AUSTRALIAN AIR DISASTER

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21192, 15 August 1940, Page 6

AUSTRALIAN AIR DISASTER

The Australian Government, armed forces and people have suffered a tragic loss through the aeroplane crash at Canberra in which ten were killed. Such a death-roll in any circumstances would have been disastrous, but when the victims include three Ministers of the Crown, the Chief of the General Staff and another responsible officer of the army headquarters the blow is bound to have wider repercussions. The Ministers responsible for the Army and the Air Force, Messrs G. A. Street and J. V. Fairbairn, and the Vice-President of the Executive Council, Sir Henry Gullett, take with them a profound knowledge of Australia’s wartime programme, and Lieut.-General Sir Brudenell White a grasp of the whole military situation. This intervention of fate when Australia was struggling bravely with the problems of an expanding war programme, a programme in which other units of the Empire are keenly interested, seems harsh indeed. But Australia will not falter in its forward march. The gaps in the personnel of its leadership must and will be filled, and the tasks that were laid down by the victims of the disaster must be taken up by new hands. Experience and wisdom have been lost, but as in the front lines of the battle, reinforcements are ready to carry on the nation’s work. All of the three Ministers were veterans of the Great War, Mr Street a soldier, Mr Fairbairn an aviator and Sir Henry Gullett a war correspondent. Lieut.-General Sir Brudenell also gave distinguished service in two wars. It seems to have been but a lucky chance that two more Ministers were not included in the loss suffered by the Government, because they declined an invitation to travel by the same aeroplane. Conditions were apparently ideal for flying. The cause of the disaster may or may not be revealed by an examination of the wreckage, but the facts are a painful reminder that man’s pride in the conquest of the air is still on occasions humbled to the dust. Skill and care in constructing and operating machines that ride the skies have worked wonders, but have not yet risen above the plane of human fallibility.