ICE RESCUE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20279, 13 April 1934, Page 1

ICE RESCUE.

HEROISM OF SOVIET AIRMEN. Castaways Tied to Wings. ONLY SIX LEFT MAROONED UPON FLOE. United Press Assn.—By Klectrlc Telegraph—Copyright. (Received April 13, 11.40 a.m.) MOSCOW, April 12. How airmen, in response to emergency calls from Moscow, risked their lives in landing on broken ice is revealed by the stories of the Cheliuskin castaways following the rescue to-day of a further twenty-two, leaving only six on the ice floe. Those marooned are being gradually confined to a smaller space as the breaking and surging ice has crushed the camps. Crow’ded in a small w’ooden hut and ten tents, the castaw’ays kept the atmosphere at a temperature in which they w’ere able to live by piling the ice against the outside walls. Then the pressure of the surrounding ice became so great that the camp’s floor erupted and the ice carried off their kitchen. The next day, April 9. the ice again surged in. destroying a hut and the castaways’ only remaining boat. The ice also damaged the laboriously prepared aerodrome to such an extent that the castaw’ays despaired of the possibility of rescue. Nevertheless, in response to orders from Aloscow, Soviet airmen again and again flew from the base camp at Yankaren. They had to circle round and round the camp before they could find even 400 yards of comparatively flat surface amid the broken ice. Then, with time pressing, they had to crowd as many castaways as possible into the small planes. Molokiv, one of the airmen heroes, flving a plane which normally w’ould carry two, crow’ded three into the cabin and strapped three more to the plane’s lower wings. He made four journeys of an hour each in one day. Captain Schmidt at first refused to leave before his colleagues, but became so enfeebled by pneumonia that he was forced into a plane and flown to hospital.