TANKER HURRIES TO RESCUE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 53, Issue 149, 5 April 1933, Page 5

TANKER HURRIES TO RESCUE.

RESCUE OF FOUR MEN. ONE DIES SOON AFTERWARDS. (Received This Day, 11.25 a.m.) NEW YORK, April 4. The tanker Phoebus, flying the flag of the Danzig Free State, bound from New York for Tampico, was within a few miles of the Akron when her wireless spluttered the S.O.S. through static-choked skies. At 1.30 there was no further word from the aircraft, which apparently descended rapidly,either falling or crippled to the point of a forced descent. Captain Dalldorf, of the Phoebus, flashed word to the shore as he turned the slow r -moving tank-ship from her course. The four men picked up by the Phoebus jncluded Lieut. - Commander H. V. Wiley (second in command of the Akron) and three enlisted men, Moody, Ew'in (metalsmith), Richard Deal (boatswain’s mate) and Robert Copeland (chief wireless operator on the Akron). Copeland died shortly afterwards. NO HOPE FOR MISSING. STATEMENT BY SECRETARY. WASHINGTON, April 4. The Navy Department reported to President Roosevelt that the Akron was caught in a storm and was probably hit by lightning, caught fire and crashed. The Secretary of the Navy (Mr Swanson) said there was nothing to indicate that the missing members of the personnel and passengers would he found. Lieutenant Wilfron Mushnell, one of the officers of the Akron, is co-holder of the world’s balloon record for distance, made with Lieut. T. G. W. Settle in 1929.