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Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18619, 15 July 1930, Page 9

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’Plane Crashes In Jungle. MATTHEWS’S STRUGGLE FOR HELP. United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright DELHI, July 13. The report that Matthews is saved is confirmed. He is now in hospital at Prome, badly injured. He states that soon after leaving Akyab they were forced to descend in a thick jungle, owing to a leak in the petrol pipe. The ’plane was wrecked and both were injured in landing, Hook seriously. They struggled for several days through almost impenetrable jungle, sodden with monsoon rains, existing on fruit. Hook became worse, and begged Matthews to go on alone. The latter refused. Hook, who was too weak to walk further insisted, and after making him as comfortable as possible, Matthews proceeded in the endeavour to secure aid, and on Saturday he reached a village, where he collapsed. He fears Hook will not survive, as he was left utterly helpless, through loss of blood and in high fever. Bleeding hands and legs, and torn clothing testify to the desperate nature of Matthews's struggle. The villagers helped him over the latter stages of the journey. ’Planes searched the Yoma mountains and the surrounding jungle for traces of the machine and the remaining flier without success. ANOTHER ACCOUNT. SEARCH PARTIES ORGANISED. United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright RANGOON, July 13. A message received by the Commissioner at Pegu from Prome states that Matthews was picked up by villagers at longitude 94.56, latitude 80.47, after walking for seven days down the Buto stream. Hook had been left, as he was unable to walk, one day’s march away. A search party, with a doctor has left Padaung. The police and villagers are believed to be already searching. The aeroplane crashed in the east Yoma mountains. The precise locality is unknown. OFF THE BEATEN TRACK. DIFFICULTIES OF TRAVEL. From the cable messages it would appear that the ’plane crashed in the hill country on the west bank of the Irawaddy. This part of Burma is still well off the beaten track and with high hills clothed with immense forests of teak and jungles, an impenetrable maze of bamboo, cane and dense undergrowth, the only paths are those footways between villages and game tracks to and from salt “licks”—pools where wild animals visit fairly regularly for the purpose of licking the salt deposits. The country is very wild and to a sick or wounded man, a day’s journey of a couple of miles or so would be a creditable effort.

The people are not of the pure Burmese breed. They are darker in colour, are more Hindu than Buddhist in religion, and devote most of their time to hunting and, here and there on the mud-flats, to the cultivation of “padi” (rice). On the whole, the villagers are welldisposed towards Europeans, and it is more than likely that Hook is being well cared for by the myook (headman) of one of the hill villages.