Evening Star Newspaper, October 20, 1935, Page 59

T HE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTO) OCTOBER 20, 1935—PART FOUR. - 'THEY EMERGED VICTORS IN BATTLES WITH DISASTER Bolling Field’s Transfer to Jurisdiction of Navy Recalls Daring Deeds 1 hich Earned Distin- | guished Flying Cross for Army Men—Fire, |, Fall and Death by Drowning Menace One Air | = Man in Dramatic Escape. SR EAr e bE At left: Corp. Garland, as the 'chute balloons out above bing of the parachute. By this time | my arm was paining me terribly and death to hundreds of people through 20 o confrol o 1k Whasever. S conflagration. Should it strike a | wor'{:;n wd:m;mm:‘m ::b:g' h::g HAT shades of heroic deeds | dwelling the wind would carry the | qrooneq down, but each time I was by the personnel of the | embers possibly through the tinder | 4 By John Frazier. | | him. Above: “To let that flaming pyre race downward to the town below might have meant death to hundreds of people.” Upper left: The Distinguished Flying Cross. In the oval: Lieut. Frederick I. Anderson, decorated for \/ V Army Air Corps pass with Bolling Field from the Army to the Navy! Deeds that have no superiors #nd few equals in all the annals of | eviation—Cousland, Gray., Ent, An-|the smoke, the fumes, suffocating. In | any moment an explosion may occur. | derson—and a host of others—deeds that have won for their performers the Distinguished Flying Cross — | highest award of the Air Corps to its heroes. Listen to this! | First Lieut. Cornelius Cousland, one of the finest tri-motor pilots in the gervice, official pilot of Government notables, is flying over Gatun Lake, | Panama. His motors are working perfectly. Back of him and his co- | pilot in the 12-seater plane are eight | passengers. They are enjoying every | minute of their cloudland ride—the | sparkling sunlight, the racing breeze, | the undulating greenery beneath the | ezure sky. And then! A terrible, rendering, | screeching sound, a terrific crash and | all is still. Cheeks blanch, voices 5top, eyes search each other to fathom Death. Death has already struck. One of the three motors of the plane | has broken its moorings. been hurt]ed} into the on-sweeping plane. In the| cockpit by the side of Cousland, his| co-pilot has been crushed to death. | His body has fallen across that of | Cousland. The happy journey DLas been translated in a second into tragedy. One man is dead but what about Cousland and his passengers? Death stares in their faces; he stalks by their gide. The crippled plane must down; it is careening crazily. But down where? Not into that lake studded | with tree stumps. Not into that green jungle bordering its side, where no an would ever come out alive. But must down. Cousland looks back. His eight passengers are quiet. They ere looking to him to save them from & terrible holocaust or a stifling| watery grave. And Cousland rises to | the occasion. He sweeps from his lap his bleeding companion. He swings | ontp his controls with all his might. He rights his plane as best as it can be righted and descends to the lake. He has done superbly. Near the shore, between the dead tree stumps he brings it down without the loss of a single . life or great damage to his ship. His reward—the Distinguished Flying Cross. FOUR Army flyers who long have flown at Bolling are flying V- formation above Crissey Field, Calif. They are executing a war maneuver. On the ground below, fellow officers are waiting to take off; superior of- cers watching the tactics of the dar- ing war birds. In the twinkling of a second that peaceful scene is turned into fiery bedlam. As the ground watchers look smoke is seen to burst from one of the planes, then comes to their ears the sound of metallic rendering. The engine of one of the planes has disintegrated! The plane is on fire. The flames are sweeping back with demon fury over the fuselage of the proud eagle. In a moment the whole mass, carrying the pilot, Lieut. Frederick Anderson and his mechanic, Sergt. Duncan Mac- Vean, will plummet, like a flaming meteor, to the earth. All that will be left will be a twisted mass of steel and gadgets; a few charred bones. But Death reckoned not with Lieut. Anderson. His mind racing like a whirlwind he orders Sergt. MacVean to “bail out.” MacVean needs no sec- ond order. Over the side he goes, his parachute billowing in the wind as the plane races earthward. Anderson follows suit. Over the edge of his cockpit he swings his leg. He's let- ting loose his grip on the burning plane as it swirls downward when he notices that it is over the suburbs of the city. To let that flaming pyre race downward to earth is to invite 4 the passing of control of | boxes of houses below. “Nope.” cried Lieut. Anderson, “can’t do that.” So he fights his way back into the fall- ing plane. Flames are now Sweeping around him; the heat is unbearable; And all the time earth is rushing up to him with terrifying speed. He gains the controls. He fights fran- | tically to right his plane. He suc- ceeds. the bay. And outward he heads the nose of the sky firebrand