Imperial Valley press., 1919-10-27
FLYERS
MURDERED,
bRA7T0N' s
REP0RT

Governor Esteban Cantu, under
whose jurisdiction the murders
were committed, let it be known
this afternoon that every effort
will be made TO apprehend the
murderers and bring them to
trial. The trial will probably take
place in Ensenada, although it
may be at MeXical.
SAN DIEGO, Oct. 27-Bringing the
bodies of Lieutenants Cecil II. Con-
nelly, of San Diego, and Frederick B.
Waterhouse, of Weiser, Idaho, army
aviators who We're killed in Lower
California, where thew had flown,
after losing their way from Yuma to
San Diego, on August 21, the United
States torepdo boat destroyer Aaron
Ward arrived here at noon yesterday.
The Ward also brought the word,
given out officially, that the young
airmen were brutally murdered by two
Mexican fishermen from q Mexican
sloop; that the identity of these men
is nown by both the United States
and Mexican governments, and that
steps are being taken to capture them
and bring them to trial
Notes were also brought of the pitt
full story of the sufferings endured by
the young aviators, that story having
been scrawled at least in part on the
wings and fuselage of the De Havi-
land airplane in which Connolly and
tragic nature that Maj r. S. Brat
ton, head of the United States mill
tary party that went for the bodies,
asked that the newspaper reporters
refrain from using them, out of con-
sideration for the officers families
Maj. Bratton said that the two avia-
.ors had gone nineteen days without
food, or at least without much to sus-
tain them.
The unkind fate that drew them far
from their air path remained with
them until the very last. Maj. Theo-
dore Macaulay, in one of his flights to
find them, flew within sixty miles of
the spot where they stood guarding
their plane Later, on the afternoon
of September 6, they were landed
Waterhouse made their last flight.
Some of these messages, evidently
written when the aviators had almost
lost hope of being found, We're of such
from canoe on the shores of Bahia
las Animas, on the Gulf of California,
by the same fishermen who are accus-
ed of having killed them five days
later, and at that time were only
twelve miles from Los Flores silver
mine. where they might have got pro-
lection and food.
Messages In Fuselage
One of their messages, scratched on
the airplane fuselage. with knife on
nail, gave details of how the aviators
lost their way. This, veritable mes
sage from the grave, said that the
airmen remained in the air four hours
md five minutes; that they ran into
rainstorm and lost their sense OF
direction. When they sighted the
gulf of California, they thought they
We're flying up the coast, instead OF
southwark along the east coast of the
gulf of California,
=, Another message, traced on the
wings and fuselage, told how the air
men attempted vainly for two days
to catch fish to appease their hunger.
THEY then started walking northward
toward the border, but returned to
their airplane in 36 hours, when their
supply of water became exhausted.
The airmen drank the water from the
radiator of the airplanc. This prov
ed sufficient to allay their thirst up
to the time they We're taken to Bahia
Las Auims. from Guadeloupe bay
where the plane landed, by the fisher