The Knoxville independent. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1894-current, 1919-05-31
HAWK||ER| TELLS
STORY OF FLIGHT
Flew $4,000 Feet Over Sea;
Forced Down Twelve
Hours Out.
TROUBLE SOON AFTER START
Sighted the Danish Tramp Ship Mary
and Came Down in Her Course
Navigator Grieve Tells
His Story.

Edinburgh, May %. = Harry g.
Hawker and Lieut.. Commander Mac
kenzie Grieve, who were rescued by
the Danish ship, Mary after the air
plane in which they were attempting
TO cross the Atlantic had alighted in.
mldocean, arrived here on their way
to London from Thurso, where they
were landed by d British warship,
They were seized as they left taeI
train and fitted to The shoulders of Y
crowd, which bore them into "a hotel,
where they had breakfast. They were
heartily cheered when their train left
the station at ten o'clock.
& London, May 2S. "We had very DIFF.
ficuft ground to rise from on the other
side, To get In the air at all we had
to run diagonally across the course
said Hawker in describing his disas-
ter.
Once we got away we climbed very
well, but when about ten minutes up
we passed from fair, clear weather
into the fog off the Newfoundland
banks. We got well over this, how
over, and, Of course, at once lost sight
of the seas. The sky was quite clear
for the first four hours, when the Wis
Utility became very bad. Heavy cloud
banks were encountered and eventual
ly we flew into a heavy storm with
rain squalls. At this time we We're
flying well above the clouds at a
height OF about $4,000 feet.
Trouble rive Hours Out,
'An0lif d sG AMI iistlf hours 0Hs
owing to the choking of the filter, the
temperature of the water cooling our
engines started to rise, but after com"
ing down several thousand feet we
overcame this difficulty. Everything
went well for another few hours,
when once again the circulation sys-
TEN became choked and the tempera-
ture of the water rose to the boiling
point. We of course realized that I'M
til the pipe was cleared we could not
rise much higher without using lot
of motor power.
"When we were about twelve and a
half hours on our way the circulation
system was still giving us trouble and
we realized we could not go on using
up our motor power.
Change Course.
"Then it was that we reached the
fateful decision to play for safety.
We changed course and began to fly
diagonally across the main shipping
route Cor about two and a half hours
when, to our great relief, we sighted
the Danish steamship, which proved
to be the tramp Mary.
eve at once sent up our very light
distress signals. These were an
swered promptly and then we flew on
about two miles and landed in the
water ahead of the steamship.
Sea Very Rough.
1.-THE sea was exceedingly rough
and, despite the utmost efforts of the
Danish crew, 1t was one and one-half
hours before they succeeded in taking
us off. 1t was only at much risk to
themselves, In fact, that they eventu-
ally succeeded in launching small
boat owing to the heavy gale from the
northeast which was raging.
ut was found impossible to salvage
the machine, which, however, is most
probably still afloat somewhere in
mid-Atlantic.
Altogether, before being picked up,
we had been fourteen and half hours
out from Newfoundland We were
picked up at 8 80 a. m. on Monday,
Greenwich time.
From Captain Duhn of the Mary
and his Danish crew we received the
greatest kindness on our journey
home. The ship carried no wireless
and 1t was not until we arrived off the
Butt of Lewis that we were able to
communicate with the authorities.
"Off Loeb Eribol we were met by
the destroyer Woolston and conveyed
to Scapa Flow, where we had a splen-
did welcome home from Admiral Free
mantle and the men Of the grand
fleet"
What Grieve Said.
when a few hundred miles out
strong northerly gale drove us stead
lily out of our course" Navigator
Grieve said, ut was not always pos
sible, owing to the pressure of the
dense masses of Clouds to take our
bearings, and calculate that at the
time we determined to cut across the
shipping route we were about 200
miles out of our course. Up to this
change Of direction we had covered
about 1000 miles of the journey to the
irish coast"