STORM RAGING ALONG LABRADOR COAST DELAYS CONTACT WITH AIRMEN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18442, 18 April 1928, Page 1

STORM RAGING ALONG LABRADOR COAST DELAYS CONTACT WITH AIRMEN.

TINY RADIO STATION JAMMED WITH MESSAGES, WHILST WORLD AWAITS AUTHENTIC NEWS OF FLYERS

(United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (Received April 18, 8.55 a.m.) NEW YORK, April 17. IT is becoming daily increasingly difficult to obtain authentic information regarding the German flyers, principally due to the fact that the storm, which is still raging along the entire Labrador coast, seriously delays communications. Moreover, the little Point Amour radio station, which is nearest them, has been deluged with business for several days, and messages to and from the flyers are still piling up.

In the meantime, the reports which do emanate frequently are most conflicting. For example, one received to-day stated that the flyers landed on a smaiPicfc-covered pond, with little damage, which did not include the under-carriage and would be able to resume the flight on . Wednesday, while'another declared that they landed on ice-covered ground—not a pond— and that the ’plane dragged a considerable distance, damaging the undercarriage and necessitating extensive repairs, which could not be completed under five or six days. However, definite details arc expected when Major FitzmUuricc reaches civilisation.—Australian Press Association.

Greenly Island, where the German airmen are isolated, is situated just off the coast of Labrador, at the bottom end of the Strait of Belle Isle. This Strait, for the greater part of the year, is blocked by ice, but it is the shortest route between Great Britain and the St Lawrence. This part of the coast, during the summer, swarms with fishermen from Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Quebec and the United States, engaged in the capture and cure of seal, cod. salmon, salmon-trout and herring. Though the estimated area of Labrador is 500,000 square miles, its population does not exceed 10,000. Labrador was visited by Vikings about the beginning, of the Eleventh Century, and again by the Portuguese navigator Cortereal about 1500 A.D. He named the land Labrador, because lie considered the natives would make good labourers, or, in other words, slaves.