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It is a coincidence that this remarkable man was born on a farm in South Australia, 30 miles from my home. After World War I, Wilkins tried his hand at farming for two or three years, on a property only four miles away. Ever after, the judgement of the farmers of the district was that Wilkins was a failure. He was then 32 and had even then got more from life than any octogenarian.
Wilkins had not heard about World War I until ten months after it started (he was with Stefansson in the Arctic). He was an experienced airman and photographer; when he wanted to join the Australian Flying Corps in France, red tape compelled him to travel by ship farther than the total circumference of the globe—from British Columbia across Canada, to Britain, then round the Cape and across the Indian Ocean to Sydney. He enlisted, joined a