World War 1
Patrick Gordon Taylor is remembered in Australian aviation as a supreme navigator and a modest hero. He was born in New South Wales in 1896 and from an early age he developed a love of the sea. He later served in the peace-time militia and following the outbreak of war in 1914 he was assigned to an infantry battalion that was in training prior to serving on the Western Front.
Unwilling to wait for his unit’s embarkation Taylor resigned his commission and sailed to England where he enlisted in the Royal Flying Corps. On gaining his wings Lieutenant Taylor was posted to a fighter squadron operating on the Western Front. His unit flew the Sopwith Pup, an agile single-seater on which he was credited with several combat victories. Taylor was awarded the Military Cross during his tenure in France, and following the 1918 Armistice he returned to Australia to pursue a career in aviation.
Post war flying
His family was quite well placed financially and as a result Taylor was able to further his navigation and piloting skills and to later purchase his own aircraft. He was also well acquainted with Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm; the duo who created Australian National Airlines. The ‘maestro’ of record-breaking flights at the time was undoubtedly Kingsford Smith, a gregarious, fun-loving character which was exactly the opposite of the austere ‘Bill’ Taylor. Nevertheless Smithy saw in Taylor the navigator and co-pilot to complement his own piloting skills.
In October 1934 the duo made the first Pacific crossing from Australia to The United States. What made it exceptional was that it was in a single-engine aircraft, a Lockheed Altair. The Altair was a purpose-built record breaker and this example which Smithy named ‘Lady Southern Cross’ was once owned by movie star Douglas Fairbanks.
Tasman Sea drama
In May 1935 Smithy and Taylor, with wireless operator John Stannage left Australia for New Zealand on what was to become their most perilous episode. This time they were in Smithy’s ‘Southern Cross’, the venerable Fokker tri-motor in which he had conquered the Pacific in 1928 and gone on to accomplish a host of record-breaking flights. This particular flight was a Jubilee mail delivery and if successful it would enhance Smithy’s prospects for creating a permanent air link with New Zealand.
The intrepid crew were almost at the half-way mark over the unforgiving Tasman Sea when disaster struck. A section of exhaust manifold of the main engine detached itself and struck the propeller blade of the starboard motor. Instantly the Fokker was seized in vibrations that threatened to tear the aircraft apart. Smithy shut the motor down and then made the decision to head back to Australia.
It was barely possible to maintain height on two engines and shortly they were alerted to falling oil pressure on the overworked port motor. Unless it could be replenished they were faced with ditching into the Tasman. It was then that Taylor made the decision to venture into the howling slipstream to gain access to the disabled starboard motor, by inching along a strut between the motor and fuselage. Barefooted, and with a light line around his waist he managed to undo the sump plug and drain some oil into a thermos flask. Time after time he made the perilous journey back and forth to the cabin where Stannage poured the precious fluid into a suitcase, their only receptacle.
That task completed Taylor was confronted with the more daunting effort of replenishing the ailing port motor. He was then faced with the slipstream of two motors, but Smithy was able to ease the situation slightly by shutting down the port motor at intervals while Taylor filled the oil reservoir.Even so the Southern Cross’s landing wheels were brushing the wave tops during the operation. Finally Taylor hauled himself back into the cabin, battered, exhausted and saturated in oil; but for the moment he had retrieved them from a fatal situation. Several times he carried out further oil transfers until finally they crept into Mascot aerodrome with the gallant aircraft’s motors in their death throes. It had been a miraculous effort from all concerned; in particular the modest Taylor who was later awarded the George Cross; the civilian equivalent of the Victoria Cross for gallantry.
‘Bill’ Taylor was never one to rest on his laurels and in the years following World War II he carried out a series of survey flights to establish landing sites on remote Pacific atolls in the south-west Pacific. These were to prove decisive for post war civil aviation. Aside from aviation endeavours he had the foresight to establish a primary school near his northern beaches Sydney home. Loquat Valley School is now an imposing education centre and a tribute to its founder.
For his untiring efforts in aviation and community work P.G Taylor was honoured with a knighthood in 1954; and none was more deserving. To the dismay of his friends and family he died unexpectedly of a heart attack while in Hawaii in 1966.
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