Thrilling Experience in the Air

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 175, 9 July 1932, Page 7 (Supplement)

Thrilling Experience in the Air

Carried Aloft by Ropes on Airship DANGLED FOR TWO HOURS AT 2000 FEET. “COOLEST CUCUMBER I EVER SAW.” Two enlisted men of the United States Navy fell to the!# deaths, one from 150 feet, and the second from 200 feet, and 10,000 persons, including many high ranking army and navy officers and civic dignitaries, saw them die l a few weeks ago when three men were jerked aloft on ropes by the giant air- * ship Akron, when she abandoned an attempt to moor at San Diego. The third man carried aloft was Seaman C. M- Cowart, aged 19, and his experience rivals any stunt the movies have been able to devise, any thriller that fiction has produced (says the “San Francisco Chronicle”).

Clinging to a swinging rope 200 feet beneath the gleaming silver belly of the world’s largest air liner, Cowart held on while the Akron rose to an elevation of 2000 feet. He dangled there for two hours and twenty minutes. He clung there while the crew of the dirigible hauled him in, arid when he was finally safe in the air liner’s cabin his first words were:— “Gimme somethin’ to eat!” Commander Rosendahl, skipper of the big ship, told about it after the ship was moored next night. ‘•He’s the coolest eucumber I ever saw! ” was Rosendahl's tribute to Cowart’s tenacity. The sailor grinned and didn’t appear to think he had gone through much of an experience. “The Chief Petty Officer told me to hang on to that rope,” he explained. “So I hung on. I knew what the C.P.O. would do to. me if I disobeyed orders, so I hung on. But by the time he’d made up his mind to tell me to let go I took a look and decided to stay where I was.

“I was ’way too high up by that time, so I went for a ride. I was where the C.P.O. couldn’t get me by that time.

“Sure, I saw the other fellows fall —it was awful, but I couldn’t do a thing for them.” The two inon killed were Nigel Henton, who fell 150 feet, and Robert 11. Edsall, who lost his grip on the cable at 200 feet. While the huge crowd assembled to view the giant airship screamed, the two young sailors crashed to the ground and were killed instantly,

The body of 19-year-old Henton bounced fully six feet into the air when it crashed to the ground.) He was fighting all the way down, his arms flailing, his legs kicking, as he grasped for something to halt his terrible plunge.

The drama of death, suspense, and rescue began shortly before 9 a.m., when the two ’planes forming the Akron's heavier-than-air unit took off to land in advance an} supervise mooring the great dirigible. The Akron was sighted at 9.07 a.m. through a broken ceiling of fog. Her eight motors drumming idly, the great oval shape nosed towards her steel mooring mast. Prom the top of the mast trailed a cable which was to be made fast to a cable from the Akron’s nose.

After contact was formed between these cables, a gasoline-driven winch at the base of the mooring mast was to take in slack gradually and swing the ship to the seventy-foot mast. On the ground in the mooring area close to the mast were 200 sailors assigned to moor the ship. They were drawn chiefly from men inexperienced in such duties. Sudden Burst of Sunshine. Trimmed to the last pound for mooring, her weight finely balanced to equal her lifting power, the giant ship nosed toward the mast, two “finger” lines trailing from a hatchway. At the lower ends of these “finger” lines were metal rings from which were suspended grab lipes, a dozen fastened to each of the two rings. The ground men were to seize these lines, several men to a line, and steady the ship. At this time the wind was not troublesome, but the sun broke through a cloud bank. This sudden burst of sunshine was chiefly responsible, naval and flying mon said later, for what happened. The sudden warmth expanded the 6,500,000 cubic feet of helium gas, adding , too greatly to the Akron's lifting power. The take-off of the two ’planes from the dirigible previously had removed another 4000 pounds.

Three times the Akron glided low over the field in unsuccessful attempts to contact the mooring cable. On her fourth attempt ground men grabbed the linos.

With her nose cable attached to the mist line, the windlass at the base of the mast began to take in slack, while the ground crews guided the bag. Gusts of upward air tried to unsettle the craft, and suddenly, when the prow

was within 100 feet of the mast’s rip, a Sharp crack was heard, as the guiding line on the starboard side of the dirigible slapped off near the ring from which the grab lines spread. A tremendous gasp arose from the thousands of spectators. The great ship rolled to port, listing to a precarious angle and causing the control cabin under her envelope to rear outward and imperil the eighty souls abroad. . * A ery was heard from the eeatwl cabins—- “ Give way! Give us sleek.** In order to halt the perilous listing of the ship to port, the men holding the lines on that side of the ship lot go, and an officer near the winch cut the cable that held the Akron. Hold Released. The great ship shot upward with a rush, her lines dancing wildly below the huge envelope—all but those to which clung Cowart, Edsell, and Henton. Edsell and Henton were clinging to ropes below Cowart. They had no knots in the ropes. Above them, Cowart could take advantage of cross pieces of wood knotted to the rope. The horrified thousands saw Henton look downward as the earth rushed away. They saw him rebase his hold and watched the flight of his form downward. A scream arose as the limp form of the lad struck the ground. Ten seconds later, Edsell relaxed his grip and in his rushing fall showed plainly by his twisting and turning that he had not let go intentionally. As his body struck the ground many worqen fainted. He fell from 200 feet.

AU eyes in the throng then were turned to the dangling form of Cowart, a husky boxer, whoso physical fitness enabled him to cUng to his dizzy porch by hooking his logs over a crass piece knotted in the rope.

Gasps of horror and cries of eneour. agement rose from the crawd, and aeroplane pilots went up to waggle their wings to him in encouragement, Cowart’s perch was 200 feet below the Akron’s oval.

The dirigible soared lazily until men could be spared from other tasks aboard ship for the purpose of hauling the sailor into the craft. But enough men could not be spared from the work of manning the ereft until two hours had passed, a message from the Akron stated afterward.

The work of hauling Cowart aboard had to be done by hand. The message from Commander Rosendahl to Camp Kearney, stated:— “Cowart O.K. He suffered no in.

jury, was very cool, and considers it just another experience of his see* faring career.”