ORDEAL FOR AIRMEN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22142, 22 June 1935, Page 3 (Supplement)

ORDEAL FOR AIRMEN

DRAMATIC RESCUE AT SEA After clinging for four hours to a wing of their aeroplane when it had been forced down into a rough sea, two British airmen were rescued by a French fishing-boat in the English Channel last month just as the machine sank. The airmen were Flight-Lieutentant J. B. W. Pugh, of Surrey (pilot), and Mr. R. F. Burgess, of Hove, Sussex (wireless operator). News of the accident was received in England when Mr. Burgess sent out the S.O.S. of the air—" May day " —giving his height as 3000 ft. and his position as north-west of Treport, France. That was the last heard from the machine, and for hours nearly a score of mail and passenger aeroplanes and a lifeboat circled the choppy sea in a fruitless search. Hope had almost been given up when news came that the two men had been rescued by the little fishing-boat Ave Maria, and landed at Dieppe. The sea was rough and it was with difficulty that the French fishermen succeeded in rescuing the airmen and taking them aboard. They were only just in time. The unfortunate men were numbed with the cold and so exhausted that they thought that unless help came quickly they would not be able to hold on much longer. The Ave Maria has no wireless, bo that it was not until they reached Dieppe that their rescue- was known and the lifeboats and aeroplanes which went to search for them were called back. The machine, a freighter belonging to the Commercial Air Hire Company, of Croydon, was returning empty from Paris. Almost immediately the report was received Captain Hattersley, a fellowpilot of Captain Pugh, left Croydon in a twin-engined liner and circled the Le Treport district, both land and sea, for nearly three hours. Among the other searching aircraft were the two Imperial Airways machines and two French mail liners, i Flight-Lieutenant Pugh took part in making a British air-endurance record of 54 hours 13 minutes with Mrs. Victor Bruce and Flight-Sergeant W. R. McCleerv over Felixstowe. Born in Dublin, in 1904, he served in the Royal Air Force from 1927 to 1932 and was awarded the Air Force Cross. An aeroplane he was piloting at Littlehampton, | in 1933, overturned and burst into i flames as it was landing. He pulled two women passengers to safety and when the flames were extinguished resumed his flights.