G-AUEU Airco D.H.9
The rare shot above
is via the
State Library of South Australia collection and shows an
Airco D.H.9 which was written off
by a gale after a
forced landing at Pt. Pirie, SA on
17 March 1938. It began
its civilian life in Sydney in 1925, registered to Horace Clive
Miller,
who later established MacRobertson Miller Aviation Co at Parafield, SA,
with
the financial
backing of Sir Macpherson Robinson, Australia's most
successful chocolate
manufacturer. G-AUEU was possibly
Horrie Miller's first aircraft. He was a shy modest
character who
quietly built up intra-state South Australia services
out of Parafield. In 1934
when the government put the airmail
contracts up for
re-tendering for the Empire Air Mail
scheme, to
everyone's shock and horror he
won the Perth-Daly Waters sector from
Norman
Brearley's pioneering
Western Australian
Airlines. MMA was then based in Perth
and Parafield
until
1939 when the SA routes
were taken over by Guinea Airways. I am not
sure if -UEU was
used for commercial purposes in those early days. Immediately
below is
an image from
the Civil Aviation Historical Society (of Melbourne) archives, whilst
the final
two photos are both from the
Horrie Miller collection via the National Library of
Australia.
The upper
one was taken on a field in Mount
Gambier, SA in December 1927, and the lower
print depicts
his DH9 at Broken Hill, NSW, a year earlier, outside Australian Air
Service Ltd's
hangar (too bad that the photographer
did
not move so that the white post did not obscure
the
rego).