to the ocean. Like a flaming comet that plane roared into the bay, struck the water, sizzled and then went out. Anderson struck the water on his back and then to his horror discovered that his bil- lowing ’chute was carrying him to a watery grave as the wind swept it along over the sea. Still, however, he was destined to be saved. The United States fleet lay at anchor in the bay and as thousands of officers and men witnessed the drama before their eyes | a sailor, with a knife between his teeth, dived overboard, caught the | parachute rigging in one hand, swung | onto it, and cut the drowning man | loose. A few minutes later he was aboard ship being treated for shock and exposure—none the worse for his | harrowing experience. For his han- dling of the situation, Anderson re- ceived the Cross., THE duties of Master Sergt. Ralph W. Bottriell of the corps call for | the testing of chutes. For over 20 years Bottriell has been going up in the air and jumping. Each year he has gone a little higher. Breaking parachute jump records is nothing to him. But “one of these jumps,” he says, “I shall never forget.” Inci- dentally it brought him the Dis- tinguished Flying Cross. Here is the story in his own words: “I was after beating the existing parachute jump at the time—18,000 feet. At 19,500 feet I told the pilot I was going to leave the plane. It had reached its ceiling. At this the pilot turned his rudder slightly and nosed his plane into the air. In the meantime I had thrown off moccasins and fur-lined coat and had signalled to him I was leaving the pit when some part of my parachute harness Distinguished Flying | | must have caught on the gun turret, pulling the rip cord of my pack and ripping the parachute. The para- chute was thus released. “Going 60 miles an hour at the time the wind caught the 'chute and I was jerked from the cockpit and whipped through the rudder of the ship. The pull was so terrific that my impact with the rudder caused it to give way entirely and break my guy cords. I am sure that if the rudder had not given way my arm would have been torn off. The force cf the ndrm blow, however, must have ren- lered me unconscious as I drop about 5,000 feet before I ren.u;’:g my senses and realized what had happened. “I looked for the plane but could not see it anywhere. Then I noticed that one panel of the parachute had And there, in the distance lies | able to lift it up again and fasten it above my head, realizing that this was the only way I might hope to stop | the flow of blood. At that time the wind was carrying me farther and farther away from the field and at last I noted that I was within 500 feet of the ground. With the wind the parachute, I knew my landing would be harder than usual. T, there- fore, pulled the jerk cord of my emergency parachute, which checked my drop and I alighted in a field. “I was completely exhausted upon landing. It developed that the rudder had torn into the fleshy part of the arm on the front side, just below the shoulder and ripped deep into the flesh. It had not merely lacerated the | that encase the muscles. “I had been coming down 22 min- utes during this ordeal and had drifted 3 miles.” : "TH’IS damned thing has gone nuts!” With these words Maj. William Kepner of the Air Corps, Capt. Albert W. Stevens and Capt. Orvil Anderson, laid the foundation heroism in the air. Upper right: Three noted flyers, left to right: Capt. Albert W. Stevens, Maj. William E. Kep- ner, Capt. Orville A. Anderson. Lower right: Basket of the balloon used by Capt. Gray on his fatal high-altitude flight. | rushing through the rent panel of |of their recipiency of the Dis- | tinguished Flying Cross. It was dur- 1ing the memorable flight into the | stratosphere of these three intrepid | airmen something over a year ago. | Their huge metal sphere or gondola, | filled with every conceivable gadget | for collecting data about the unknown ether miles above the earth, was hurtled earthward when the lifting bag which had carried them some 15,000 feet above terra firma collapsed. | flesh but had torn the five membranes | In it, as they fell this trio did some gondola were open at the time—height about 10.000 feet. Through this An- derson was thrown as the ball lurched to one side. Kepner and Stevens clung on for a few more minutes, hoping desperately that things might work around to where they could save their instruments. many of them costly and rare, from ground destruction. But at 5,000 feet | they were compelled to give up the battle, the most spectacular ever waged in the Heavens. Clinging like fast thinking, some faster action and | midgets to a rope suspended from the short talking. “The nuts” remark came over the | possessions. | sky they fought to save their intrusted But to no avail. Re- radio just as the occupants decided to | iuctantly they “bailed out” and came abandon ship after concluding it was | to earth safely. impossible to save their ship. It One of the great questions debated meant certain death for them to stay | in air circles is—Does lightning ever with the great metal