Evening star., 1951-12-29
Flyers

Flyers
| Continued From First Page)
Ipartment officials in Washington
have froWned on the news confer
Ience, which was set up at the di-
rection of Col. Holland. But there
were no indications of their rea-
sons.
Meanwhile. little group of
Polish guards employed at the base
waited with bouquets of flowers
to present to the four airmen at
the conference. They were still
waiting 80 minutes after the con-
ference was to have begun.
Norstad Sends Message.
| 1t. Gen. Lauris Norstad, COM
mander- n-chief of United States
Air Forces in Europe. sent a mes
sage from Paris to the airmen in
which he said:
! I'VE are all delighted at your
safe return to Erding and to your
families and friends. In his state
ment on your release. the Secre-
tary of State is reported to have
said the United States Govern
ment acted because we value the
welfare of the individual above all
else
I am sure that this example
of the loyalty of our Government
to those who serve impresses you,
as it must all American airmen,
with the responsibility for even
greater service on our part.
MY best wishes for the new
year"
Effects of Strain Obvious.
The four flyers, who had a
jubilant reunion here last night,
were kept strictly secluded today
from newsmen. When they filed
into the Officers Club for lunch,
they were ushered into a special
dining room. A burly air police
man was stationed at the door.
1t was obvious they were still
affected by the nervous strain of
their days in Communist captiv-
Iity. Friends of Capt. John j.
Swift disclosed he had left his
bed at 4 am. and come down.
stairs in his bathrobe, explaining
he could not get to sleep.
Intelligence officers were be-
lieved chiefly concerned in finding
out whether the Reds were able
to extract any American military
information from the men.
None of the men was assigned
to tactical operations.
Three Are Airlift Veterans.
All were regularly engaged in
transport flying. Three Capt.
David Henderson, 80, of Shawnee,
Okla, commander of the downed
CAT cargo plane; Capt. John
j, Swift, "a. of Glens Falls, N. Y,
co-pilot, and T/Sergt. Jess A. Duff,
80. of Spokane, Wash, the me-
Ichanic-are veterans of the Ber-
lin airlift.
The fourth crewman is Sergt.
James A. Elan, 20-year-old radio
man from Kingsland, Ark.
They spent the night resting
behind sentry guarded doors, after
landing here to a he oes' well
come shortly before midnight.
They were tired, haggard and
nervous. But they appeared
healthy and well-fed and were
reported to have been relatively
well treated" by their Red captors.
Unknown to themselves, because
they were held incommunicado
even from each other-but we'll
known to their Hungarian custo-
dlans-the men had become diplo-
matte INT, warranting careful
handling to keep from adding
more explosiveness to public and
official indignation in the United
States.
The men were sped from the
border to Tullin airf1eld near
Vienna in the big black Cadillac.
flying the American flag from its
hood, which had brought Ambas-
sador Walter j. Donnelly, United
States high commissioner, to
Nickelsdorf to greet them.
Then they were rushed into a
plane, twin to the one they lost
in Hungary, and flown back to
Erding, without time to make any
public statements.
Diplomats Kept From Them.
Christian Ravndal, new United
States Minister to Hungary, arrived
in Vienna shortly after the men
were freed. The men had been in
captivity a month before Mr..
Ravndal arrived in Budapest to
take over his new job.
"The members of the legation in
Budapest tried every solitary way
to get permission to see them in
order to give them food and cloth
ing but we never received an af-
f1rmative answer. We were always
told the matter had been referred
to competent authorities" he said.
Other American officials to
whom the fliers talked said the
men reported they were kept in
separate rooms of private house.
/ They said the Hungarians ap-
parently made every effort to treat
them 1rrnll y o,nn nA6aiol .a.l