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An excerpt from chapter one of The Hijack of Boeing One
THE HIJACK OF BOEING ONE © 1988 - 2007 J Smyth / All Rights Reserved
Chapter 1: End of an Era ________________________________________________
“The natural function of the wing is to soar upwards and carry that which is heavy up to the place where dwells the race of gods. More than any other thing that pertains to the body it partakes of the nature of the divine.” Plato 'Phaedrus.' ___________________________________________________
A few hours earlier Sol had begun its ascent from behind the Coromandel burning off the cloud in the east and setting to work on the light mist that lay on the inner reaches of the Gulf. The eastern ends of the islands glowed gold as a blanket of warm light rolled across the water. The top of Rangitoto caught on fire and the fire bled west across the channel to the tops of North Head and Mt Victoria and then on into the upper reaches of the Waitemata and the top of the Waitakeres which circled around Auckland's flanks to the Manukau Harbour. To the south other dormant tectonic mounds relived a brief primeval echo as the fire touched their crowns: Maunga-Whau, Maunga-kiekie, Maunga-a-Reipae – Mt. Eden, One Tree Hill, Mt. Wellington; three of the 43 odd cones that blister the isthmus of Tamaki Makau Rau, Aotearoa's 'City of Volcanoes'. Many could be seen from the vantage of the hill crest above the bay.
As the mist burnt away and the sun's fingers reached down to the wave crests, Auckland City's harbour earned its name – Waitemata: “Sparkling Water”. The promontories jutting north from the beaches east of the city glowed gold on their eastern faces and cast deep shadows to the west into the various bays; St Heliers, Kohimarama, Orakei. The dawn chorus had climaxed and now squadrons of gulls wheeled in fresh thermals above the foreshore looking for opportunities. The shadows grew shorter as the light washed over the small settlement in the bay revealing early morning activity: someone standing with a steaming mug of tea on their verandah and gazing wistfully up the Gulf, sniffing the brine in the air; someone collecting more wood for the range on which a whistling kettle sat. Blind windows showed that the odd household had not yet risen. Wisps of aromatic pine smoke wafted adding a herbal aroma to the maritime nose of the still air that hung in the bay.
A ferry pulled up to the end of the long wharf jutting out from the beach and a small group of commuters clambered aboard. With a hoot and a plume of vapour the ferry pulled away and headed west through the harbour mouth, safely over the old submarine mine field that reached out from North Head, and on into the city. A breeze blew in across the beach from the north and the tops of the trees in the bay swayed a little. The wisps of pine smoke bent to the south. Perfect weather; a perfect day tinged with melancholy. It was the end of a golden era in the bay. 1923 was growing to a close and so was an age of adventure and daring-do; a 'Boy's Own' age of heroes and their amazing machines that bounced across the sparkling waters and up and away into the heavens… MORE
An excerpt from chapter six of The Hijack of Boeing One
THE HIJACK OF BOEING ONE © 1988 - 2007 J Smyth / All Rights Reserved
Chapter 6: The Search For Boeing One ________________________________________________
“...man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but usually manages to pick himself up, walk over or around it, and carry on.” Churchill, Winston S ___________________________________________________
"I have often been asked what happened to the Boeings - I'm afraid I can't answer this question. I've been concerned with the problem. I cannot imagine that these were burned; I think we would have known about it. Some of us who had been associated with the school and were still interested in the School would have heard something and I think I myself would have been shocked, even in those days, to think that they had been destroyed and burned". (Boeing One Pilot, Eric Paton, 1983.)
At the age of 17 Eric Paton was trained to fly by George Bolt at the New Zealand Flying School in Kohimarama. It was Paton who would later coin the phrase “Boeing One” for the airplane he trained in. He was referring to Bluebill, the first of the only two Boeing and Westervelt aircraft to be made before Conrad Westervelt departed and William Boeing restructured their business into the Pacific Aero Products Company. A year later in 1917 William Boeing changed the name of Pacific Aero Products to the Boeing Airplane Company. So the year after that, in 1918 when the two B&Ws were bought by an unknown flying school at the bottom of the world, they became not only the first two airplanes designed and build by William Edward Boeing, but the first commercial sale of the Boeing Airplane Company.
