TRAGEDY OF THE ITALIA

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 591, 18 February 1929, Page 9

TRAGEDY OF THE ITALIA

SURVIVOR BREAKS DOWN MISSING MEN MAY LIVE (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) LONDON, Saturday. A message from Rome says Professor Behounek, of Prague University, is in the Italian capital for the purpose of giving evidence before the Government inquiry into the loss of the airship Italia in the Arctic. In the course of a lecture he referred to Professors Malmgren and Pontremoli, and suddenly broke down and hurried out of the hall, his hands over his face. {Subsequently Professor Behounek told the Rome correspondent of the “Morning Post” that he had often lectured on the subject, but never had his feelings so overcome him. He explained his emotion by saying: It is because I believe there is still it chance that those who were carried away in the envelope of the Italia are still alive and suffering in a remote part of Franz Josef Land or Northern Spitsbergen. Those vast areas have not been fully searched. You as Englishmen, now' how many years the English continued to look for Franklin and other lost explorers before giving them up.