YACHT TRAGEDY

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 November 1940, Page 3

YACHT TRAGEDY

: DEATH FROM STARVATION. H [per press association.] J WELLINGTON, November 28. The tragedy of the yacht Wingon, ; which was found on a Fiji island beach, cabled on Tuesday, is now re- - vealed. Described as a cutter at Seat- , tie, she cleared Seattle on September 14, bound for the Marquesas Islands. Her log reads grimly after a cyclone entry on November 7. It says: “Discovered Chet had died. What next? Help us, oh God!” November 8: “Buried Chester Thompson, 21; died of starvation. Too far gone, at any rate, to stand any more of the remaining can of apricots.” ‘*D. A. Conly,- master yacht Wingon 12/11,” is the last entry. No land seems to have been sighted since the departure. At noon on Monday last, the “S.D.A.” Mission ketch sighted the Wingon aground. A missionary boarded the cutter, and he found an emaciated living young woman, the body of a recently-dead woman, and the body of a man advanced in decomposition. The log was kept in an amateurish manner, with- no definite particulars as to the occupants. Various papers furnished the following [names: Dalton Arthur Conly, of 325 First Street, Los Angeles; Eve R. Lawson, or Conly, his wife; Chester A. Thompson, and Fern Thompson, his wife. There was an envelope addressed

Mr. and Mrs. Chester Thompson, 458 West Fifteenth Street, Los Angeles. Papers indicate Mrs. Conly had an infant, Patsy Irene Conly, and Mrs. Thompson two children. Thompson died at sea on November 7, and Conly died on November 12 or 13. Mrs. Conly died about November 23. They were buried at Labasa. Fern Thompson is still gravely ill at Labasa hospital. A post mortem revealed that Mrs. Conly died of starvation. • ■ ‘