Evening star., 1943-05-26
BY WALTER McCALLUM,

Star Staff Correspondent
CHICAGO, May ga windmill,
futily beating useless arms at a
waste Of waters in a groove where a
turbid river Tapped at the caves Of
abandoned homes. Cattle, aban-
doned on a yet dry tongue Of land
in the middle of yellow flood.
Houses careening unoccupied down
the Snarling waters of an inland
empire. Chickens marooned on the
roof Of floating barns, huddled in
terror.
These were the sights seen by a
group Of newspapermen who flew in
an Army Flying Fortress 1000 miles
along the course of raging rivers
above the confluence of the mighty
Mississippi with some of it's satellite
streams.
People Flee in Boats.
In the picture were villages all
but abandoned, residents fleeing
across the face of rising waters in
small boats, groups of abandoned
automobiles isolated on levee. top,
a cresting roar of angry waters as
the rain-fed flood poured through
dozens of breaks in the levee hold
ing back the Mississippi, Illinois
and Ohio rivers between Memphis
and Peoria.
We left Washington on a routine
training flight in the post midnight
chill, flying through rain over the
Great Smokes. over the sleeping
towns Of Roanoke and Asheville.
reaching Memphis as dawn broke.
Capt. Spencer Treharne, pilot of the
big Bit, based at Hendricks Field,
Fla, throttled the ship down and
roared above Memphis for long
minutes as he awaited daylight to
fly above the flooded areas.
Memphis has not yet been badly
hit. The river is high, but not
outside its banks at the Tennessee
city. But soon, as we flew barely
200 feet above the flood, gasoline
pumps began to appear in the mid
die of hundreds of yards of muddy
waters, roads abruptly came to a
stop as the water Tapped at hilltops,
bridges creaked at the weight of
water and trains crept through
inches of the flood.
One hundred miles above Men,
phis the raging waters began to get
rough. The flood spread out for
miles on either side of the normal
river channel Submerged houses
showed roof tops, factories stood in
the middle of the raging river. Dev-
astation and desolation ruled the
waters.
Airport Hangers Submerged.
We flew low over villages whose
houses showed only their upper
floors, whose church spires stuck out
starkly above the flood. We flew over
new airport whose new hangers,
freshcut wood showing yellow in
the dawn, were buried under water,
and barracks were completely sub
merged. Gas tanks and gravel
dumps loomed above the waters. At
st. Louis, where floods are an old
story, not much damage was visible.
The flood was controlled between
banks of concrete.
But above st. Louis we flew for
miles over drowned country, where
railroads stopped at the edge of the
flood and frightened householders
waved from upper stories as the big
Fortress dipped low at ITS miles an
hour.
A hundred miles north of st. Louis,
where the muddy Illinois emptied its
waters into the Mississippi, we saw
barns and houses floating in a great
inland lake whose waters spread
out over a wide plain between high
bluffs. At Cape Girardeau, Mo-, the
devastation was almost complete.
Mans Power Futile.
AS a scene of waste and destruc-
ton 1t was impressive. As a COM
mentary on the inability of man to
handle nature on the rampage it
showed man to be the futile tool of
raging rivers.
The four -motored bomber thun-
dered through the bleak valley. Can't
Treharne, a veteran of Pearl Har-
Dor, turned over the controls to one
of his students.
mot since December 7 have seen