NATIONAL MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR R101 MEN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19197, 10 October 1930, Page 1

NATIONAL MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR RlOl MEN.

Ceremony Will Be Broadcast Throughout Empire From London. (United. Press Association. —By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (Received October 10, 12.30 p.m.) RUGBY,.October 9. The Bishop of London, Dean Inge, Canon Alexander and the Chaplain-in-Chief to the Air Force, the Rev R. Hanson, will conduct to-morrow’s memorial service in St Paul’s Cathedral for the remains of the victims of RIO 1. The service will be broadcast by all the stations of the British Broadcasting Corporation and by the Chelmsford short-wave station to the Dominions.

Members of Cabinet will attend, and the Dominion Prime Ministers and other members of the delegations to the Imperial Conference will be present. The French and Italian Air Ministers and the Belgian Minister of Communications will attend, each supported by officials of their Departments. To-night the bodies of the victims will be removed to Westminster Hall for the lying-in-state, and throughout to-morrow the public will be admitted. Messages of sympathy continue to reach the Prime Minister. Those received yesterday included one from the Prime Minister of Sweden. Mr Ramsay MacDonald sent the following telegram to M. Tardieu (Premier of France) : “You and the French people have indeed shown us that our sorrow is yours. The generous honours which you did yesterday have been appreciated deeply by the families of those who are gone, and have filled the whole nation with profound gratitude. On behalf of the Government I thank you with all my heart." The Commission of Inquiry is continuing its researches into the causes of the disaster. All access to the wreck by the public has been prohibited. No announcement will be made until the Commission has reported to the authorities. Public Homage. To-morrow from eight o’clock in the morning until ten o’clock at night, the public will pass through Westminster Hall, paying silent homage to the bodies of the victims. The flower-covered coffins will lie in a double row on a dais in the centre of the purple carpeted hall, and the people will pass on either side of them. Men of the Royal Air Force, who have formed a guard over the dead since they reached England, will continue to do so during the lying-in-State

and until the coffins are removed for burial at Cardington on Saturday. The funeral procession that morning from Westminster to Euston Station will pass through the heart of London. In it will march a third of the watch of the RlOl reserve men, as well as the crew of the sister airship RIOO. From No. 10, Downing Street, where the Cabinet Council was held to-day, an announcement has been issued mentioning that the funeral procession will be passing through the streets of London for two hours before noon, and adding: “During this time it is the Government’s hope that the sense that this solemn public procession is in progress in London will be present to the mind of the whole nation." Extra Accommodation. For the memorial service to be held in St Paul’s at noon over 20,000 applications already' have been received. There are seats for only' 5000, although all possible extra accommodation is being arranged. Official representatives of all European and many other cc/untries will attend, as well as members of the Cabinet and the Dominion Prime Ministers and delegates, who are in London for the Imperial Conference. The Prince of Wales will represent the King. He will also proceed to Cardington, Bedford, and will walk with the Prime Minister in the procession taking the victims to their last common resting place. The people of Beauvais formed a procession and followed to the outskirts of their town the hearse containing Rigger Church, who died from injuries, and whose body was brought to England to-day. Condition of Survivors.

Foreman Engineer Leech, who had a slight relapse, remains unchanged. The other survivors, Cook, Savory and Disney, are making good progress, and will be out of hospital in a few days. i m is m in in is m ® ® ® in ® ® ® ® © is in m %