Paton had arrived in New Zealand from England with his parents on the 12 October 1918 on the Steamship Niagara. The Niagara also carried troops returning to New Zealand from the first world war, the Prime Minister, William Massey, and the Minister of Finance, Joseph Ward, returning from Europe, the B&W float planes that Eric Paton would later learn to fly in - and a stowaway: an influenza virus that would rage through the country infecting over a third of the population and killing over 8000 people in very short order. The 1918 influenza epidemic delayed the delivery of the B&Ws to their new owners, The Walsh Brothers and Dexter Ltd., and reassembly for their first flight in New Zealand. The unorthodox arrival of the B&Ws augured their equally peculiar disappearance only five short years later.
Eric Paton was peripherally involved in the first search for 'Boeing One' which began in 1959. Paton, who lived in a house overlooking the School and who in his own words used to 'haunt' the School after the closure in October 1923, was adamant that the two B&Ws were crated up with the other Flying School aircraft and removed from the school site. He took particular exception to a story that was doing the rounds a few years before his death in 1985; a story that had the two B&Ws being burnt on a rubbish pyre on the beach at Kohimarama in 1924. The story first appeared about the same time that another later search for the B&W, initiated in the 1970s by George Bolt's son Sir Richard Bolt, had been abandoned by the Army. While the story was used in a report written by the naval historian Lt. Cdr. Peter Dennerly dated 7 July 1983, its origin is uncertain. The story could have originated from sloppy research and a misinterpretation of earlier apocrypha. Maybe it was a case of Chinese whispers; a collection of cumulative errors spread by word of mouth. Or perhaps it was just a convenient way to assist in the killing off of a search that the Army did not seem particularly keen to spend any further time on…. |
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For layout details of the of the book on which the feature film would be based... |
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To read the author’s notes on the samples on this website.. |
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To read the author’s preface from the book.. |
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THE HIJACK OF BOEING ONE / www.boeingone.org © 1988 - 2007 J Smyth / All Rights Reserved The promotional excerpts on this website and in the book promotion document MAY NOT be reproduced in whole or in part in any way whatsoever without the written permission of the author. Contact: J Smyth P O Box 60630 Titirangi 0642 Waitakere City ~info@boeingone.org |
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DOWNLOAD the entire first chapter of The Hijack of Boeing One
The first chapter is a tale based largely on the reminiscences of Ted Trower and Eric Paton both of whom lived at Kohimarama in the early 20th century.
Ted, who with Vivian & and Leo Walsh and their sisters in the early 1920s, provided invaluable insight into life at Kohimarama at the time of the Flying School without which intelligent supposition of what could or could not have happened there, in particular regarding the disposal of the School’s aircraft, is impossible.
Ted only gave the one interview on the subject and that was to us. The only other person with this kind of insight who was known to be alive after 1980 was Boeing pilot Eric Paton who was interviewed by John Earnshaw in the early 1980s.
No other historian who has researched the NZ Flying School in recent times (post 1975) spoke to people who actually lived at the School at the time of its operation. Correct us if we are wrong (click here to email us with the details).
The high court determined that the Boeing aircraft never made it across the harbour to North Head. This is simply absurd. It is obvious that Bluebill and Mallard were removed together with the other plant and equipment and any claim to the contrary is based on myth and nonsense.
The most compelling evidence in any research of this kind is the testimony of the people who were actually there at the time. However, in the Search for Boeing One, it is this evidence that has either not been sought, has been ignored because it hasn't fitted a preconceived picture or has been arrogantly rejected as the ramblings of the bewildered. These are not the hallmarks of credible historical research. |