November 8, 1935: Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and his co-pilot Tommy Pethybridge disappear over the Bay of Bengal, off the coast of Burma (now Myanmar). They were attempting the Allahabad-to-Singapore leg of their bid to break the speed record between Britain and their native Australia. Pieces of their plane, the Lady Southern Cross, have been found, but their bodies never have.
Kingsford Smith had been a hero pilot in World War I. In 1928, he and Charles Ulm flew the original Southern Cross from Oakland, California to Brisbane, Queensland, Australia; with stops in Honolulu, Hawaii and Suva, Fiji. This made them the 1st pilots to successfully fly across the Pacific Ocean.
"Smithy" was 38 years old at the time of his final flight. Pethybridge was 28. They were attempting to break a record set by a team led by Ulm, who had disappeared the year before, on a training flight between Oakland and Honolulu. He was 36.
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November 8, 1935 was a Friday. French actor Alain Delon was born on this day. This was also the day that the original film version of Mutiny On the Bounty premiered. I have a separate entry for that event.
Baseball was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the NHL season had started the night before, but no games were scheduled for this day.
Two college football games were played. George Washington University beat Davis & Elkins, 53-7 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. GWU dropped its football program after the 1966 season. Davis & Elkins College, of Elkins, West Virginia, now play in NCAA Division II.
And Texas Christian University (TCU) beat Loyola University, 14-0 at Loyola University Stadium in New Orleans. Loyola dropped their program after the 1939 season.
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