Evening Star Newspaper, April 6, 1933, Page 5

AKRON SURVIVORS VIST ROOSEVELT Three Men Describe Dirigible Crash—Doubt Cause Will Be Determined. Recelved by their commander in chief as only heroes are, Lieut. Comdr. H. V. Wiley and two bruised and scarred en- listed men who survived the Akron dis- aster told President Roosevelt today they doubted whether the actual cause of the crash of the great airship ever would be known. After shaking hands with the Presi- dent, who sald, “I'm thankful you're here,” each of the grim-faced survivors gave a laconic, gripping account of their individual experiences that fatal night off Barnegat Light. All joined in declaring that none is more anxious to learn the whole truth regerding the catastrophe which cost the lives of 73 men than the Navy it- self. Because of the suddenness of the tragedy and the difficulty in salvaging remains of the giant airship, however, {they felt it would be extremely difficult to ascertain the real cause of the a Trouble Came Quickly. ¥ Comdr. Wiley, dressed in a new blue uniform of his rank, informed the Presi- dent actual danger to the ship did not develop until about three minutes be- fore the dirigible plunged into the sea. Wiley, with Richard E. Deal and Moody E. Erwin, enlisted men, were intro- duced to Mr. Roosevelt by the latter’s cousin, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Henry Latrobe Roosevelt. The President leaned forward in his jehair and shook the hand of each vig- {orously, asking them to sit down and %tell me all about it.” ‘Wiley, speaking in slow, firm tones, id it seemed that Providence had n “miraculously kind” to him. He scribed how he went down in the control car until the sea poured throi window; how he was swept out the swindow and came up bobbing on a h, fog-blanketed sea, and how, finally, the German tanker Phoebus cued him, Praises German Skipper. « Wiley paid high tribute to the skip- per of the German ship, declaring Capt. Dalldorf handled the situation “with perfect seamanship.” President Roose- (velt turned to ~Assistant Secretary #Roosevelt and said he desired that the Navy Department should do something fitting for the captain of the tanker and his crew. He remarked that he was writing a personal letter of commenda- tion to the skipper. The President turned to Seaman Deal, ‘who was in civilian clothes and whose hand was wrapped in bandages, and congratulated the sailor who escaped from two major airship disasters—the 1oss of the Shenandoah and the Akron. Both of the enlisted men gave brief stories of their escape from the falling ship. Deal said he jumped before the doomed dirigible hit the water and Erwin said all he could remember was ing under the water and coming up He could not recall how he got out of the wreckage and remarked that he does not recall any detail of his rescue except that he remembers “coming to” on the German ship with half a dozen men working over him. Urges Leave for Men. ‘The President turned to Assistant Becretary Roosevelt as the 12-minute interview was concluded and said he thought the trio deserved everything | the Navy could do for them and men- tioncd particularly that they should be given any leave they desired. The Akron survivors refused to an- swer any questions by newspaper men after they emerged from the President's office, but consented to pose for cam- era men... entering the White House, the trio themselves a center of un+ usual attention. ,Things stopped mo- searching for victims of the disaster. NG STAR, WASHINGTO Akron Survivors Arrive at Navy Department Left to right: Assistant Secretary of the Navy Henry L. Roosevelt, Secretary Claude A. Swansan, Admiral Wil- liam V. Pratt, chief of naval operations; Lieut. Comdr. Herbert B. Wiley, who was in the control car at the time of the Akron’s crash and who is Erwin. RITES FOR AKRON MEN TOMORROW Lieut. Comdrs. Cummins and MacLellan to Be Buried at Arlington. The Navy Department today an- nounced that funeral services for Lieut. Comdr. Harold E. MacLellan, a victim of the Akron crash, and Lieut. Comdr. David E. Cummins, commanding of- ficers of the Navy blimp J-3, which ‘went to search for Akron survivors, will be held tomorrow in Arlington Na- tional Cemetery. Services for Lieut. Comdr. MacLellan will be held at 1 o’clock with full mili- tary honors. Officiating will be Capt. Sydney K. Evans, chief of the Navy Chaplain Corps. Honorary pallbearers are Lieut. Comdrs. E. D. Gibb, M. L. Lewis, A. T. Moen, H. 8. Kendall, M. R. Browning and J. W. Fowler. Lieut. Comdr. Cummins will be buried at 2:15 o'clock. Lieut. 