LEAF TO DEATH

Wairarapa Daily Times, 23 February 1935, Page 5

LEAF TO DEATH

THE AEROPLANE TRAGEDY AN UNLUCKY AVIATOR. Press Association Electric Telegraph—Copyright LONDON, Friday. The “Daily Express” states that the police opened two letters which the Du Bois girls left in the aeroplane. Each was of two pages. One was addressed to the father and the other to the mother. The first letter included the following:—“We heard about the Messina crash in Paris. It is terrible about Charlie.”

This reference is to Flying Officer John Charles Forbes.

The “Daily Express” adds that the girls have always been inseparable. They went to a revue on Wednesday evening and returned in better spirits, as the maid had found them in tears when she took in breakfast in the morning. Pilot Kirton regards himself as the unluckiest aviator in Britain, as he was piloting the Hillman airliner . when the gold was dropped, and yet in neither ease was he blameworthy. He says that one of the girls complained of the draught, and asked him to close the door between the pilot’s cockpit and cabin, and also cover up the windows let into the connecting door. “I could: not understand,” said Mr Kirton, “why I was asked to cover the windows, but I was not suspicious. _ The girls must have jumped as I climbed through the bumps as if it had happened in calmer air I would probably have felt the loss of weight on the controls. ” The only air tragedy comparable with that of the two girls is the death of Baron Lowenstein when crossing the Channel in his private aeroplane some years ago. The “Daily Mail” says that one of the last acts of the Du Bois sisters was to go out in a London taxicab and distribute money to unemployed outside a labour exchange. An unemployed clerk says: —“The elder had a bag of silver and gave us each two half-crowns, saying: ‘This is from Lieutenant Forbes.’ None of us understood * what she meant. ’ ’

The sisters kept their presence m London secret from the American Consulate, although they were friendly with officers there.

It is belieevd that the girls determined to die on English soil owing to their admiration for Flight-Lieutenant Beatty and Flying Officer Forbes. Mr Franklin Go-wer, American Consul in London, identified the bodies of the girls. He said they were _ little mutilated, and the features were intact, They were typical bachelor girls, widely travelled and interested in life. They had scores of friends in London, Paris, Rome and elsewhere. They were interested in flying and mixed in American life in London on previous visits, but met nobody connected with American activities on this visit. At Naples the girls often danced with Flight Lieutenant Beatty and Flying Officer Forbes. When teased about an engagement they laughed and said: “We are too happy to get married.” It is understood that they had arranged to meet the officers in London after their flight.'

The sisters were the only children of Mr and Mrs Coert du Bois.. Mr du Bois, who served as a major in the American Engineers in France, entered the Consular Service in 1919, and was stationed in a number of European and other cities before being appointed to Naples in 1931. The home of the family is at San Francisco.