ARCTIC AVIATOR

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 74, 28 March 1930, Page 11

ARCTIC AVIATOR

ASSOCIATE OF WILKINS ' BIELSON BURIED BESIDE HIS MOTHER NEW YOBK, 27th March. A message from Hatton, North Dakota, states that Carl Beu Eielson was buried beside his mother in tho local cemetery,in tho presence of hundreds of townsfolk and numerous dignitaries. Seven thousand persons witnessed the funeral, when a half-holiday was declared and shops, offices, and the schools woro closed. A squadron of National Guard aeroplanes droned overhead as the funeral cortege moved to tho cemetery. The frozen bodies of Eielson, who piloted Wilkins from Alaska to Spitzbergeu, and Earl Borland were found buried in .". snow bank in Alaska, where they were hurled as their aeroplane crashed on 9th November, near the North Cape. Eielson and his mechanic were returning with a cargo of furs from the Siberian coast, when a fog intervened. Evidently their altimeter falsely registered a thousand feet off the ground when at full speed they crashed into a snow mound. The impact was evidently so severe that the engine parts and fusclago wero scattered over half an acre. Both men wero apparently killed inistantly. A sum amounting to £20,000 was spent by the United States and Canadian Governments searching for the- missing airmen, and the Soviet officials rendered valuable assistance, having 18 workmen digging the snow when tho bodies were uncovered. ■ i