END OF SOVIET POLAR FLIGHT

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22195, 11 September 1937, Page 19

END OF SOVIET POLAR FLIGHT

An amusing account of the landing in Southern California of the second Soviet aeroplane to fly across the North Pole is. given by an American eye-witness. "Those three Soviet flyers certainly landed prettily in Southern California, even if the graveyard manager did show them where to sit down. I'll tell you how I happened to see it," he writes. "I spent the night of July 13 at Palm Springs, a winter resort about 100 miles east of Los Angeles, on the Colorado desert. Before daylight on the fourteenth I drove up the 'Palms to Pines' highway, crossed the San Jacinto mountains at 5000 feet, and then coasted down into the San Jacinto valley. "A few miles west of the town of San Jacinto I saw an aeroplane flying round in circles. It was close to the ground, and a man in a cow pasture was running about waving his arms to the flyers- I did not pay much attention as this was only a few.miles from March Field, a Government aviation base. The studsnt flyers in that district are always doing silly stunts. However, I stopped to watch the aeroplane land. It was a rough field, so they

took a few bumps; but it was a very good landing. "Three young men crawled out and handed a paper to the man who had been running about in the field. He came running out to his car, which was parked along the road where I was stopped. Coming up to me, he said: 'lt's the Soviet flyers. They have just made a nonstop trip from Moscow. I'm caretaker at the cemetery here and must notify March Field. See what they gave me.' Written in English on a piece of paper was. 'Eat; bath; notify authorities.' "As I had an appointment in Santa Ana (continues this eye-wit-ness), I could not stay. As I drove along towards my home I kepi thinking, 'Darned if I would want a graveyard keeper to show me a landing-place!' "I drove back to San Jacinto in the afternoon and found that the .owner of the cow pasture had gone commercial. He was charging 25 cents apiece admission to the field where the aeroplane had landed, and he had rented space to several hamburger and ice-cream stands. I i understand that he cleared more plane was there."