The South Australian rockstar of the skies Harry Butler
The exploits of brave aviator Harry Butler made him a legend of his day, but he’s now largely forgotten. Nathan Davies reports on an attempt to ensure his legacy endures on the test of time.
Harry Butler was a rock star of his time, a magnificent man in his flying machine, a pioneering aviator who changed SA forever.
He distinguished himself as a pilot trainer in World War I, and upon his return he drew huge crowds with his aerial antics in the skies above Adelaide and was the first person to make an overwater mail run in the southern hemisphere.
He also established SA’s first airports, originally at Northfield before moving to Hendon.
Today, however, Butler is all but forgotten outside of air buff circles.
He has a plaque on North Tce and his plane, The Red Devil, is on display in his home town of Minlaton on the Yorke Peninsula, but ask a person on the street about Harry Butler and you might get an answer about the famous naturalist that shared his name – or you might get nothing.
It’s a situation that two South Australian authors – academic Samantha Battams and her navy captain nephew Les Parsons – are hoping to rectify with their new book The Red Devil.
The book, released to mark the 100th anniversary of Butler’s historic flight across Gulf St Vincent, aims to restore the legacy of this great airman and introduce him to a new generation of South Australians.
Butler was born at Koolywurtie, a small rural community not far from the town of Minlaton.
Like many young people of the day, he was fascinated by the emerging field of aviation. He was also blessed with the brain of an engineer, and he was soon staging his own experiments in amateur aeronautics.
These often involved launching his mother’s chooks off the roof of their house. Parsons can see the funny side in running flight tests on the less-than-graceful birds.
“He’d throw the chooks off the roof, time the flight times, measure the wing spans, that kind of thing,” he says. “But in reality he was a very talented engineer and mechanic who was way ahead of his time.”
The young Butler had an early plane shipped from Europe to SA and engaged the help of German-Australian engineer Carl Wilhelm “Bill” Wittber to help put it together.
Wittber may have actually staged the first powered flight in Australia, completing what became known as the Wittber Hop on March 13, 1910.
The 90m “flight” was never officially recognised, and the honour went to famous stuntman Harry Houdini who completed an official “flight” in Victoria a few days later.
After World War I broke out, Wittber was viewed with some suspicion by authorities and told to cease all attempts at flying. He burned his aircraft in frustration.
It was the war that helped Butler make a real name for himself. After enrolling in flight school in Australia, the young aspiring fighter pilot soon realised he’d never be allowed into a cockpit in his home country.
He hadn’t attended the right schools to climb the ladder in the class-conscious armed forces, so he financed his own way to England.
There his skills in the air, and as a mechanic and leader, were quickly recognised and he soon found himself training young pilots for their inevitable dogfights.
“The trainers were extremely important because they were losing so many people,” Parsons says. “Of the 14,000 airmen killed, 8500 died in training, so it was pretty important to get the right training.”
Following the end of hostilities, Butler returned to Australia and organised for two surplus planes to be shipped back to SA – a Bristol monoplane, which would become known as The Red Devil, and an Avro 504-K biplane.
The Red Devil would make him famous, and the Avro 504-K would eventually end his life.
The Red Devil soon became a fixture in the skies above Adelaide, and the newspapers simply couldn’t get enough.
The daring Butler would perform aerobatics for crowds of thousands, and he regularly found himself written up in the press.
It was in The Red Devil that he became the first person to fly across Gulf St Vincent, delivering a bag of mail to his hometown of Minlaton on August 6, 1919. A crowd of 6000 people, most of whom had never even seen an aeroplane, gathered to watch him land.
“He was carrying a lot of weight,” Battams says. “He had 4000 postcards on board for a start.” He also took an inflatable inner-tube in case he had to ditch in the sea, but soon abandoned the cumbersome “life jacket”.
Battams says it’s hard for people to grasp just how famous Butler’s exploits made him.
“There even used to be an expression – whenever someone was told to move it or hurry up they’d reply with, ‘I’m not Harry Butler!’,” she says. “He was part of the vernacular, thousands of members of the general public went to his wedding – he really was a celebrity.”
Butler flew for the love of flying, but he was also canny enough to realise that there was money to be made in this emerging industry.
He established SA’s first aerodrome at Northfield, then moved to Hendon. The Northfield site was where the Smith brothers landed after their epic flight from England to Australia.
In 1922 Butler’s luck ran out, and he crashed his Avro biplane on Yorke Peninsula. He survived, but his injuries were severe.
“He had multiple surgeries on his face,” Battams says.
“Pioneering plastic surgeon Sir Henry Simpson Newland worked on him, along with a couple of other prominent surgeons. They were concerned about his ability to eat again, whether he’d be able to use his arm to swing the propeller to start the plane. His injuries were horrific, and changed the way he looked.”
Two years later, Butler died from a brain aneurysm connected to his injuries. Thousands lined the route of his funeral parade through Adelaide to farewell an aviation hero. Both Parsons and Battams think Butler should be permanently recognised at Adelaide Airport. Perhaps, Battams suggests, the airport could even be named after him.
“Well, it’s good to aim high,” Parsons says. “But there should at least be recognition that he established the first airport in South Australia, perhaps a plaque. He’s too important a part of South Australia’s history to be forgotten.”
The life of Harry Butler, and the 100th anniversary of his gulf crossing will be celebrated at Minlaton on August 3 and 4. Go to harrybutlerscentenary.wordpress.com for more details.
The Red Devil: The story of South Australian aviation pioneer, Captain Harry Butler, AFC (WAKEFIELD PRESS) will be launched during the weekend’s celebrations