The mirror., 1919-06-12
Hawker Prepared For End When
IL IL Hours Out

The London Daily Mail has printed dispatch
from Thurse, Scotland giving the simple narrative
of Harry g. Hawker. the British aviator regarding
the unsuccessful attempt to fly across the Atlantic
made by himself and Lieutenant Commander Mac.
kenzie Grleve.
I'VE had very difficult ground to rise from on
the other side, said Hawker. To rise at all we had
to diagonally across the course.
"Once we got away we climbed we'll but about
ten minutes up we passed from firm. clear weather
into Newfoundland fog banks. We got we'll over
these however, aud, of course lost sight of the sea-
The sky quite clear for the first four
hours, when the visibility became bad. Heavy cloud
banks we're encountered and eventually We flew into
a heavy storm with rain squalls.
AT this time we were flying we'll above the
clouds at height of about Is 900 feet.
About five and one-half hours out, owing to
the choking of the filter the temperature of the wa
ter cooling engine started to rse but after
ing down several thousand feet we overcame this
difficulty. Everything went we'll for another few
hours, when once again the circulation system be-
came choked and the temperature of the water rose
to the boiling point.
We, of course, realized that until the pipe was
cleared we could not rise much higher without using
b were
and half hours on our way the circulation system
still giving trouble, and we realized that we
could not 60 using up our motor power
Then it that we reached the first fateful
decision to play for safety. We changed our course
and began flying diagonay the main shipping
route for about two and half hours, when. to
relief we sighted the Danish steamer which proved
to be the tramp Mary
We sent up very last distress signals.
These were answered promptly, and then flew
about two miles and landed in the water ahead of
the steamer.
The exceedingly rough and despite the
utmost efforts Of the Danish it was 80 minutes
before they succeeded in taking off. 1t only
at great risk to themselves in fact that they
tually succeeded in launching small boat owing to
the heavy gale from the northeast, which was rag
ing.
1t found impossible to save the machine.
which, however, most probably still afoat some
where in mid-Atlantic
"Atogether. before being spicked up we had
been fourteen and half hours out from Newfound-
land and picked up at $3.50 a. M. Greenwich
time
From Capt. Duhn of the Mary and his Danish
crew we received the greatest kindness on the jour-
ney home. The ship carries no wireless and 1t was
not until we arrived off the Butt of Leads that we
able TO communicate with the authorities. Off
Locherni met by the destroyer Woolsun and
conveyed to the Scapa Flow. where had a splen-
did welcome home from Admiral Fremantle and
the of the grand feet.'
Lieutenant Commander Grieve sent the Daily
Mail the following statement:
When few hundred miles out strong north
erly gale drove us strongly out of course. 1t
was not always possible, owing to the pressure of
dense masses of clouds, to take our bearing and l
calculate that at the time we determined to cut
across the shipping route we about 200 miles
out of our Up to the change of direction we
had covered about 900 miles of the journey to the
Irish coast"
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