He was proposing to fly 4,600 miles—farther than anyone had ever flown before—over ocean and jungle, into a realm far beyond the range of reliable maps and weather reports. He packed as if he didn’t really expect to make it. He took with him fishing tackle, rifle and ammunition, quinine, mosquito nets, surgical kit, spare boots, and much else that would only be of use if he crash-landed in the jungle. For his short-term needs he packed twenty sandwiches, two quarts of coffee, a pound of milk chocolate, and two gallons of water. On August 25, he took off. Aviation experts quoted by the
He was proposing to fly 4,600 miles—farther than anyone had ever flown before—over ocean and jungle, into a realm far beyond the range of reliable maps and weather reports. He packed as if he didn’t really expect to make it. He took with him fishing tackle, rifle and ammunition, quinine, mosquito nets, surgical kit, spare boots, and much else that would only be of use if he crash-landed in the jungle. For his short-term needs he packed twenty sandwiches, two quarts of coffee, a pound of milk chocolate, and two gallons of water. On August 25, he took off. Aviation experts quoted by the Associated Press said that it would take him at least sixty hours to reach Rio. Before he had even cleared the Caribbean he was lost, and dropped a message to a Norwegian freighter, the Christian Krohg, asking for directions. The message bounced off the deck and into the sea, but amazingly a Norwegian seaman dived in and retrieved it. The message said: “Point ship to nearest land, wave flag or handkerchief once for each 100 miles. Thanks, Redfern.” The ship obliged and Redfern, with a snappy wave, departed. It was the last anyone ever saw of him, though for years afterward missionaries and other visitors to the interior of Dutch Guiana passed on reports of a white man living among the Indians. According to these reports, the Indians treated the man as a divinity because he had dropped in on them from the sky. The white man, it was said, had taken a wife and now lived in contentment with the n...
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Paul Redfern, Benedicts College, SC. SC to Rio attempt
