WRECK OF SHENANDOAH

Evening Star, Issue 19064, 6 October 1925, Page 2

WRECK OF SHENANDOAH

FARMER'S DRAMATIC STORY BIG SHIP’S DEATH STRUGGLE. Further details of the tragic disaster that befell the United States dirigible Shenandoah, on September 3, resulting in the loss of fourteen Jives, are contained in the American papers that arrived last weekl One of the most dramatic stories of the tragedy was told by Messrs S. 0. Davie and F. Nelson, fanners, who watched the death struggle between the elements, and the giant ship. They saw the battle in the already bad light of the .early morning storm, with angry' clouds in the heavens, rent intermittently by forks of lightning. White-faced'and powerless, eyes fixed towards the heavens, the two men saw the death struggle in its tragic climax • —saw the Shenandoah, after darting upwards perhaps 200 ft, settle slowly. Then, her nose pointing perpendicularly toward the sky, she was literally torn asunder. A TREMENDOUS CRASH. The nose drifted away in the darkness, while the remainder of the craft, carrying all members of'the crew who were killed except Lieutenant .10. W. Shephard, crashed earthward. Even then the terrific winds, as though loth to be cheated of their victim, reached out greedy hands to tear into still fragments the dismembered sections of the ship. The families of Messrs Davie and Nelson heard the whirring of the propeller of the ship shortly alter 5 o’clock. Dawn was breaking, they said, but the dirigible was still carrying her lights. At first there seemed -to ■be nothing wrong. Then suddenly the big ship became motionless. She was poised thus, ns though detained by unseen hands. Then the disaster came. Farts of the giant came to earth, watchers said, with a crash that sounded like the falling of a forest of trees. When the nose of the huge craft disappeared into the lowering crowds, members of the crew, the watellers added, appeared to be hanging to ropes and outside portions of the fragments of framework. Only one of those men, wfio numbered twenty-eight, met death —Lieutenant Shephard. His body, huddled in a hedge about a mile and a-half from the point where the ship first began to disintegrate, Lieutenant Shephard was found with a fragment of rope grasped in his lifeless hands. His precarious anchor had apparently boon torn from the nose of the craft by the merciless winds.

All othgr members of the crow who mot death were found on a hmn.

PILOT’S THRILLING STORY

Mr Franklin T. Masters, of Akron, aviation pilot, related a thrilling story of his experience when the big ship parted and even after he had solely landed by jumping. He said; “J. was relieved of wheel duty at 4.110 a.in. and went to bed. _ It was storming then, the wind blowing pretty hard. I slept until 5.15, when I was awakened by the storm. I went back to No. 1 car and looked down at the ground and the framework of the ship. The lightning was Hashing badly, “Just about that time frame. No.' 70 broke, and } hung by my hand to the apex girder. 1 expected the entire keel to be torn away when it hit the tops of the trees. About 10ft from the ground the frame collapsed and buckled together, and I jumped. No. 1 car, in the nose of the ship, was torn away from the rest, it kept on floating away just like a balloon. It landed at Sharon, about five miles away. As soon as 1 hit the ground I started to run, as the tail of the ship kept whirling around and around in a circle. One of the girders caught my shirt and almost tore it off me.” MRS LANSDOWNE’S STATEMENT. Mrs Zachary Lansdowne, widow of the commander of the Shenandoah, when interviewed, said that her husband had long felt a premonition that the flight over the Middle West would end disastrously, and had used every honorable means to avoid making it “ Never before he learned he might have to make this flight was my husband nervous about flying,” Mrs bansdowns said. “ But he had been trying for a year to avoid this flight. Just before he left he told me: ‘Wo are going to strike thunderstorms in Ohio, hut I think we can get. away from them.’ I know' now ho did not think ho could, but was probably trying to comfort me. “ My husband was born in Greenville. Ohio, and reared there. Ho knew the Ohio thunderstorms and what they could do, and he felt that the flight would not ho a success. Ho had boon nervous ever since he was ordered last June to make it. He used all the influence he could command to forestall it, but because the Secretary of the Navy wanted to play politics and send the Shonandoali over the Middle West ho insisted that the flight be made. “ Six days ago lie asked Mr Wilbur to postpone the trip until October 15, when the weather Would bo more favorable. Mr Wilbur refused ( and said this was the time because it was llio right time for the publicity which would be gained by the ship’s flight. My husband know that storms create vertical air currents, the hot air going: up and the cold air coming down. Air currents of this kind, he said, are capable of breaking an airship’s back. He always felt that if he should strike such a storm the ship would ho lost unless he could manage to get round it. PREMONITIONS OF DANGER. "This was his first big flight since last October, when he made the" Transcontinental flight to California, and it was to have been his last flight, even had he made it successfully, as lie had received an order detaching him from the air service and sending him on sea duty on September 15. "’My husband’s pjemonition of danger was greatly heightened by the picture of the miniature Shenandoah' which appeared recently in the papers. After a quick look at the picture and its caption ho exclaimed; “They-have jinxed the ship,” and always afterward ho appeared more nervous than ever. I know, too. that a number of the enlisted men nacl premonitions that the Shenandoah would never return to her mooring mast from this trip. “ The Navy Department should never have ordered this flight .” _ Mrs Lausdowue said, “ particularly in this season of the year. I never will forget that it did. Rut I am glad that Zach died with his boots on. I intend to go through life wearing mine. When a girl marries an aviator she takes a chance. I’ve gambled and I’ve lost.” The statements made by Mrs Lansdowne were denied by Mr Curtis Wilbur, Secretary to the Navy. He declared that Commander Lansdowne was allowed to choose his own time for the flight, Mr Wilbur added that he would not have, permitted the flight against the judgment or protest of the commander.