8. W. Salisbury of the Navy Chaplain Corps will officiate. Hono! pallbearers will be the same naval officers serving at the funeral of MacLellan. The Bureau of Navigation, Navy De- partment, said the widow of Lieut. Comdr. Cummins will reach Washing- ton at 12:30 p.m. tomorrow from Lake- hurst, N. J., while the mother of Lieut. Comdr. MacLellan, Mrs. Ella A. Mac- Lellan and other members of his fam- fiy will reach the Capital at 7:45 am. MacLellan's body was the only one recovered so far from the Atlantic in| the vicinity of the Akron crash, al- though airplanes and vessels are still His body was found on the sea Tues- day afternoon, about 30 miles south- east of the point where the Akron crashed. The officers will be buried on a wooded knoll overlpoked by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Cummins was a native of Prescott, Ark., where he was born in January, mentarily at the executive office as|1895. the gitl m, the clerks and ~to the main Jobby to.see the men. three survivors'gave their stories fverbally to* Secretary Swanson and ‘Admiral William V. Pratt, chief of val operations, at the Navy Depart- t yesterday. Deal and Erwin spent the night at e Naval Hospital for treatment for light injuries, while Wiley stayed at the home of a friend. It was a touching scene when the three survivors, showing traces of their ordeal, came up to the Navy Department, after a hurried flight from New York. A crowd of officers and civilians of the department was there to see them. Secretary Swanson grasped Wiley's hand and congratulated him on “being one of the survivors.of as gallant a crew ;‘5 cver constituted the personnel of the Navy " He shook hands with Erwin and Deal, and made a little speech in praise of those who “went down in discipline and courage.” ‘Then, with Assistant Secretary Roose- Welt, Admiral Pratt and others grouped around, Wiley and his companions poured out to Swanson the fragments of the story they knew. The doors were Jocked and what they said was kept for the investigatior Divorced at Reno. RENO, Nev., April 6 (#).—Dorothy Williams McPartland was divorced at Yerington yesterday from James Mc- Partland, New York -~musician, on grounds of cruelty. Mrs. McPartland is the sister of Hannah Williams Kahn, Broadway stage star, who was divorced dere Tuesday from Roger Wolff Kahn, !dapcp band leader and son of Otto Kahn, the banker. She married Mc- Partland on April 12, 1929. They have ARTHRITIS! | e | i l“E should be arrested in its earlier stages in order to avoid a life of pain and help- lessness. Learn how Nature can help you. Phone or Write Today for In- fermation, Booklets and Sam- »l Mountain Valley Water America’s Foremost Health Water From HOT SPRINGS, ARK. 1405 K N.W., Met. 1062 An Announcement of Vital Importance TO YOU! The GREATEST FORWARD STEP in the HISTORY G. W. U. TO OBSERVE PAN-AMERICAN DAY Pan-American day will be observed by George Washington University next Tuesday with a special assembly to be held at 11:30 am. in Corcoran Hall. The Minister of Panama, Dr. Ricardo J. Alfaro; the Director General of the Pan-American Union, Dr. Leo 8. Rowe, and the president of the university, Dr. Cloyd Heck Marvin, will be the speak- e TS, A Faculty Committee, headed by Prof, A. Curtis Wilgus, is in charge of the Pan-American day assembly. Other members of the committee are Provost ‘William Allen Wilbur, Prof. Elmer Louis Kayser and Prof. Warren Reed West. A group of students of the university, who are specializing in Hispanic-Amer- ican studies, have been invited by Dr. Rawe to participate in the ceremonies commemorative of Pan-American day, which will be held at the Pan-American Union on April 1 311 7th NW. presenting the report; Boatswain’s Mate R. E. Deal and Chief Machinist's