ORDEAL FOR AIRMEN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22607, 26 June 1935, Page 14

ORDEAL FOR AIRMEN

DRAMATIC RESCUE AT SEA After clinging for four hours to a wine of their aeroplane when it had been forced down into a rough sea, two Britwn airmen were rescued by a French fishing boat in the English Channel last month just as the machine sank. The airmen were Flight-lieutenant J. B. W. Pugh, of Surrey (pilot), and Mr 11. 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 shoppv sea in a fruitless search. Hope had almost been given up when news came that the two men had boon rescue by the little fishing boat Ave Marin, ami 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, so that it was not until they reached Dieppe that their rescue was known and the liteboats 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 Pane. Almost immediately the report was received Captain Hattersley. a fellow-pilot of Flight-lieutenant Pugh, left Croydon in a twin-engined liner and circled the 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. Flight-lieutenant Pugh look part in making a British air-endurance record of 54 hours 13 minutes with Mrs Victor Bruce and Flight-sergeant W. R. M'Cleery over Felixstowe. Born in Dublin, in 1904, he served in the Boyal Air Foree from 1927 to 1932 and was awarded the Air Force Cross. An aeroplane he was piloting at Littlehampton, in 1933, overturned and burst into flames as it was landing. He pulled two women passengers to safety and when the flames were extinguished resumed his flights.

Serious concern was recently expressed by General Weygand, the retired I'rench Commander-in-chief, with what he regards as the degeneracy of French youth. He called attention to the numbers of vouths seen in the streets of the cities, "undisciplined, hands in pockets, with a slovenly bearing, and an air of ridiculing everything." Physical bearing, he said, was outward expression of moral bearing, and it was full time that something -was done to counteract the " incomprehensible vogue of the genus loafer." He urged the institution of a rational education that -would lead to the beginning of a new attitude in early childhood. The general demands an education of the mind "which is inspired by the greatness of the country and not by dangerous negatives," and .a physical training " of which the essential aim is not records or competitions but Knalth."

Through figures given when he informed the press of the reduction in British telegraph rates. Sir Kingsley Wood poked mild fun at Scotland. In England, he said, according to a confidential census, 49 per cent, of the telegrams deal with general business and 43 per cent, with appointments and social engagements. In Scotland the respective figures are 58 per cent, and 38 per cent., leaving the inference that Scots are much more disinclined to waste good money on merely social arrangements. Of the remaining telegrams 8 per cent, for England and 4 per cent, for Scotland cover good news or bad news and eongiatulations and condolences. Here again is the suggestion that Scotland seems disinclined to send telegrams on occasions not strictly necessary. But in both countries good news in telegrams outnumbered bad news by more than two to one.