Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-07-15
BOWLER IS SWEPT
i TO SEA AND LOST
Chicago o-BerIin Flight Ends
AbruptIy-CreW Safe
on Shore.
BY ROBERT WOOD.

PORT BURWELL, Ungava, via OF
tawa, Ontario, July 15.-The Chicago
Tribune's flight from Chicago to Berlin
ended disastrously Saturday night, when
the 'Untin' Bowler, giant amphibian
plane caught in ice foe, was swept to
sea by a gale and sank among the Ice
of Hudson Straits. There was no one
aboard.
The sinking of the Bowler ended a
hve-day battle to save the big twin
motored Sikorsky flying boat from the
elements Twenty times it has miracul-
ously escaped destruction since the
plane landed here last Tuesday.
Every man In this little settlement,
the mounted police, radio operators, the
personnel of the Hudson Bay Co. and
a score of natives have worked with
the crew day and night watching the
plane. keeping it pushed from the rocks
and Tending of the relentless crush
ing ice.
An hour before the Bowler went down
1t appeared that the ship was at last
in comparable safety. Friday evening
Bob Cast TAXED the damaged plane
into a gorge closer to the settlement
hoping to escape the tremendous flow of
ice which had battered the plane in the
fjord where the ship had been anchored
here. The water was frozen from shore
to shore and for distance of a half
HtllC up Inc gorge the anchor was hooked
firmly into the ice hundred feet from
shore at safe distance from the rocks,
. three ropes were dashed to the anchor,
one to the nose of the ship and the
other two to the wings to hold 1t steady
against the ice.
A 50-MiIe Wind.
When the tide started "a o'clock
in the evening we returned 20 the ma
chine shop of the radio station to re-
pair damaged fittings which had been
broken by the ice in the evening, the
barometer dropped and the wind set in.
1t had reached a velocity of so miles an
hour when the ship sank at $50 O'Clock
An Eskimo came running over the
hills. He had been sent by Corpl. Nc
1nnes OF the mounted police who had
been watching the ship, to tell us that
the wind had cracked the solid ice.
When we arrived at the point where
the Bowler had been anchored the ship
was already in midstream and on its
way to the open water. Its nose was
In the air and its tail half submerged.
huge chunk of ice had broken from
the middle of the stream and was
drifting swiftly before the wind with
the Bowler dashed to the forward edge
Had Corpl. McInnes and the natives
been on the ice at the time it broke
away. they would have been blown to
sea with the ship.
Half dozen persons had been on the
Ice all day working on the plane. The
force OF the ice had pushed the hull of
the ship upward and the tail downward
One wing settled into the water. Water
filled the cabin and the tail sank slowly
although it was not until the Bowler
had foated two miles out into the sea
that 1t disappeared. Air COMPARTMENTS
IN the hull and hollow wings gave it
buoyancy.
Saw Plane Drift Away.
Pilots Robert Cast and Parker d. Cra-
mer and the little colony that has
fought with us to save the Bowler from
destruction, climbed up the rocks to a
high promontory overlooking Hudson
Straits and there watched the plane
drift through the ice toward a gray hor-
lion and finally slip into the sea-
1t was disheartening spectacle Cast
was deeply moved. My regret at los
ing the 'Untin' Bowler is second only to
my disappointment in having to end
the flight to Berlin" He said, 1T have
flown many miles in that ship without
one failure and have become strangely
attached to it. The elements which de-
stroyed 1t we're beyond our control and
the strength of the ship to withstand"
Everything possible had been done to
keep the Bowler intact for the long
flight across Greenland and Iceland to
Europe. but it was a losing fight from
the first.
First the tide. then the ice, then the
gale. The Bowler could not beat them
all. It is no wonder for other and stur-
der craft have not been able to with
stand the violent elements that prevail
about Cape Chidley. The Canadian
Radio, a Canadian merchant marine
vessel, only last year was caught in a
gale in the main harbor here and
beached. Before that the Bay Eski-
mo, a Hudson Bay Co. ship. was
crushed in the ice of Ungava Bay of
Port Burwell The Eskimo called Cape