Mate M. E. Eckener Analyzes Akron’s Fall Commander of Graf Zeppelin Says Dirigibles Should Reduce Spee. d When High Seas Are Encountered. BY HUGO Manager of the Zeppelin Construction Co. and commander of on its transatlantic and ECKENER, the Graf Zeppelin around-the-world trips, CHARLOTTENBURG, Germany, April 6 (N.AN.A) —The disaster to the American Navy dirigible, the Akron, has moved me more deeply than almost any event I have ever known in the history of aeronautics. I mourn the loss of all my good friends—the efficient comrades who went down with the airship. In my first contemplation of the horror, I felt as though all the plans whereunte I had conse- crated my life’s work had been flung to destruction in the frightful plunge of the Akron. Por if this good airship—and it was.a good one—couldn’t be saved by an efficient crew—and it was an efficient crew—from crashing into the sea even in an unusual gale, how could we find courage to strive for a realization of an‘oversea ger service? It must be when confronted with vertical movements of wind- gusts and thunderstorms, or we must renounce passenger air service. 1 believed through my trips in the Graf Zeppelin. which outrode the most appalling storms, I had prove weather. As 1 red that an airship can stay safe in any Does this catastrophe now prove the Disaster Analyzed. understand Comdr. Wiley's account of the disaster, the Akron was forced down when she (S ] . or a down Dr. Hugo Eckener, clination of first entered happened through the heavy rainload on her body the reports now available. ty weather. Whether this ward wind current and downward in- f the nose, is not clearly evident from But it is clearly stated that the ship could be raised to its original altitude by casting off ballast. I never expected otherwise, since a downward gust does not penetrate towards the ocean but must gradually be converted into a horizontal movement and the rainload has reached the maximum amount which can be carried dynamically. ‘Then followed a second headlong itch of the airship which could not be lted, but continued until the ship crashed into the ocean. Why couldn’t this second fall be avoided? I find one outstanding difference: In the first instance, the steering gear of the airship was evidently intact; in the second instance, it was not. Meanwhile, the side-rudder broke. While it is true the side-rudder doesn’t regulate the altitude of the airship, it is not only possible but the most prob- able thing that the broken side-rudder somehow impeded the control and the effect of the horizontal rudder. Evidently Became Headheavy. 8o the downward diving ship couldn’t regain altitude quickly enough, and struck the water. 1t is very likely that the craft got out of control and became headheavy consequent to the casting off of ballast One might ask, “Why did the side- rudder break?” 1 should say that, if such a situation occurred, one would make a point of reducing speed when the weather be- came too turbulent. In the first place, the rudders and stabilization fins would be understressed; secondly, the craft would be much less unstable than when a ship was forging ahead at full speed through a vertical gust. Even an ocean liner decreases its speed when high seas are running. 1 have been repeatedly asked whether I should renounce my future plans as a result of the Akron disaster. Once again, I say definitely, “no,” and again I repeat my expression of grief at the 3146 “M” N.W. BUTTER Creamery Rose Brand Pure »21c LEG-0-LAMB Scig Ib. lsc VEAL ROAS Shoulder Roast v 10¢ Lamb Loin Green Chops I | Pork Sausage Lamb HAMS HAMS Whole or Half 12%¢ Link Oc LARD-LAR Package Lard i Ib. 6c SPARE RIBS ws T " All-Meat Sausage FRANKS . b 10c Sliced Breakfast Bacon . . ® 12ls¢ SLICED PORK of AUTOMATIC RE F RIGERATION LIVER........Ib. 5¢ LIMBURGER CHEESE. .. .. rke. 21c FRESH GROUND BEEF . loss of my gallant comrades of the air. This is emphasized because of their un- failing hospitality to me when I needed it so greatly. (Copyright, 1933, by paper Al ince, Inc.) FROM GUARANTY TRUST J. Howard Ardrey Withdraws Voluntarily and Future Plans Are Not Known. By the Associated Press. NEW YORK, April 6.