ball, falling | strike a plane or balloon? There have like a leaden weight straight down to | been times when evidence to this effect the ground. The port holes of the seemed irrefutable. But many declare < | — | that such 1s not the case. But Lieut. |Ent of the Air Corps tells of this | personal incident—one of the rarest |in aviation history, and one of the | most unusual. In the balloon at the same time was Lieut. Paul Evart, pilot. Evart was killed. Here is the | story. | The balloon had taken off and was et an altitude of about 2,000 feet| when a thunder shower became ap- parent. The occupants fastened on| their parachutes and otherwise pre- pared for an emergency. The storm overtook them; the clouds grew dense; hail and lightning flashed around them. The balloonists were | forced to drop to 1.000 feet altitude. | Here the drag rope to the balloon be- came entangled around a telegraph pole tying down the bag. Some ob- servers standing by for the flight re- leased it. Ascending again a few thousand feet Lieut. Ent was startled | by a loud explosion. Evart lay col-| |Iapsed with the crash. | | “My left leg and right arm were | paralyzed temporarily by the shock,” says Lieut. Ent. “I got to my feet but | | was aware that the balloon was on| | fire at the top from the smoke and | | the commotion on the ground. Efforts to revive Evart were ineffective, but, feeling his pulse, I thought he was| alive. My first thought was to throw him over the side and trip the para- chute, but considered this not prac- Nearly Every Known Variety of Small Spans in Park. EW Washingtonians realize what an interesting, wide variety of small bridges are to be found in Rock Creek Park. Scattered throughout the park are examples of nearly every known kind of small bridge. These have no uniformity of architectural treatment, they are as varied as the seasons, and in the mat- ter of age, too, they cover a broad range, stretching from Civil War days to the present. Many of the smaller bridges are quaint but charming affairs; and the observer has the feeling that he could use one of them in his garden. The only way to see the bridges crossing a stream is to get off the road and walk the footpaths. The hiker can thus get the “best angle” on any bridge in the park and study it to his heart’s content. If he is a camera fan he will discover mary shots worth taking. Boulder Bridge is one of the hand- somest. It is a single span, filled con= crete arch, its walls faced with large boulders. The setting is rugged and the bridge and site harmonize com- pletely. As the site is unusually free of vegetation, this bridge is one of the easiest to photograph. Pebble Bridge is a filled-arch span with a stucco finish over the entire face and wing walls. The architec- tural treatment is unusual and pleas- been ripped its entire length by its ing contact with the rudder. I next noticed a numbness in my left arm and when I tried to raise my hand I was unable to move it or to work my fingers. The arm was hanging back of me so I reached around to see what had happened. I discovered that my arm was entirely useless and thought at once I had merely broken it until I found that blood was streaming from my hand and that my sleeve was saturated with it. With my right hand I then pulled my left one around in front and saw that the flow of blood was strong. I knew that if I continued to bleed at that rate un I landed I would probably death. Lifting my arm fore, I fastened the hand The Piney Branch Bridge is a filled arch with walls of fleld stone. The architectural treatment is conven- tional. As far as appearances go this bridge might have been built two cen- turies ago. ‘The Riley Springs Bridge is a three- span concrete girder on field stone plers and abutments. It is an ex- tremely good-looking bridge and a 804 example of the newer spans. Poot bridges have an appeal that is all their own. Given the choice of waiking straight ahead or crossing a foot bridge about two out of three hikers will cross. It seems as if we Just have to see what is on the other side. The park is alive with foot » trusses, humpbacks, hiker can weave back and forth across the creek almost at will. Many of rying off inside a camera. The three-hinged concrete arch bridge on Ross drive is of interest from an engineering viewpoint. This type of ‘construction is not commonly used for concrete-arch bridges in this country. The advantages are mainly structural, the disadvantages being that it is difficult to devise an archi- tectural treatment which will ef- fectively conceal the unsightly hinges. Generally they are left in plain sight, as in the Ross Drive Bridge, with a consequent loss of beauty in the structure. Other bridges possessing engin [ etc) and the, these quaint structures are worth car-’ Ever Try Bridge Hunting in Rock Creek? Rustic footbridge in Rock Creek Park, just above the Boulder Bridge. continuous girder spans with posts and railings. They are extremely good looking and appropriate struc- tures, and show great care in their design and construction. ‘The timber truss