were surprised to find that a memorial has been erected on the site itself. Framed by parts of the aircraft, it consists of several ceramic crosses and three plaques.

Before one proceeds up the foot-track to the site, a third ‘memorial’ is encountered. It is a mountain creek, which, upstream of a small dam; forms a series of beautiful cascades.

The stream is called Shortridge Creek.