The daily independent., 1937-07-08
BY III. r. EKINS

Dy He xGs CAAAASS
New York, July 7.-U.H- Ten
wears ago I sat in the quiet, dim
" lighted city room of the Homo
lulu Advertiser, waiting for word
to come out of the longly ex-
panse of water between Hawaii
and the Pacific coast.
Four planes were racing tow
ard the islands to win q $4,000
first prize offered by James Dole,
Hawaii's pineapple king"
1t was 8 a. m, and except for a
bright light over my desk and an
other over the city desk, where a
solitary member of the Advertis-
er staff was sitting, the room was
silent and dark.
Suddenly the telephone at my
elbow jingled. 1t was George Null
roney, chief technicia7'of the Ad-
vertiser's broadcasting station,
KGU, perched on top of the three
story building.
1.-THE Chaumont just reported a
plane passed overhead - they
think i.s the Miss Doran." he
said. ~.
If it was, it was the last that
was ever seen of her. The small
Buhl cabin biplane, in which Mil
dred Doran, pretty Michigan
school teacher; her pilot, Auggie
Pedlar, and her navigator, Villas
r. Knope, were attempting to fly
from Oakland, Calf, to Honolulu,
was never definitely reported after
it flew through the Golden Gate.
But for u hours I stood by in
the strangest death watch" I
have ever covered, while Navy
planes, small, sputtering Army de
Havilands, a giant Fokker and a
big Martin bomber cruised over
10000 square miles Of tracklesS
ocean looking for the Miss Dor
an" and the Golden Eagle" an
other Dole plane which never
came in.
The Golden Eagle" was pilot
ed by Jack Frost, with Gordon
Scott as navigator. We all believ-
ed Frost's plane, fastest of the
Dole fliers, had overshot the ISL
ands and plunged into the sea
far beyond Hawaii, its fuel ex-
hausted and its bearings lost.
But the search for the Miss Dor
an was another matter, and I re-
call it now merely to indicate the
enormous task Of sitting rumors,
following strange, almost unbe-
lievable leads, in the job of trying
to find the wreckage of a plane in
that vast expanse of water.
We had reports Of planes that
did not exist, and reports from
places that did not exist. We heard
stories of cyewitnesses who saw"
the two planes crash and plunge
into the sea.
Neither the Miss Doran nor the
Golden Eagle had radio sending
sets, although both could receive.
For 10 days reports came in, vary
ing from positive identification"
of the plane wrecked on some re-
mote spot in the Hawaiian group,
to reports from spiritualists who
said they were already getting
messages from Mildred Doran.
It was a nerve-cracking and
heart-breaking task to run down
these clues, because behind them
was the remote possibility that
three human beings might be de5-
perately clinging to life, adrift or
ashore somewhere, praying for
rescue.
I counted more than 200 diff
ferent reports during that 10
day period, some bearing the mark
of credibility, others palpably fic-
ton. When they all had been run
down, not one held a shred Of
truth.
Three days after the Dole filters
took off, Capt. Bill" Erwin and
Lieut.. Alvin Eichwaldt, his navi-
gator, took off in a rebuilt Trav-
clair monoplane, THE Dallas Spir-
it," over the trail of the Dole
fliers.
Six hours after they departed,
as the sun was setting out in the
Pacific, the Cutter Navajo picked
up a signal. Mulroney, still watch
ing at the Advertiser radio tower,
intercepted it.
1t was from Eichwaldt and it
said:
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