AIRMEN KILLED BY BANDITS

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 January 1928, Page 10

AIRMEN KILLED BY BANDITS

NICARAGUAN MYSTERY SOLVED.

NEW YORK, November 8

On October 10 two United States Marine airmen, Lieutenant E. A. Thomas and Sergeant Thomas Dowdell, crashed in their aeroplane while bombing bandits under General Sandino on Mount Chipote, Nicaragua. They escaped unhurt and were seen to run from the burning wreckage with their machine-gun. Since then patrols of U.S. Marines and Nicaraguan National Guards have tried vainly to find them, and have frequently been in collision with General Sandino’s men. The mystery of the airmen’s disappearance has at last been solved through statements made by natives of the Ocotal region when they visited'the towns on Sunday to vote in the municipal elections. Lieutenant Thomas and Sergeant Dowdell, they said, eluded the pursuit of the main body of bandits in a densely wooded valley. Coming upon two bandits separated from the others, they forced them to act as guides to Jicaro. When they were going through this place one of the bandits suddenly attacked one of the airman with a machete and wounded him in the neck. The other airman shot him dead, but the second bandit escaped and put General Sandino’ men on the trail of the fugitives. The two marines were wounded, and one was carried by the other into a cave. They were traced there by the blood on the trail and were attacked by the bandits, who numbered about 40 or 50. Both the Americans were killed, but not until they had killed several bandits with their revolvers. This story is believed to be true by the U.S. Marine officers in Managua.