AIRMEN ADRIFT ON A HYDROPLANE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 14590, 27 April 1918, Page 8

AIRMEN ADRIFT ON A HYDROPLANE.

80 HOURS AT MERCY. OF SEA A J WltfD.'

Through, tho fortunes of shipwreck, or] rather hydro-aeroplane wreck, Ensig^i Richer and Mate . . Guerin) of a Frenofi hydroplane, . have ( just had : the "honor thrust on them of establishing a. worlds | record of 80 consecutive hours of sea navigation m a hydroplane. , During, the 80 hours afloat, says Mr. Henry Wood, the^ United Press, ot America correspondent with $he Frenfch armiej, their immense French hydroplane, propelled only by the sea and the wind, covered over. 9o miles of voyage, ! Tho feat gives some idea of the development that has taken place hv'thß. hydro-aviation services of the French navy, and which is kept fully as secret as the development -that lias taken place m the navy itself since the beginning of the war. ? ■

On January 12 Ensign Richer, who commanded a hydroplane Squadron on the Algerian coast, started out with tw!o hydroplanes on a submarine hunt. \Vhejn 20 miles off the . coast the 'plane m charge of himself, and; Second Mate Guerin was forced to take to water owing to an. ■accident-. to the motor. !

The second hydroplane* > -waa m -th^e act of alighting; m fcba ftea by their side m ord^r U> Tender any 'assistance possible, when Ensign Richer signalled it was not to take to^ the:!sea, gut, to go m search :of \ a tug. The second hydroplane accordingly headed^ to,wardT3 the Algerian coast; and this was the. last seen of it. : .

; Richer's machine had been fprped to alight 1 m the sea on the; afternoon of January 12. Night came -en without their seeing >any passing ship: During the night, however, cannon vshote ,*we^e heurd, and. they at once sent up rockets, but stiir without success". In the mean, time the sea became, rough, and their! hydroplane would- have been* wrecked, had it been made like any other than the new strongly-built ones that the' French marine lias developed. *

During the m,orning of the I3tli the cable of. tlie floating anchor 1 broke, and destruction agp,in threatened. The cr&vi of two men, however, rigged, "up a second anchor of -vrha't heavy maierial ' there happened to be aboard the machine*, and also repaired both the floaters and the wings of the .'plane, which bad been badly damaged during , the night's storm. . . During the 13th land was sighted, but the hydroplane was. driven, out to sea again. Provisions rond water were almqst exhausted on the 14th, but it was not till after the night of the 15th-16th that a. patrol boat which had 'been' searching since the afternoon of the 12th\ picked