—J. Howard Ardrey resigned as vice president of Guaranty Trust Co. of New York, ef- fective April 1, it was learned today. His resignation was submitted volun- tarily, it was explained at the bank. Associates added that Ardrey had not announced his future plans. Ardrey joined the executive staff of the Guaranty in May, 1929, coincident with the merger of that bank and the National Bank of Commerce of New York. A native of Dallas, Tex., Ardrey ble to make airships safe | tes VICE PRESID.ENT RESIGNS | D. C, THURSDAY, APRIL AKRON DESTROYED (BUTLER WILL HEAD BY “VERTICAL WIND' Phenomenon Causes Thun- der Lightning and Hail Says Geographic Society. Down drafts that sucked the Akron to its doom off Barnegat Light again direct attention forcibly to the fact that ‘winds blow up and down as well as hori- zontally. It was a “vertical wind” that destroyed the dirigible Shenandoah over Ohio in 1925. “Far from being unusual, such “verti- cal winds’ lie at the heart of some of our best known weather phenomena,” according to a bulletin from the Na- tignal Geographic Society. *Every flash of lightning that you see, or that you hear as thunder, anu | every hailstone that falls is probably due to a ‘vertical wind’'” says the bulletin. “These are the results of violent upward and downward blasts. If you consider as well the gentler ris- ing and falling currents—the ‘vertical breezes’ they might be called—you must take in practically the whole fleld of weather. “Nearly every surface wind, what- ever its direction or speed, moving along to replace air that has risen. Clouds are built by rising air. On weather maps the swirling circles that denote ‘lows’ and ‘highs’ are in the final analysis the representations of upward and downward currents. Production of “High.” “Where cold air from the upper regions flows down it compresses the surface atmosphere and produces a ‘high’; where the air, because of heat, is rising, it relieves the pressure and forms a ‘low.” Most weather changes are due to the interplay of forces be- tween ‘highs’ and ‘lows,’ which bring in their train changes in wind, temper- ature and humidity. “Most spectacular of all ‘vertical winds’ is the thunder storm. As the tracer bullet marks the flight of pro- jectiles for a marksman, so the tower- ing black ‘thunder head’ marks the up- ward rush of the invisible wind. Often the violent, upsurging growth of these boiling clouds can be observed before one's eye. “Thunder clouds are generally local affairs and the wind that has rushed upward must come quickly earthward again to restore the atmospheric bal- ance. In the rear of thunder storms, therefore, strong downward currents are usually encountered. It was such an upward then downward rush of air that played an important part in the de- struction of the Shenandoah, and which likely figured in the Akron disas- = Origin of Great Charges. “Until recent years the origin of the great charges of electricity in thunder clouds baffled science. Now it is generally believed that they are caused by the upward gusts of air— that these are in truth the dynamos of the sky. “The building up of the electrical charges is supposed to be brought about by the gusts blasting raindrops to pieces, the smaller fragments carrying negative charges upward while the large droplets with positive charges re- main behind. Hostile forces are set up and when the strain becomes too great it is relieved by a lightning flash. ‘When the negatively-charged upper cloud floats away before the strain is relieved, the flash is to the earth. “‘Vertical winds’ are also credited with the production of hail, and their onion-like structure bears out the |theory. Raindrops carried upward by jthe less violent gusts, according to this North American News- | theory, are frozen in the cold upper air. they take on more moisture on the lower levels and are again carried to the freezing region. The more skyward round trips made by the pellet before it drops earthward, the Jarger the hail- stone.” CLEMENCY DENIED Frank Carson to Die Tomorrow for Rail Head Murder. FRANKFORT, Ky. April 6 (&) — Clemency was denied yesterday by Gov. Ruby Laffoon to Frank