Evening star., 1927-04-24

There is nothing more interesting
than to talk for half an hour with
a young aviator who has just fallen
out of the skies. 1t would be silly to
say the flyers regarded these expert
ences as a sort of bore, but 1t would
be equally at variance with the facts
to say that they regard them as
tragic or semi-tragic occurrences.
Sometimes the falling birdmen be-
come peeved over something that has
gone wrong. aloft or ashore, but they
never become tragic. And il you have
a dinner enga cement on the evening
of the day you have fallen from
mile high and have had TO spend Is
minutes in freezing water waiting for
a slow chug gchug boat from the naval
station to huff and puff it's painful
way out to rescue you, it is perfectly
all right to hurl a cuss word or two
at the Government for failure to pro-
vide swift sea sleds at naval stations
for rescue work, but you must never
keep your hostess waiting. 1t is al
ways bad form to be late for dinner.
In any event, that is what young
Lieut. Stephen Mcclellan of the Ma
rine Corps thought when he dropped
from somewhere above the Washing
ton Monument a few days ago. and
he was punctual to the minute. What
else did ne think about when his ship
exploded" while diving at 200 miles
an hour and he was left sitting in the
fuselage, sans wings, sans tail, sans
everything?
First of all, he thought he had to get
out of there. He mustn't let the
pressure of the wind pin him helpless
against the back seat. With almost
superhuman effort he pulled himself
forward and half up. Then the wind
hit him. He must have been travel
| ing at 800 miles an hour by this time.
One can easily imagine the force of
such a gale.
Fortunately for Lieut.. Mcclellan
and his dinner date, the wind inter.
ally whipped him out of the cockpit
and sent him cartwheeling back
ward over the remains of his plane
and away he tore out into the air
and to freedom. He doesn't know
| how many times he somersaulted
| But at last he caught a glimpse OF
| the horizon between his sprawling
| legs. He thought that would be q
good time to "let GO" So he man
aged to reach the ring of his para
chute and give it a pull. The big
! silken umbrella filled and righted
| itself gracefully, and there was the
lieutenant sitting pretty. All sense
| of falling ceased. He merely felt the
ground-the good old ground-was
coming to meet him. But it wasn't
the ground after all. 1t was the old
Potomac River, the cold old Poto-
mac River, and that meant more
| business to attend to.
Mcclellan remembered that two Of
| his buddies had been drowned by
becoming entangled in their para
chutes. So he prepared to drop
out of the contraption. He also re-
membered that one flyer had beer
killed by dropping" too soon. He
| had to calculate things to a nicely
He freed himself from his leg
harness and held on with his hands
until at last he dropped feet first
into the icy waters.
| Coming down he had noticed thC
fuselage hit the water and stuck
above 1t, apparently on mud bank
| So when he came to the surface Of
| the river he struck out for the shall
low water. Then he saw his para
chute floating a short distance away
so he thought he had better gather
it in. The Government is awfu