Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1919-06-03
The Drop to the Sea.


as smooth and quiet as a lawn, and
nowhere was hint Of roughness. But
as they drew nearer they saw that
there was a heavy sea. They had al
ready learned that a strong wind was
blowing, but when they got near
enough to the sea to realize that 1t was
dangerously high they were too near
to stop the drop and they landed upon
the water. Then their real trouble be-
gan.
I'VE came down all right" said
Lieutenant Lavender, "but the mo-
ment we struck the water we began to
get a shaking up that we will always
remember. We had thought that aft
er a. bit we could take the air again.
and follow a straight course to Ponta
Delgada. But the sea was so rough
that we could not rise from 1t. We got
our exact position, and then tried to
obtain sufficient speed to get up, but
failed. So we drifted."
He said that the seaplane landed In
the water at 11.30 Saturday morning,
local time, and remained there until
$50 Monday evening, about forty-hve
hours Two hours after striking the
sea one Of the two pontoons was
broken of and for few minutes the
position was extremely perilous. There
was a list, and something had to be
done at.once to keep the other pom
toon from getting under water. If this
happened their shrift, they knew,
would not be more than thirty min
utes.
The wind was bowling along at 10
miles an hour at least and the cross
seas were always looming up far above
them. The plane was drifting tale
first at a rapid rate. When the accl-
dent occurred, one Of the men crept
out on the broken part and lay nat
upon it to adjust the balance. No ore
knew what caused the pontoon to give
way. but all knew that II the other
also failed then they would be drown
ed. But it held until they were with
in 800 feet of the harbor of Ponsa DEL
gada. When the man on the broken
part had lain for time in welter or
wind and water, rising with the waves
to great heights and falling with them
into great caverns, another would re
,ieve him. and so the watches were ar
ranged.
"There was room enough IN the
plane for three Of them to stretch out
while the other kept huddled up ana
later he would stretch. There was no
thought of sleep even If such repose
were possible with the craft knocking
about like cork.
Blames Weather Reports.
1--WE were not so uncomfortable as
one might think" said Lieutenant
Lavender. For clothing we had the
standard aviators suits, with high
sheepskin lined overboots. When we
started on the voyage on the 17th we
found that we couldn't rise with a full
crew and full equipment, and we re-
moved about 800 pounds Of stuff which
included all the spares and also the
emergency radio transmitter. The next
day we were sixty miles south of Pico
Island, one of the Azores group. Ii
was then we fell into trouble because
of the inaccurate weather reports.
"Our food last,S all right until near
the end of our journey, although OF
course we did not know that we were
nearing the end. For time we mad
meat and jam sandwiches and>when
these were used up we tackled the
standard emergency rations OF the
navy This consists of special bus
cult, made of flour and beef extract.
1t does not taste quite as bad as one
would think, and we were all glad OF
that. To tighten the load we had taken
off our drinking water and so were