Frank Wild | Autograph letter signed to Alfred (?) Reid, 21 Oct 1911

Property of a Gentleman

Frank Wild

Autograph letter signed, to [Alfred ?] Reid

providing a lively and detailed account of a recent aeroplane crash during a test flight in preparation for Douglas Mawson's Aurora Expedition, 4 pages, 4to, headed stationery of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, Adelaide, 21 October 1911, light dust-staining to second page

"...we were up about 100 feet, & while we were turning there the left wing dipped badly through what Watkins calls an air pocket, & we side slipped about fifty feet, then Watkins got her righted but a few seconds later the same wing dipped again. Watkins opened out the engine & tried his best to right her, but there was not room, & we struck earth at about seventy miles an hour. I felt my head bump & got a mouthful of sand, & in the same fraction of a second felt as though a thousand mules had kicked me all over at once, then found myself on my back with a devil of a weight on my chest..."

Frank Wild (1873-1939) was an experienced explorer who had travelled to the Antarctic with Scott in the Discovery and Shackleton in the Nimrod. His well-earned reputation as an expert sledger led to his being appointed to the 1911-1914 Australasian Antarctic Expedition despite his British origins.

This letter describes with some understatement Wild's highly dangerous misadventure in the expedition's Vickers REP aeroplane. The machine itself was badly damaged in the crash and as a result it was repurposed for sledge hauling: the wings were removed and the body equipped with sledge runners. However, the engine proved unreliable in extreme cold.

Wild's correspondent is believed to be Alfred Reid, who had been the business manager of Shackleton's British Antarctic Expedition of 1907-1909. 

PROVENANCE:

Neil Silverman; Christies The Polar Sale, including the Neil Silverman Collection, London, 25 September 2002, lot 209; Private Collection, UK