Evening star., 1942-08-12
AP Correspondent Is Missing
In Plane Near Australia
HougIond on Craft
Thot disappeared in
Storm During Roid
By the Associated Press.

By the Associated Press.
GEN. MACARTHUR'S HEAD
QUARTERS, Australia, Aug. H.
Vern Haugland, Associated Press
staff man. was listed as missing
today, five days after a plane in
which he was a passenger dis
appeared in a storm. The plane
was en- route from Northeast
Australia to the New Guinea war
front.
There still was hope that the
plane might have made an emer-
gency landing at some inaccessible
spot in New Guinea or on one of the
islets off Australia 1t was recalled
here that several airmen who have
been shot down or forced down over
New Guinea have taken weeks to
make their way back to civilization.
Mr.. Haugland had waited at
Townsville, Australia. for several
days for transportation to New
Guinea. The opportunity came
August 7, when by a toss OF coin
he won seat in leading plane
of several that were to make the
trip. An Australian reporter who
lost the toss boarded the second
plane.
Some distance from Townsville
the planes ran into storm. When
they emerged, the first and second
planes were missing. The second
eventually reached a New Guinea
base safely, but nothing has been
heard from the other.
Second A. p. Man Missing.
Mr.. Haugland is the second As
| sociated Press correspondent miss
ing as result of the Pacific War.
D. Witt Hancock, 33, a native of
Bluefield, w. Va, has not been
heard from since March 3, when he
was attempting to escape from the
Japanese advance in Java.
Mr.. Hancock, after serving in the
London and Moscow Associated
Press bureaus, and in Turkey and
India, arrived in Java as the Jap
anese invasion approached there.
After covering japanese landings
in the Netherlands Indies, with the
end obviously near, he left Bandoeng
for the south coast
From that point accounts conflict.
A British officer in charge of en-
barking newspapermen thought Mr..
Hancock got a boat, but Walter A.
Foote, then United States consul
general at Batavia, believed Mr..
Hancock was captured by the Japa-
nese because he remained too long,
determined to cover the story de-
spite four warnings to leave.
Mr.. Hancock became afflicted with
diabetes while chief of bureau in
Moscow, and had with him III Java
only enough insulin daily doses Of
which were necessary to preserve his
life, to last until May 3.
Mr.. Hancock. who formerly
worked for the Hickory (N. c.
Record, the Bluef1eld Daily Tele-
graph and the Henderson IN. c.
Dispatch was a graduate of David
son College and joined the Asso-
ciated Press in Raleigh, N. c., in
1929. later transferring to Char
lotte, N. c., and New York, from
where he went to London in 1895
He married a British girl, who ac-
companied him as far as Calcutta
then came to this country after the
Japanese war broke out.
) Left u. S. in January.
Mr.. Hauglands desire to see anC
r write about the war at first hano
{ had carried him across 10000 miles
/ of the Pacific to Australia in the
first big United States convoy tc
make that trip. He left the United
States in January and was the firs'
member of the present Australian
bureau of the Associated Press te
reach that war theater.
Mr. Haugland had volunteered TO!
foreign assignment soon after the
). Pacific war started. He was quiet
industrious and tall-6 feet 3 inches
Mr.. Haugland described the trip
- to Australia as remarkable nava
. achievement" of the transport o
:, men, planes and arms across th'
: dangerous waters of the Pacific"
r Surviving four abortive subma.
: rine attacks. our party of remodelec
liners, fast freighters and naval yes.
V sells dexterously side stepped the
e enemy through 10000 miles OF sub.
d marine-infested ocean, he wrote or
= March l8.
!. Mr.. Haugland. who preferred sim
ple "Vern" to his full Vernon A..