bridges are of in- terest, chiefly in showing what can be done toward making this usually unsightly type of bridge presentable. There are a number of these bridges in the park, and they appear to have been made as pleasing, to the eye as possible with this type of construc- ‘tion. ] The only really unsightly bridges in the park are the steel military truss spans, such as the Sherill Drive military bridge. They will all, doubt- less, sooner or later, be incased in concrete and will become as pre- ing interest are the recently bullt | sentable as any of their brethren. > Autumn Foliage Offers Set- tings of Unusual Beauty. There is one foot bridge of interest to both the layman and the engineer. | It is a steel structure on cast iron columns. Its design involves methods and details that have been obsolete since the days of the Civil War. The expenditure of considerable time and study on the design and erection of small bridges such as those in Rock Creek Park may seem to some to be unwarranted. Such is not the case. When an eyesore in enduring masonry fis erected in a‘ public recreation area, it is a plague not only to the present generation, but to countless generations to come. ‘The question arises, What is the life of a masonry arch bridge? The Romans were great bridge builders. They built arch bridges as early as 300 BC. Some of these ancient bridges are still in service. For ex- ample: The Ponte Quattro Capi, in Rome, known in ancient times as the Bridge of Fabricius, was built in 62 B.C., and is now in use practically intact as originally constructed. ‘The Ponte Sli Augusto, in Rimini, Italy, was built by the Emperor Au- gustus in 14 AD. and is still in use. The Ponte St. Angelo, in Rome, known to Romans as the Pons Aelius, was built by the Emperor Hadrian in 13¢ AD. The bridge is now in use and contains five arches, which were part of the original structure. Modern bridges are far more en- during than similar bridges built in ancient times. With this in mind, one man’s guess is as good as another’s when it comes to estimating the life of a masonry bridge. A doctor or a lawyer may bury or forget mistakes, but when an engineer is guilty of erecting some monstrosity, it is always in plain sight and outlives him for a long, long time. Autumn is the best time of the year for hiking and the park is then in full glory. Get out the camera and spend an occasional day bridge hunting in the park. You may get lost, the particular bridge you seek may have mysteriously moved away, but you will have a good time and bring back & real appetite for dinner. A tical owing to the type of the para- chute. I cecided to jump, but after getting on the side of the basket, changed my mind. The balloon was falling at the rate of about 200 feet per minute, but accelerating. It was not possible to valve, due to the dan- ger of an explosion. The maximum rate of fall was about 700 feet per minute. To check this, avoid landing near some village, and to try to land in some small creek. all available ballast was thrown. The balance of the gas burned at about 15 feet. The | basket landed on the bank of a stream with little jar. The burning bag fell away from the basket. With the aid of bystanders Lieut. Evart's body was removed. Artificial respira- tion was tried. He was pronounced dead. Electrical shock was given as the cause of his death. In my opinion lightning did not strike the balloon. ‘What I think happened was this: A heavy charge of static was responsible for his death and the subsequent fire, and this charge may have been gen- erated around the valve by escaping gas.” For his intrepid work Lieut. Ent received the Distinguished Flying Cross. TH! presentatiop of the Dis- tinguished Flying Cross does not | always involve heroism. There are airmen living, notably Orville Wright, and airmen deceased, notably his brother Wilbur, who have received it. It may be given for services rendered the cause of aviation as well as for outstanding valor in a time of crisis. One of the foremost heroes of the country to receive the Cross after death was Capt. Hawthorne Gray. Gray was a balloonist and lost his life while attempting an_altitude record in an open balloon basket. His oxygen supply either gave out or failed him, His body was found dead in the basket when it drifted to earth. One of the most heroic stunts which brought to the performer of it the Flying Cross was that of Sergt. Frank D. Nefl in connection with the Army Airship TC-71. The TC-71. during & midnight ‘storm in December, broke loose from her moorings. Sergt. Neff succeeded in starting one of her motors but was unable to start the other from within the car. Realizing that the ship was in grave danger of being wrecked by not being properly under control, he discarded his para- chute. climbed out of the car onto the unprotected outrigger of the tossing, plunging dirigible. Here, clinging in the darkness and feeling his way, he managed to hand crank the other motor of the dirigible. The action no doubt saved his own life and that of the rest of the crew within. It made possible