MR. C. T. P. ULM

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 13, 15 July 1936, Page 11

MR. C. T. P. ULM

POSSIBLE CASTAWAY

SIGNALS FRQM ISLAND

REPORT BY A CAPTAIN

United Tress Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. (Received July 15, 10.50 a.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. The "Daily Telegraph" says that the poMibility that Mr. Charles Ulm, the lost Australian aviator, is a castaway on the uninhabited island of Motu-Iti, in the Pacific, is suggested to Mrs. Ulm by a report by the captain of the Port Darwin that he sighted a castaway on the island. Motu-Iti is 300 miles fromTahiti. The ship was off the usual course of shipping, near islands which are visited by ships only about once every eighteen months. The captain of the Port Darwin, upon arrival at Brisbane last week, stated that he saw smoke coming from the island, and through glasses saw a man waving his arms and piling brushwood on a fire. The weather was too unfavourable to lower a boat or take the ship closer to the island, so he sent a wireless message to the Governor of Tahiti, and the message was acknowledged. Mrs. Ulm stated that she has given a great deal of thought to the report, and intends to interview her business advisers today to see if anything could be done to rescue the castaway, who she feels may be her husband.

Mr. C. T. P. Ulm began his last flight across the Pacific in December, 193-1. He was making the over-sea portion ot a flight between eastern Canada and Australia, via Auckland, and left Oakland on December 3 in a low-winged Airspeed Envoy twin-engined monoplane, the Star of Australia. At 8 a.m. next day he wirelessed that he was lost, unable to pick up the radio beacon, and running out of petrol, and crashed at 9.24 a.m. His radio remained working and he said that he expected to float for two or three days. - Despite a great search no trace of him was found. Ships and aeroplanes co-operated in combing the area for the lost machine and at one time 34 aeroplanes and 23 ships were engaged in the search. A storm blew up a few days later and destroyed all but the faintest hope that he would still be afloat, and though the Australian Government guaranteed part of the expenses, the air search was ended on December IQ, and the ships were recalled a day'later. Aeroplane wreckage was discovered on December 20,- but was not identified as portion of the Star of Australia. Mrs. Ulm, who was not satisfied with the result, chartered the schooner Lanakai for a 25 days' cruise around islands and reefs, but with no success.