BODY DISCOVERED

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 519, 1 May 1933, Page 5

BODY DISCOVERED

(rress Assn.—

LYING NEAR WRECKAGE OE PLANE IN TUSCAN MOUNTAINS ALMOST UNRECOGNISABLE Mutilated by prowling foxes and practically unrecognisable, the body of the well-known Australian aviator, Squadron-Leader Bert Hinkler4, wh'o has been missing for- some weeks, was discovered in a lonely and isolated "mountain valley In TuScany, Italy. Id'entity was established by means of a passport found on the body. The absence of petrol in the tanks of the wrecked machine appears to indicate that the aviator was forced into an attempted landing by lack of fuel.

-By Telegraph — Copyright).

(Rec. April 29.) Riome, April 28. The body of the late Mr. Bert Hinkler has been found beside his wrecked machine in the isolated mountainous rcgion of Castello di Sopra, Tuscany, 4G00 feet high between Florence and Arezzo. A passport found on the body confirmed his identity. It showed the first name, Herbert j but the surname was effaced by the weather. The birth place, Bundaberg, however, is discernible. Squadron-Leader Herbert Harola ("Bert") Hinkler was born in Bundabei'g-, Queensland, 39 yea.rs ago. He went to England during the Great War and flew a3 far as Rome in an Avro machine, later becoming test pilot to the Avro C'ompany. He was the first pilot to fly tba| 1000 horsepower Napier Cub machine and he flew the Gloster-Napier racing machine in the Schneider Cup in 1925. In February, 1928, he flew from Croydon to Port Darwin, establishing a record of 15 i days for the trip. As. a result of this flight he was awarded the Air Force Cross by the King in March 1928. In 1929 he wa3 awarded the Britannia, trophy. He flew in a British Puss Moth' machine from New York for 10,350 miles, the distance including the first solo crossing of the South Atlantic. *