Last March Imperial Airways, then run by dour Sir John Reith, tersely announced that its flying boat Corsair had made a forced landing in the Belgian Congo, "but all aboard are safe." Last week, uninformative Sir John having become British Minister of Information, and the Corsair having returned to Great Britain, the story of its African saga was told.
The Corsair, flown by Captain Edward Samson Alcock, younger brother of the Empire's late famed pioneer Transatlantic Flier Captain Sir John Alcock, was bound last March from Kisumu to Cairo, on the South Africa-to-England...