AN EERIE EXPERIENCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25428, 8 January 1944, Page 8

AN EERIE EXPERIENCE

THREE MEN ON SUBMERGED PEAK SAVED BY LAST VERY LIGHT Three airmen who spent 10 days on the peak of a submerged mountain in the Polar Sea, exposed to Arctic tempests, were lately flown from Greenland to a hospital in Montreal. They had been saved by their last Very signal catching a casual glance on the last ship of the season likely to be in those waters. For three, hours, while they knew the ship to be their only hope, the starving, fro:' men flashed mirror signals to it in va*.». Even then, their signal was thought to be a ruse of a Nazi U-boat. Sailors put of! to investigate, armed to the teeth. They found the airmen in the last stage of exhaustion. Doctors said they could not have survived two more days. For more than three years these three airmen had been ferrying American and Canadian-built bombers and flying boats across the Atlantic. Ordinarily the air crews of the R.A.FTransport Command who deliver planes across the Atlantic are flown back as passengers to Montreal. But recently some have been flying twinengined Hampden bombers from Britain to air schools in British Columbia. Forced Down at Sea

In severe weather and against adverse winds the entire fleet of Hampdens. except one, made this journey, the longest routine flight ever undertaken by a fleet of bombers, without mishap. The Air Ministry recounted what happened to the exception. The exceptional occasion was that of a bomber which took the Iceland-Labra-dor route from England. Near the east coast of Greenland an engine failed. About 80 minutes later the other engine stopped. The Hampden alighted on the sea in the early afternoon and sank in 70 seconds, leaving the crew in a rubber dinghy 15 miles from a Greenland haven. Pack ice was everywhere between them and the mainland. Their course was Impeded with huge icebergs. The voyage lasted for 20 hours. Only one man could paddle and fend of! ice at a time. A mere touch against the ice might have punctured the dinghy. This voyage, one of the eeriest sea journeys that men can ever have made, brought them close to the point for which they aimed, but a swift coastal current prevented them reaching shore. They made their way to a rock 50 yards from the shore; a 3000-foot pinnacle called Umanarsuk, an Eskimo name meaning “ heart-shaped.” Close as they were, they realised they could never reach the mainland. On their tiny island there was nothing with which to light a fire. The snowcovered crag was devoid of shelter and vegetation. They made a camp on a narrow ledge 100 feet above the sea, using the dinghy as a tent. Two hours after they had settled on their cliff the castaways h<#ard overhead a number of aircraft that had been sent to search for them. But the castaways were hidden by a snowstorm. They fired Very lights; the planes passed on. The castaways had three containers, each holding 45 malted milk tablets, four squares of barley sugar, a small quantity of chewing gum, 12 pints of water, first aid kit, a yellow distress flag, and a four-inch metal mirror with attachment for use as a heliograph. Reckoning on a week before rescue, the crew rationed themselves to six malted milk tablets and a third of a pint of water per man per day. In their pockets they found some chocolate bar softened by salt water, and allowed themselves two inches of chocolate each per day. After 72 hours the day’s ration was cut to three malted milk tablets and one equare of chocolate the size of a postage stamp. Three days of furious gale blew away the distress flag which two of the men had scaled the summit to plant. The sea stormed up over their ledge and forced them to clamber up another 250 feet. Exhausted as they were, it took them many hours. Small Ship Sighted

On the ninth day a small ship was sighted about 15 miles away, but the cloud obscured the sun; the helio could l not be used. Six Very shots were fired at five-minute intervals; the vessel., altered course and disappeared. On the tenth day the three airmen, at the limit of despair, saw an aircraft come with the sunrise. They fired distress signals, which were masked by the low cloud; the plane flew on. It was on this day that the radio operator left to bring in some snow, which served for drink. In a few moments he was back. “ Say, boys, I may be seeing things,” he whispered, “ but I think there’s a ship.” Stationary, eight miles away, was a small vessel. And at that moment the sun began to shine. For the next three hours the three men, supporting each other on the cliff lec.ge, flashed the helio mirror and fired their signals. The ship made no rc-ponse. She was a converted whaler, the Polar Bear, with a Norv/egian crew, carrying United States Army officers to a post in Greenland. Bv an extraordinary chance she had hove to while engine defects were being repaired.

At the end of the three critical hours, during which the men on-the rock had been signalling frantically and in vain, one of the American officers came on deck to look at the scenery through binoculars. fie thought he saw a momentary bright gleam in the distance, but dismissed it as a flash of light from snow or ice. Some moments later he saw what looked like a puff of smoke and then a glint as of a seagull wheeling in the sun; that was the breaking of the castaways’ last Very cartridge. He focused his glasses and: picked up the signal. He reported to the Norwegian ship captain, who supposed that the messages might be a U-boat ruse or a trick by Nazi agents. “Then,” said the major, “ let’s go and capture them.” By which it came about that the rescued airmen are now progressing well, and should be able to rejoin the R.A.F. Transport Command within a month.