VILLAGE OF SORROW.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20723, 17 November 1930, Page 6

VILLAGE OF SORROW.

THE AIRSHIP TRAGEDY. ' WIDOWS AND CHILDREN. * HEARTRENDING SCENES. Shortstmvn, on the fringe of the aero—drome where the crew of (he ill-fated RlOl lived, was a village of numbed women and wide-eyed children on Sunday, October 5, the day following the terrible tragedy.

Most of the men who lost their lives were married, and wives and mothers with swollen red eyes and pale faces walked hourly to the aerodrome gates to ask f or news; and every time they refused to believe the worst. As they walked they passed their children playing in the streets, and- tho children stopped their play arid looked wonderingly at their tragic mothers.

A Daily Mail correspondent visited the house of Mrs. Short, the wife of Mr. G. W. Short, a charge-hand engineer who was among the dead, and found Mrs. Bell, the wife of another engineer, who was saved, trying to console her. "When they went off last night they were so jolly," said Mrs. Short, "and we women on the aerodrome cheered them. But many of us had heavy r°.irts.

"None of us liked the idea of that new bay being put in the ship. We remembe'red how the R3B met with disaster after she had been enlarged; but our husbands were so enthusiastic, so brave, and so confident that we had not the heart to worry them with our fears. "We were not happy, too, when we saw RlOl ride sluggishly from her mooringmast. Seven times she threw ballast to rise, and we women, who know a good deal about airships now, haii neve; seen this done before. She rose awkwardly, as if with a tremendous effort." While the group were talking, a tiny, fair-haired boy of 13 months pushed his wav past his mother and handed the cor. respondent a toy airship. "Airpit," he lisped proudly. "Daddy's airpit; daddy gone on his airpit."

"Poor little Johnnie," said Mrs. Short. "He woke up at two o'clock this morning and cried pitifully for his daddy, and I could not pacify him." As the writer was leaving the houss Johnny was digging his toy "airpit" violently into the earth in the front garden. "Yes, darling," said his mother, "that is all that airships are useful for."'

One of the motfc ' tragic women in Shortstown is Mrs. Mason, the widow of Mr. C. H. Mason, the assistant-coxswain. She is a young woman who is left with five children, and she could not tell any one of them that their daddy would never return.

Mrs. Hunt, the widow of the chief coxswain, is left with three children. One of them, a little fellow of 10, went picking mushrooms in the morning. When he returned his mother was in tears.

Mr. W. A. Potter, the assistant-chief coxswain, who is. dead, was perhaps the nnluckiest member of the crew. He was one of the thre>3 survivors of the RSB disaster, and he was also a member of the crew of the R33 when she broke away from her mooring-mast and floated helplessly over the North Sea to Holland. "His third adventure was indeed unlucky," said one of his friends.