He was awarded the Military Cross for his gallantry in battle. 23 Squadron, Kingsford Smith was shot down and received injuries which required amputation of two toes. Initially, he performed duty as a motorcycle dispatch rider, before transferring to the Royal Flying Corps, earning his pilot's wings in 1917. In 1915, he enlisted for duty in the 1st AIF (Australian Army) and served at Gallipoli. Shortly after his second marriage he joined the New Guard, a radical monarchist, anti-communist, and allegedly fascist-inspired organisation. Kingsford Smith married Thelma Eileen Hope Corboy in 1923. From 1909 to 1911, he was enrolled at St Andrew's Cathedral School, Sydney, where he was a chorister in the school's cathedral choir, : 39–40, 48 and then at Sydney Technical High School, before becoming an engineering apprentice with the Colonial Sugar Refining Company at 16. Kingsford Smith first attended school in Vancouver, Canada. In 1903, his parents moved to Canada where they adopted the surname Kingsford Smith. The earliest use of the surname Kingsford Smith appears to be by his older brother Richard Harold Kingsford Smith, who used the name at least informally from 1901, although he married in New South Wales under the surname Smith in 1903. His birth was officially registered and announced in the newspapers under the surname Smith, which his family used at that time. Kingsford Smith and his second wife Mary in Wellington, New ZealandĬharles Edward Kingsford Smith was born on 9 February 1897 at Riverview Terrace, Hamilton in Brisbane, Colony of Queensland, the son of William Charles Smith and his wife Catherine Mary (née Kingsford, daughter of Richard Ash Kingsford, a Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly and mayor in both Brisbane and Cairns municipal councils). After his death Sydney's primary airport was named in his memory and he was featured on the Australian twenty-dollar note for several decades. He was fêted as a national hero during the Great Depression and received numerous honours during his lifetime.
In 1935, Kingsford Smith and his co-pilot Tommy Pethybridge disappeared over the Andaman Sea while attempting to break the Australia–England speed record. He continued to participate on air races and attempt other aviation feats. They subsequently established Australian National Airways, but the airline and Kingsford Smith's other business ventures failed to achieve commercial success. In the same year he and Ulm completed the first non-stop flight across Australia from Melbourne to Perth and the first non-stop flight from Australia to New Zealand. He and his co-pilot Charles Ulm became celebrities, together with crew members James Warner and Harry Lyon.
In 1928, Kingsford Smith completed the first transpacific flight, a three-leg journey from California to Brisbane via Hawaii and Fiji. He subsequently joined West Australian Airways as one of the country's first commercial pilots. After the war's end, Kingsford Smith worked as a barnstormer in England and the United States before returning to Australia in 1921.
He later transferred to the Royal Flying Corps and was awarded the Military Cross in 1917 after being shot down. He joined the Australian Army in 1915 and was a motorcycle despatch rider on the Gallipoli campaign. He grew up in Sydney, leaving school at the age of 16 and becoming an engineering apprentice. He piloted the first transpacific flight and the first flight between Australia and New Zealand. Sir Charles Edward Kingsford Smith MC, AFC (9 February 1897 – 8 November 1935), nicknamed Smithy, was an Australian aviation pioneer. First non-stop crossing of the Australian mainland
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