AIRSHIP DISASTER RECALLED

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 14, 14 December 1932, Page 2

AIRSHIP DISASTER RECALLED

FOUNDATION STONE LAID NEAR SCENE OF WRECK.

A bare half-mile from the spot at Beauvais, France, where, two years ago, the giant British airship RIO] crashed to her doom with the loss of forty-eight lives, there was laid recently the first stone of the memorial which is to be erected to the memory of her dead.

The site is at Alonne, on the ParisCalais road.

The cercmonyj a very simple one, was impressive in its solemnity. Air Vice-Marshal Dowding Hew from England to ho present, and the British Ambassador, Lord Tyrrell, accompanied by the Air Attache, Group-Cap-tain Bone, came from Paris.

Turning towards the spot where Lord Thomson, Sir Sel'ton Braucker and so many brave men lost their lives, Lord Tyrrell, the British Ambassador, speaking in French, said : “To-day we are united to lay the first stone of the monument which is to commemorate the tragic catastrophe of two years ago. “It is not, however, only for this purpose that the monument is to he raised on your fair countryside. The courage of Lord Thompson and of his unfortunate companions found its equal in the devotion of the French, who rushed to the aid of the stricken airship. “The heroic death of my compatriots aroused feelings of horror and pity as intense as in England. The sympathy that welled from the hearts of the French touched our own, and recalled the blessings of that international fraternity of which the world has more than ever need.”