GUSTAV HAMEL.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 7, 8 January 1916, Page 17

GUSTAV HAMEL.

SLAXDHRING A FAMOUS AIRMAN'S MEMORY. BASELESS WAR RUMOURS. The following letter from Messrs. Oliver Richards and Parker, solicitors, of King Street, St. "James, , has been appearing iv several of the London newspapers:— The persistent rumours that the late Mr. Gustav. Hamel is alive and flying for the I Germans Is giving great .pain to liis family and to his nvany friends. Unfortunately the first part of tlic rumour is untrue; the second is an insult to the memory of one who has done so much for the advancement of aviation in Bli^lnnu. Mr. Hamel left Hardeict on May 23, 1!)14, to fly in England, and was never seen alive again. His body was found In the sea by the skipper of the French fishing smack St. Ilelene, one Joseph Le Pretre, on July 1, 10M, about ten miles off Point Alprecht. lt~ was identiOed by the description of the clothing, and certain contents of the pocket described by a French mechanic, Alexis Lauguet, who assisted him when he left Hardelot, and by the inflated India rubber bicycle tube round I the body which Mr. Morane, the eminent j airplane designer, induced him to wear when he left Paris the same morning. There can be no shadow of doubt as to the identification of the body. On the I evid*nce of Le Pretre and Longnet the 1 Court has granted leave to presume hla death, and letters of administration to his estate have been taken s out. ilr. Hamel came of a Danish family. He was brought up in England and was cdn ca'.ed at Westminster School. His father. Dr. Gustav Hamel, M.V.O.j who came' to England many years ago, British snbject. He was born in Hamburg, then a j free and independent town. Early in life !he went io Sweden and later continued i bis education in Switzerland, where he took • his medical degrees. He requalifled in Eng- , land (St. Bartholomew's-. 'Hospital) and holds no German degrees or qualifications whatever. Nothing could be more repngnant to the family of the late Mr. Gustav Hamel than ! the reports that he is now enrolled in the j German Flying Corps. May we ask yon, 'as solicitors to the family, to publish this I letter and pnt an end once and for all to i baseless rumours?