Carson, Detroit, Mich., youth under sentence to die early Friday in the electric chair at Ed- dyville prison for the murder of C. B. James of Louisville, an executive of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. Carson was convicted in February, 1931, A companion, Anthony Peterson of Detroit, is serving a life sentence. Two other men, Negroes, are to be put to death with Carson. The Governor commuted to life im- became affiliated with the Bank of extended career in the South. UseaQUARTOF MILK DAILYfor EACH MEMBER of the FAMILY to keep HEALTH UP and eating conty DOWN . b 10c prisonment the death sentence of Frank Commerce as vice president after an|Crenshaw, Louisville Negro, who also had been sentenced to die Friday. Sinking to the seething cloud, | RAILWAY RE-EMPLOYS 800 | Sedalia, Mo Shops Opened in Expectation of Business Upturn. DALLAS, Tex.,, April 6 (®.—In ex-| pectation of a business upturn, 800 men have been put back on the Tol of the Missouri-Kansas-Texns| Monarchs to Observe Easter. Railway this week in thre? shops, M.| LONDON, April 6 (#).—The King and H. Cahill, president, told stockholders | Queen left Buckingham Palace and directors at their annual meeting | for Windsor Castle for the Easter holi- | days. They Erob;bly will return during | the first week in May. DIRIGIBLE PROBE Naval Board to Open Akron Investigation Monday at Lakehurst. yesterday. Cahill said shops at Waco, Tex., (Continued From Pirst Page.) craft faciory at the Philadelphia, Pa., Navy Yard. Serving with Admiral Butler and Comdr. Kraus on the board will be Capt. Harfy E. Shoemaker, command- ing the Naval Air Station, Sunnyvale, Calif. Representing the office of the judge advocate general on the board will be Lieut. Comdr. Ralph G. Pen- noyer, who is on duty in that office at the Navy Department. He served in a similar capacity at the investiga- tion into the crash of the Shenandoah. Admiral Butler is one of the leaders in_aviation among high-ranking naval officers, and while he was a captain qualified as a naval aviation observer. He has been commandant of the Wash- ington Navy Yard since April 15, 1931, WIDE POWERS FOR PROBERS. welcomes the new deal! Court of Inquiry Will Begin Search for Facts Monday. LAKEHURST, N. J., April 6 (#).— Broad powers of a general court-martial will be in the hands of the Court of | Inquiry which begins Monday a search | for the facts concerning the crash at sea early Tuesday of the Navy dirigi- ble Akron with the loss of 73 lives. The court, with its three members acting both as judge and jury, can subpoena witnesses, and those who tes- | tify before it do so under oath. In that respect, it differs from a board of in-! vestigation, which may or may not re- quire its witnesses to testify under oath. The three survivors of the Akron dis- aster—Lieut. Comdr. Herbert V. Wiley, and enlisted men, Richard E. Deal and | Moody E. Erwin—will be called as wit- | nesses by the court. If there is evi-, dence tending to incriminate them, the | court will notify them they are in the role of defendants. Members of Court Named. From an authoritative source here it was learned Lieut. Comdr. Wiley may request at the outset that he be desig- nated a defendant. He has that priv- ilege, and by such nominal designation he would be able to sit in at all ses- sions of the court. . After the evidence is completed, the court will deliberate in the same man- ner as a civil jury and then will make its decision. That decision may be ac- companied by recommendations and di- rections for action. . It is considered likely the inquiry will be a lengthy one. Whether it will be public will be decided by the president of ihe court. The court may direct that any data which it considers helpful in its investi- gation be produced, and it is probable charts, maps, weather charts, perhaps a diagram of the ill-fated Akron, or even a model of the fallen sky queen, will be “props” in the inquiry. FISKE SEES SABOTAGE| IN AKRON DISASTER Retired Rear Admiral Blames “Meddling of Vicious Nature” for Catastrophe. of ":w"mmd::-fi'dm“n You will fim and prices to meet your requivements. 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