the maneuvering of the dirigible and bringing it under control in the storm. War and Censors tCmtixl\jed From First Page.) morning, the lights of Vera Cruz were tuiwed on full force, and the skir- mishing took place under flood lights | | bright as a stage setting. Before the fore he went over the side of the ship, Kirke Simoson had a view of the proceedings from the bridge—and he says it was like having a front seat in a moticn picture theater. It was while on the bridge, inci- dentally, that Simpson got news of the contemplated attack—wig-wagged from the admiral's flagship. With this under his hat, he proceeded in the wake of the firing soldiers to a telegraph office, shot at from all sides by the Mexicans, and let the outside world know there was a bit of a fight in Vera Cruz. Jack Lcndon was down there in that | melee—and Fred Palmer, Burge Mc- Fall, the Associated Press correspond- ton with the Government, came down world of experience as & war corre- spondent. So, too, Norman Draper, who afterward saw service with the British Army, as a war correspondent. AL!.. the living members of that ex- for the party for Steve Bonsal on Thursday—Herbert Corey, who was with the the Washington correspondent of the Nation; Oswalde Schuette, with the German Armies under Hindenburg; Paul Wooton, who followed the for- tunes of the Mexican insurrectos; Raymond Brandt, with the Russians in Russia; Constanine Brown, an old habitue of Constantinople, and fel- lows whose names are intimately as- sociated with press dispatches from all corners of the world. ‘With the campaign in Ethiopia as s starting point they went back to —but the best yarn spun was that told about “Larry” spondent for the Associated Press. Larry it was who figured in one of the most romantic episodes of the 1923 civil wars of China. war lord of all Manchuria, were fight- ing for the possession of Peking. Gen, Feng, the so-called Christian general, allied himself with Wu. They fought back and forth for years all over China and Larry Lehrbas recorded the operations—until, as he says, dis- patches got 50 numerous he filed only the major operations. It had to be & front page story or no go. It was on May 6, 1023, that Larry started overland to make a final op- 2 blue jackets went into action, and be- | ent at Mexico City, now in Washing- | the hill to see the fun—and had a | pedition, and others, turned out | American Expeditionary | Forces; Raymond Gram Swing, now | their days of glory on the battlefields | Lehrbas—Lloyd | Lehrbas, State Department corre- | At that time Gen. Wu Pei-fu, sol- | dier and poet, and Chang Tso-lin, the eration. He boarded the ecelebrated Blue Express, one of the crack trains | of China. At 2 o'clock in the morne |ing the train was derailed by 2.000 Shantung bandits. They shot the windows out of the train, stole every- thing they could get their hands on | and lined up the passengers along the | track—25 foreigners and 100 Chinese. First off the bat the bandits killed iln Englishman. Then they started marching their prisoners to a Chinese }t-emp]r—12 miles away—on top of | the mountain Pao-Tsukou. | About dawn, with the women drop- | ping back and the Chinese letting them lie where they fell, Larry saw | over the hilltop a line of bandits | shooting at what he supposed to be innocent victims. For a moment, then, the guard ree laxed his hold on Larry's shoulder. He made a dash for it and masaged to hide behind some Chine grave mounds. They shot at him and missed. Then, giving him up, they proceeded to tha | mountain top. | ITH the bandits on their way, Larry Lehrbas went back to the scene of the wreck. 1n Chinese cars the officials place the name of each occupant over the berths. Larry copied down all the names of the Americans to file for American reader consumption. Then, just as he was stepping from the abandoned train, nis eyes fell on a letter lying across the slanted floor. It was a letter from John D. Rockefeller, jr., to Lucy Aldrich, daughter of the late Senator Aldrich, and sister-in-law of John D. Rockefeller's daughter, Lucy Aldrich’s brother, Winthrop Alde rich, had married Rocke~:!er's daughe ter. On a mad dash across country, Lare ry Lehrbas finally got a rescue party headed by John K. Davis, American consul at Nanking—and they saved the lives of the Americans. When they got to the main body, however, the women were missing—and a lucky forage found Lucy Aldrich in the cow~ pen of a little Chinese hut, almost dead from exhaustion. ‘This is the kind of action the war correspondents get—and they say little about it, except on those rare occa- sions when they get together. Now, over on the ther side, the boys are getting ready for more experiences, They are experienced men in hane dling news stories, as proved by James A. Mills of the Associated Press, who broke the story about the Standard Oil concessions in Ethiopia—a sensa- tional story that beat the world. Most of the men covering the hap- penings abroad these days served their apprenticeship in Washington—the training ground for so many good correspendents.