The Southern Cross, Fokker monoplane VH-USU, on its arrival at Mascot Aerodrome, Sydney, after the flight across the Pacific Ocean, 10 June 1928 1928, nla.obj-147705332
2008 marked the 80th anniversary of the first trans-Pacific flight made by Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm in 1928.
There are many good online resources that provide a wealth of information about the first trans-pacific flight, including:
- The Pioneers: An Anthology: Charles Edward Kingsford-Smith is maintained by Monash University and includes information and further links as well as recommended reading.
- Australian Dictionary of Biography Online contains a useful article on Charles Kingsford-Smith.
The National Library holds several interesting items, including:
- E.A. Crome collection relating to aviation in Australia, 1914-2005 (manuscript)
- Crossing the Pacific, the flight of the Southern Cross 1928: mementoes from the Crome Collection and other aviation collections of the National Library of Australia.
- Newspaper cuttings, 1928 and Papers of Charles Kingsford-Smith, 1917-1935 and Papers of Charles and John Ulm 1803-2000, all held in our Manuscript collection.
- Charles Kingsford-Smith and Charles Ulm on their trans-Pacificflight 1928 (sound recording) held in our oral history collection.
- The great trans-Pacific flight: the story of the Southern Cross.
- Our Pictures collection hold a number of photos of the event, you can view many of these online through the catalogue.
There are a number of other cultural institutions that hold material relating to the subject:
- The National Archives of Australia’s Fact sheet 196 provides details of records held by the archives relating to Kingsford Smith and his flights.
- The National Film and Sound Archive’s Digital Spotlight is a guide to a selection of works from their collection relating to Kingsford-Smith
Trove can help you find and get items at libraries near you.
