RESCUED BY 'PLANES.

Cromwell Argus, Volume LIII, Issue 2793, 6 November 1922, Page 7

RESCUED BY 'PLANES.

In Nebraska lately, during a recent heavy flood, several bridges were carried away, and the rivers became impassable. It was just at this awkward time that a physician was summoned very urgently by telephone to perform a difficult , operation on a woman as the only means of saving her life.

The doctor found the river running with such fury that ho boatman would even consider the idea of cross- 1 ing. He then thought of the Government air-mail station at North Platte. Hastening there, he told the officer, in charge his predicament, and begged to be taken across in one of the spare aeroplanes. The-officer had no authority to give permission; but, as human life was at stake, he wirelessed to Washington, and had a plane brought out ready to start if the reply .should be favourable.

The laconic official permission came promptly through, and in. a very short time the doctor was landed in a • field close to the farmhouse in which the patient lay. The operation was performed, and the woman's life saved.

There was an exciting race, worthy of a most sensational film, between an aeroplane and aa express train the other week in Germany. The Berlin police had discovered an attempt to smuggle twenty million marks from the German capital over the Swiss frontier, a very profitable transaction which is against the law. The train had got a good start when it was learned the smugglers were aboard heK. and three fast aeroplanes set off to overtake her. In this they succeeded, and the smugglers were arrested and the cash commandeered at Nuremberg. At the fashionable resort of Miami 4 in Florida, a negro employed in an hotel stole a very valuable diamond brooch, decamped, and took ship for Bermuda. Detectives were scon put upon his track, and by means of wireless it was found that he was aboard* a steamer .which had lately left. It was also ascertained that the vessel was delayed by unfavourable weather at a point about twenty miles off the coast.

It was decided to try to bring back the negro in a hydroplane belonging to Mr. McCormick, son-ii Maw of Mr. Rockefeller, the former gentleman undertaking to act as pilot, and to carry detective Slade over the water to the ship's side. From setting off to alighting on the water alongside the outward-bound steamer was under ten minutes. :

The negro was surprised and arrested, with the diamond brooch in the pocket of his pants. He was lowered into, the hydroplane, which then rose from the water and flew back with the prisoner. Throughout the return journey the negro was in a state of abject fear, and spent most of his time muttering prayers.,

M. Vedrines, the famous aviator, recently put up for the French Chamber. His would-be constituency was Limoux, very wide, and difficult to canvass. However, M. Vedrines was quite equal to the occasion, for he visited the electors in an aeroplane, and thereby got more notice than he otherwise would have done. His object in standing for election was to forward the cause of military aviation, so that there could not be a more appropriate object lesson on his side than his unique plan of canvassing.

A very exciting story comes from the States. An aviator, in flying across-country after a very severe storm accompanied by torrential rain, saw on the mapped-out country beneath him a gap in" a great railway bridge crossing a wide river. With his bird's-eye view of the landscape, he could see the great eastbound- express speeding towards the bridge, but still many miles distant. He hastened to land in a field near a signal station and inform the man of the broken bridge, and the express was stopped.

A very funny incident occurred at Chelmsford during an attempt to raise £50,000 for War Loan. The town was visited by a small fleet of aeroplanes, which scattered leaflets broadcast.

One of these fell into the cemetery, and a curious passer-by went in and picked it up. He found it contained the invitation : "Wake* up and buy War Bonds !" But that seems to be the plane's qnly limitation. It can't wake the dead !