Evening star., 1928-04-27

/
on the Teitet plane while en- route from
Grcealy Island to Murray Bay.
BY CHARLES c. v. MURPHY,
Staf Correspondent of The Star and the
North American Newspaper Alliance.
MURRAY BAY. Quebec. April 26.-
AS write this. Greenly Island becomes
flattening mound against white sea,
tawdry. indiStinguiShable gray green
mass, pressed out of vision by weight
| OF heavy lowering clouds. Thus does il
already seem to fall again into its un-
happy destiny, peril to navigation,
whose sole justification to exist is to
support a lighthouse TO warn sailors
from its cutting rocks,
Spotlight Changes.
The spotlight of relative Importance
flickered there for II days. and now it
passes down the Belle Isle Straits to the
drumming cadence of airplane motors.
The smiling IriShman and the two Ger
mans are riding to civilization at 90
miles an hour And down below, so
far below and behind that we can no
longer see them, two dozen Sullen-faced
men, who lack imagination to under
stand the forces that underlay the sud-
den interest of the world in them, must
be curiouSly watching a vanished speck
hurtling toward the horizon. Below,
too, lies the Bremen, the only man.
made airplane to span the north At
lantic east to west. abandoned for the
moment because the harsh elements
which drove 1t TO its lonely rendezvous
in Labrador paralyzed its motor.
Baron Gunther Won Huenefeld. Mai.
James E. Fitzmaurice and Capt Her.
mann Koehl. gallant crew of the Bre-
men. have conceded the limitation of
oil and piStonS and fuel and now fly
on the tri-motored Alliance monoplane
with which The Star and the North
American Newspaper Alliance provided
them for their triumphant coming to
New York.
Flyers Staked Lives.
Three men pitted their lives against
the Atlantic'S night and storms and. in
Capt. KoehlS own words, "the will of
God" brought them to that island, so
small 1t might be environed in a couple
of city blocks.
Out of that dramatic flight and its
abrupt ending on the snow-bound coast
fate was to fashion many things.
Names such as Greenly Island, Blanc
Sablon, Long Point. mere obiter dicta
in geographical indices, were to be en-
dowed with momentouS Importance.
The attention of a world was suddenly
to converge there, waiting expectant.
And out Of 1t, too, was to be COM
pounded swiftly urging human enter
prise, tense enough to try the stoutest
hearts. in not always successful efforts
to unlock Labrador'S unwilling doors.
Floyd Bennett, as fine a pilot as ever
held stick, Is dead. But his ship
mate Bernt Balchen, not yet %, but
tried and tested in the crucible of a
dozen eXpeditionary undertakings, is
pushing his mission through, quietly,
strongly, successfully. These are things
that fiow through ones mind half mile
above Labrador's ugly face of gray and
green, TO the humming Of the great
motors tugging powerfully into q blast
Of snow that comes as eagerly to meet
them.
BaIchen at Right Control.
Balchen is forward at the right con-
troll. His work-stained cap. carelessly
tops the crown of his head and a lock
OF fair hair tumbles in the propeller
wash. A red jacket sits UP straight
beside, Maj. FitZmaurice, commandant
of the Irish Free State air force, care
can be careleSSly contemplative, be-
cause this Is the third time he has been
over this Tnonotonous route. But his
colleagues cannot rest. They are all
eyes.
The baron's monocle sweeps the
landscape necessarily, and Capt. Koehl,
with q smile that will be as famous
as Lindbergf's before he leaves this
country, Is pointing, gesticulating,
shouting in a most incomprehensible
admixture OF French, English and Ger
man.
The Alliance plane presses its nose
into the storm and Visibility tapers
down to matter of yards. The howl
Of the motors rises and falls. Must
this incubator of foul weather once
more prove mightier than stout effort7
But the quiet Norseman never looks
back. His eyes are fixed ahead. Per-
haps IL Is dramatic Perhaps IL does
thrill these men who have flown across
the Atlantic. Yet the thrill and the
drama, 1t seems, was concentrated In
the few minutes before and after the
departure.
Decide TO Take-On.
The decision that the BYemen'g crew
should fly down In the Alliance plane
was reached last night. The Bremen
would be left here for the moment In
time, probably as soon as the ice In the
bay straits broke, its crew would come
back for her. More important imme-
diately, however, seemed the necessity
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