INTO UNKNOWN

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 80, 16 January 1936, Page 10

INTO UNKNOWN

FLYERS WHO DISAPPEAR. SACRIFICE MADE BY PIONEERS. There- came into my club one evening a smart little woman who sat at a table near.the dance-floor with a man friend, writes Trevor Allen in a London journal. She did not dance. All the.time she was anxious, preoccupied, nervy; sociability obviously cost her an effort. After a short time she rose quickly and left. There Avas something on her mind which would not allow her to keep still for long. I knew what it was. In that little woman I saw all the tragedy of the Great Adventure which ends in— Silence. She was. Mrs Keith Miller, the friend of Captain Lancaster, who had been posted as "missing" for several days—missing, with his aeroplane, somewhere in the desolate untrodden tracts of the Sahara. Of all, the lost adventurers of recent years, Captain Lancaster is, I think, one of the most tragic. You remember the dramatic Miami trial? Mrs Keith Miller's fiance, a young journalist, was shot dead in mysterious circumstances j Captain Lancaster, a friend of them both, was suspected of having committed the deed in a fit of jealousy, but, after lengthy proceedings, ac-i quitted. Searing Experience. He returned to England, eager to live down the memory of a searing experience. Like so many fine men who have endured emotional torment, he wanted to do something big that would put him four-square with life again, help to restore his balance and his grip on the world of men. The "comeback" ho staged was an attempt to break the flight record to the Cape. He was heart and soul in the lone venture—and reckless. , Another tragic figure was Bert Hinkler, whom I met-in this same club shortly before his last adventure, when he talked to'me of his plucky west to east flight over the South Atlantic—the first solo one of the kind since Lindbergh's and the first in history to be achieved by a light aeroplane. He was a modest, man with a hint of sadness and disillusion behind the shrewd eyes. Athens was to be his first stop. He never reached it—just, disappeared into the void. Then, months later, charcoal-/ burners in a gorge of the mountainous wilds of Tuscany, the lonely Apennines stumbled across his body and the strewn wreckage of his machine. Brave Girl's Venture. Yet another tragic case was that of Elsie Mackay, the daughter of the late Lord Inchcape, lost on a transatlantic flight with Hinchcliffe. Miss Mackay was typical of the best young womanhood of her' generation. She was not content to rest on the laurels which ornamented her family name; she wanted to achieve things for herself. She became an actress and played with Cyril Maude in "Grumpy," went into films as "Poppy" Wyndham. Then she decided she must be a flyer and took lessons with Sir Alan Cobharo and Mr C. D. Barnard. Not content with being a competent flyer, she must be the first woman to fly the Atlantic. Her plans for the flight with Hinchcliffe, the "pilot with the eye-shade," were guarded with the utmost secrecy. Her family must not know of this gamble with death. At five in the morning they took off from Cramvell aerodrome in the Endeavour. After that—Silence. A silence that must have broken the hearts of Lord and Lady Inchcape. A day or two later I stood in the sacrosanct quiet of a little Roman Catholic church in Grantham, hearing from the priest's own lips the story of a plucky girl's last tryst with her God. The evening before the flight, when she attended confession, she arranged with Father Arenzen to take Holy Communion with him in the dimly-lit church in the small hours, immediately before her departure. When the town was locked in sleep, she stole into the church, dressed in be? flying kit, and knelt before the altar. Only one or two lamps were burning; the rest of the church was in deep shadow. No sound came from the world without. The priest, who had risen specially from his bed for the purpose, administered Holy Communion. Their Fate a Mystery. "She was obviously excited and deeply affected by the step she was taking," Father Arenzen told me. "I was impressed by her extreme piety and devotion. A strong-minded and courageous woman, she seemed also to have the faith of a simple girl." She knelt a long time in prayer. The lights were extinguished and she bade the padre farewell in his study. "I am going on a journey across the Atlantic," she said, "but I want no word ofj.it.to get to my people until it is 'all over. Ad soon as we reach the other side I will send you a cablegram." "And if we hear nothing at the exd of forty hours—?" asked the padre softly, after he had wished her goodluck.' "Miss Mackay," he added, continuing his narrative to me, "seemed to be on the verge of tears once or twice, but her only retort was a couiageous smile. Other women have gone her way—and because they were women the tragedy seemed all the more terrible. The Princess Lowenstein-Wertbeim. with Colonel F. F. Mine-bin and Captain Leslie Hamilton, was lost in an Atlantic attempt in 1926. Mrs Grayson, and x\merican airwoman, disappeared with three companions after taking off from New York. Miss Edna Newcomer met a similar fate with Dr. Leon Pisculli and William Ulbrich, on an attempt to fly from New York to Rome. 'Miss Mildred Koran and six others were all lost in a flight from California to Honolulu in 1927. The Atlantic swallowed up Captain St. Roman, Captain Niingessor and M

Coli, Sir John Carling and three men who set out from Maine in Old Glory to fly to Rome. One of the earliest disappearances was that of Gustav Hamel, who took off from Paris in May, 1914, for London, and was never seen again. In 1897, before the days of heavier-than-air machines, Solomon. August Andree, with two companions, Fraenkel and Strindberg, were completely lost in an attempt to reach the North Pole in a balloon. Thirty-four years afterwards, in 1931, their bodies were found on White Island. A more recent Arctic disappearance was that of Raoul Amundsen, the Swedish explorer, who vanished during an air search for the crew of the ilbfated dirigible, Italia. In March, 1931, William Brophy set out from Shanghai to fly to Manila, and was last seen at Hongkong. Later, the crew of a Japanese fishing boat coming from Luzon Island reported that they had seen a white man waving to them with a piece of rag from the shore of a lonely island named Yami, and he had a dog beside him. Rough seas had prevented any attempt at I'GSCHG. The lost flyer had taken a puppy with him as mascot and Yami was on his route. It was believed he might have made a forced landing there and bten held captive by savages. But he was never found.