CLOSE CALL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 26, 31 January 1934, Page 7

CLOSE CALL.

BYRD'S TROUBLES.

"Desperate Struggle" Unloading

Jacob Ruppert.

MEN'S LUCKY ESCAPES,

[United P.A.-Electric Telegraph—Copyright)

(Received 11.SO a.m.) NEW YORK, January 30. A message from the Byrd expedition at Little America states that for the third time in six days the Jacob Ruppert had to abandon her berth due to crumbling ice in front on Sunday while unloading was progressing, and only energetic action saved the ship and the men from serious accident.

Late on Sunday the ice was still breaking. While the Jacob Ruppert was reconnoitring in an attempt to gain a mooring near her original berth, RearAduiiral Byrd said: "Wβ are in a desperate struggle to finish unloading. In the whole 20 miles of const within the Bay of Whales there is apparently not a single stable place. If the ice keeps going out at this rate Little America may yet be at the water's edge. Three days of fair weather and a firm dock would see the remainder of our stores unloaded.

"On Saturday at noon the Jacob Ruppert, after cruising and drifting unprofitably, headed in for the northern edge of the ice. The wind dropped and the swell diminished, and conditions looked promising for a resumption of unloading. We passed a floe as big as a ballroom floor carrying 25 bales of hay intended for our three cows and bull, but which were lost when the ice crumbled near the hay cache."

The vessel finally berthed a mile west of the old position, where about a dozen men, including Verlager, were waiting on the ice. They were cold and weary. Burt and Colombo were snow blind. Verlager shouted: "I can't get aboard the ship fast enough. Your winter party can have the barrier, I'll take the ship." The motor sailer was lowered and eight men brought aboard.

Across the white flooring of bay ice came the dog teams and tractors summoned from the camp about five miles to the south-east, and within a few hours unloading was resumed.

Bear-Admiral Byrd shouted through a megaphone: "Take no risks and watch, for the ice may go out any minute. Move the stuff back from the edge as rapidly as Toil can." Unloading proceeded uneventfully throughout the night. Dyer, Pierce, Abele, Novillc, Paige and several others were loading 10 gasoline drums on tractor sledges.

Rear-Admiral Byrd was alert, although he had had no sleep for 48 hours, and ho noticed Lindlry, who was shoring the Jacob Ruppert with telephone poles near the ice edge. Byrd shouted: "Put a line on, Lindley, you're taking a long chance." Lindley roped himself to Pierce, holding the other end of the line.

Suddenly Lindley shrieked, and the ice on which he was standing collapsed, hurling him toward the water. Pierce pulled him back. Then another section of the ice gave and the captain blew four blasts of the ship's whistle as a signal for all hands on the ice.

The men worked frantically to save the gasoline. Three drums rolled across the widening crack to safe ice, and six more were aboard the ship in a cargo net. The men leaped safely across the crack as the whole front edge of the bay crashed, forcing the Jacol* Ruppert to sail away.