Tragedy in Bernese Alps

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 7240, 21 August 1933, Page 7

Tragedy in Bernese Alps

* * Four Eton Masters Fall Over Precipice HAD NEGLECTED TO CUT STEPS IN ICE United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. Received Sunday, 8 p.m. LONDON, Aug. 19. News has reached Eton Collcgo that four masters on a climbing holiday in Switzerland wore killed on the slopes of Mount Roscg, 13,000 feet high, in the Bernese Alp 3.

A search party, starting when a guard arrived, reported that it had seen four bodies at the bottom of a high wall of rock at an inaccessible part of the mountain, the climbers evidently having fallen down the ravine together. Their names are: E. V. Slater, housomaster at Timbrall’s; E. W. Powell, housemaster at Wotton House, forsomo years coach of the Eton eight; H. E. Howson, house-master at Jourdclay s; and C. White-Thomson, science master and eldest son of the Bishop of Ely. All were married. All the victims were members Of the Swiss Alpine Club and experienced climbers. It is evident they wore roped and had fallen together. AU four were popular at Eton. It is now stated that tho Eton masters, without a guide, successfully climbed Mount Roseg and were descending, which is tho more perilous, when the leader apparently slipped on a loose stone on tho treacherous surface, combined with ice and snow, and fell, dragging tho others over tho precipice. A rescue party from Pont Borina recovered the bodies. The total number of deaths in the Alps this year is 71. Caspar Grass, a prominent Pout Resina guide, who led five others to recover the bodies, says ho found three lying head downward on the top of the fourth, whoso head was upward. All were in a terriblo condition, their necks being broken and their bodies covered with wounds. The rope with which they were tied together was twisted about their necks. They had clearly fallen headfirst. Grass found their watches still going and their climbing irons full of snow. They had not cut steps in the ice; consequently, when they began to fall on the difficult surface, they could not *top themselves. Their bodies were put in sacks on skis and dragged to Coaz, whence they were taken to Pont Resina, where a car could bo used, and then reached Pont Resina.

A bell was tolled and the bodies were mot by the Mayor, other notabilities and English visitors, who walked at the head of a procession to the little church, where the bodies were placed on stretchers and covered with sheets. Alpine flowers were placed before the altar in the sanctuary, which has sheltered many victims of mountain fatalities throughout the centuries.