DIOMEDE RETURNS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 16 January 1928, Page 5

DIOMEDE RETURNS

VISIBILITY BAD V. (By Telegraph—Special to "The Mail”) / . AUCKLAND, This Day. With funnels blistered by excessive heat-, and giving the appearance that she had ’been through heavy weather, the > Diomede returned at 7.30 this piorning after a search for the missing airmen. Until the area of search was reached, the Diomede kept a steady 24 knot pace and that speed was not altered until the search was abandoned on Saturday evenin nr. ‘ At daylight on Saturday the. vessel was in 37 degrees 5 minutes south latitude and 171 degrees 30 minutes east longitude. While in the searching area a man was stationed in the feretop and the officers kept a lookout from the bridge. At no time were the watchers / able°to see more than five miles away, and no other vessel was sighted during the search. Yesterday the Diomede ran into heavy weather and last night on the run down

£he east coast the seas were so high that they s\yept over the bridge. One officer tcid a "Slar” reporter that it was the roughest night known for years. On the trip 430 tons of oil were used, and the money spoilt on fuel alone will amount to £1505.

NO SIGN OR SOUND

S.S. ALEXANDER'S REPORT

Captain McLeod of the Anchor Company s steamer Alexander, which has returned to Nelson from the West Coast, reports that his vessel crossed from Wanganui to Farewell iSpit on the afternoon of 10th January, keeping a clear lookout throughout, but saw nothing of the aeroplane. The steamer left Wanganui at 1.15 p.m., passed twelve miles north of Stephens Island at 9 p.m. and was off Farewell Spit at 2 a.m. The weather was clear, with passing clouds, and there was not the faintest sign or sound of the aeroplane.

BOTH MEN HAD KNOWLEDGE OF MORSE

Mrs Hood discredits statements that her husband did not know the Morse code, i and declares that it . would have been impossible for her husband to have qualified as a captain in the JRoyal Air Force without being able to satisfy the examiners that he had a practical working knowledge of the Morse code. Even when he went annually.to Christchurch to undergo refresher courses she understood practice in Morse signalling was part of the programme. Mrs Moncrieff also declared that Lieut. Moncrieff had passed a qualifying test of a certain number of words a minute. She was confident also of Lieut. Moncrieff’s navigational qualifications, for he had spent-the past six months studying the subject. ]:h