WILKINS KNIGHTED

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 371, 4 June 1928, Page 9

WILKINS KNIGHTED

HONOUR TO AIRMAN ANOTHER GREAT AUSTRALIAN

(United P.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) (United Service) Reed. , noon. LONDON, Sunday. Captain George H. Wilkins has been created a Knight Bachelor.

Sir George Hubert Wilkins, the noted Australian Polar explorer, recently performed an epochal flight over the North Pole, from Point Barrow, Alaska, to Spitsbergen. He had made two previous attempts, one in May, 1926, and the other a year later. By no manner of means a stunt flight, Captain Wilkins’s successful third attempt will be of great scientific value meteorologically, and geographically, and is in keeping with his previous record as an aviator and explorer. His adventurous career began some sixteen years ago, when at the age of 23 or 24 he was photographic correspondent with the Turkish troops in the Balkan War, and later left for the Arctic with Stefansson. On this trip he ostensibly went as a camera man, but finished by relieving the engineer and making an almost unbelievable trip with the ships Mary Sachs and Polar Star across the Arctic Sea to establish contact with Ids chief. Then the Great War took Wilkins from his life among the frozen spaces to the front, where he was twice mentioned r dispatches and won the Miliary Cross and bar. After the Armistice, Captain Wilkins went back to Gallipoli for more photographs and made two South Polar expeditions (one with Shackleton); did special service work in Russia for the British Government and explored the heart of Australia and the islands near at hand on behalf of the British Museum of Natural History. Now, after two unsuccessful attempts to make “the north-west passage’’ by air, he lias succeeded, but is still unsatisfied There are rumours that Captain Wilkins intends to leave next September for an Antarctic expedition flying a seaplane eastward from the Ross Sea to Graham’s Land, the purpose being to establish 12 Antarctic meteorological stations for forecasting weather conditions in inhabited regions of the globe years in advance, observations to be taken over one sun

spot cycle of 11 years. If the South Polar flight is made, New Zealand may have a chance of welcoming as distinguished a man as Australia has produced.