Seward daily gateway., 1925-02-16

over to Fairbanks to fly the airship to Nome with serum relief With Lieut.. Lynch they made the combine of three former members of the Royal Cana dian Flying Corps who were out to help Nome if help was needed and could be delivered by plane, while awaiting them at Ruby was Jimmie O'Bryan, movie cameraman on his way to Siberia for big game pictures, who flew three years Over There with the same Corps and who was ready to pie ture them or take them out, as the case might be. Regarding this at- tempt at the relief of Nome by air ship, Editor Thompson of Fairbanks, who is now here, says:
 "The flight was conceived and was attempted to be carried out in the Spirit of the North. There was no element or thought of moneymaking in it from start to finish. Nome need ed help, appealed to Delegate Suther- land who formerly "longshored" in Nome, and Sutherland appealed to me, for airplane relief. I appealed to the Fairbanks Airplane Corporation, whose machines were all disassembled and in winter quarters. They appealed to all and sundry the helpers and blacksmiths and fliers who could get action on that Nome flight. Every body did what they could, unselfishly They worked their heads off, night and day, threw a tarpaulin over the frame of the hangar on Weeks Field
 built fire therein and forgot to eat
 Tt hadn't happened to my person al knowledge, in 12 years, but the elements" right then proceeded to move in and put the Relief of Nome" by airShip on the blink" For 16 days it was so cold that I couldn't get from my office to the restaurant three doors away, to eat luncheon. The boys would build a fire under the engine, heat her up, then run her out of the hangar to tune her up' and, maybe, take her off the ground. Be- fore they could get the boat to the mooring skids, the blamed engine would be frozen again. She was, evi- |dently, of the Max Sennett Bathing Beauty, or Palm Beach variety of ship and she didn't banker after the cold.
 And so it went, day after day, ad Inauseam. There was no horizon, no visibility; the flier who started out in such conditions would have no idea where he was going and might not go far-not that the fliers cared, if the ship would only start to skelp the rise. The serum came down the line, was split at Nenana, part going by relay y-dogteam to Nome, the remainder delivered to Darling for the airship way. The fog hung over and dipped into the Panama Valley until you could not see block ahead of you, and stuck just like that But the dog teams, in 3O-mile relays, kept a movin' |along. When the dogteam serum was within days reach of Nome, the mean weather started in to reform, and made an upward jump of about 50 degrees in 24 hours. The hills came out and showed themselves, and there was horizon and visibility every where and the ship was kind and ready to be good and the flyers ready to go, when came the news that Nome was safe and needed no relief by air ship. The weather just spilled the beans on the relief of Nome. I will never believe in weather again, save just as I meet up with it from day to day.
 The News-M Miner probably spent less than million dollars in telegrams attractive flight, worked the force in- to the hospital and caused all other business to be suspended. The fliers for their two-weeks work and effort were compensated handsomely, as they desired-Darling got SIP and
 Mackie, who lost an overcoat and ten dollars worth of pipes when the prop struck back when Lynch was trying
 to spring it got '$33. The Fairbanks Airplane Corporation received an as-- sessment of about a thousand dollars.
 with no knowledge that they will ever get cent back from any source, and not caring particularly about that. And
 the News Miner man who was hand ling the worldpublicity of the relief flight got and will continue to get for
 months to come he'll from all the
 newspapers in the world to whom it
 could not furnish the news that the
 ship had reached Nome, while Alaska J will for years to come get the mega.