AIR DISASTER.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20097, 28 November 1930, Page 19

AIR DISASTER.

funeral OF VICTIMS. COFFINS ON 48 ARMY WAGGONS. LONDON'S SOLEMN HOUR. traoie OTO ftvs coaaaarovDSsri'.) LONDON, October 17. wa# a beautiful autumn day last Saturday when tha victims of the ElOl ragedy passed to their last resting place. If only they had started a week later was the thought in tha minds of many people. There would have been no storm to fight against, a successful flight, no mourning. The pavements were crowded all tha way from Westminster, along Whitehall, the Strand, Aldwych, Kingsway, Southampton Bow, to Euston Station. The funeral procession took threequarters of an hour to pass a given point, and the million spectators stood tense and silent all the time. Londoners will long remember that most solemn hour. A little group of people watched the procession from upper windows in tha building that has been bought for the New Zealand House of the future. From there we could look across Trafalgar Square to Admiralty Arch. The Square itself was black with people, except where the cleared passage-way curved out of Whitehall and was directed into the Strand. The silence was broken by the dietaat notes of the drums, half a minute later the notes of the other instruments of the band could be heard, and presently the sound resolved itself into the solemn notes of Chopin's Funeral March. Bound the bend in the Square came the leading files of the procession. Two minutes later the head of the proeocsion was passing our point of vantage. The head of every man in the throng below was bared. One eouldrecognise scores < f men who bad served in the war by the way they stood at attention. Then spectators faded from one's consciousness. First came a detachment of mounted police, the horses wonderfully controlled. Indeed, it seemed as though some of them were actually in step with the music. The men of the Air Force followed in a column of fours a hundred yards long. The reversed arms, the perfect alignment, and the rhythm of their slow march prepared one for impressions that were to follow. The Royal wreath and the Air Council | wreath were carried by men of the Air Force. Then the band of the Royal Air Force approached, their music increasing in volume, and as it did ad finally preparing spectatior for a truly solemn and touching experience of their lives. Each coffin wan carried in an Army waggon. This was drawn by four horses of a like colour. A driver was mounted on the left hand horse of each pair. A mounted sergeant rode beside. Two soldiers sat in the driver's seat of the waggon. On each side of the waggon were three bearers from the Boyal Air Force. Each coffin was eovered by a Union Jaek and surmounted by flowers of many colours—lilies and roses, carnations, chrysanthemums and dahlias, and autumn leaves made up into trophies of remarkable siie and design. Will They Never Sad? Had-there been but one waggon containing a great soldier or a public sor\ ant who had passed naturally to his rest one could have looked on with detachment. But this seemingly endless procession of the vietima who had gambled with the ruthless elements was different. One by one, the waggons passed. Each eoffin represented a life taken in its full vigour of youth and hope, a group of sore hearts, or a family with a destiny entirely changed. One, two, three, ten, twelve passed by. Would they never endt One must eease to eount. More waggons, more coffins, still they came. The twenty-fourth, and then relief for a time. The funeral march of the Air Force Band faded in the distance.

A minute passed and then the steady tramp, tramp of the 3rd Grenadier Guards—tall men made taller still by their blaek busbies. Their long overcoats hid any glaring colour, and they carried arms reversed. Behind them Came the band of the Welsh Guards, their solemn notes again preparing the silent spectators for oven more touching scenes. Twenty-four Army , waggons boaring coffins—as this second part of the cortege passed one could not help wondering whether the quest for knowledge and the mechanical developments of this age brought with them happiness. However, this funeral pageant was in a way a tribute to the great unknown, an indication ih&tj though men strive to conquer the natural forces, they do so in all humility and count the cost. The Mourners. Prime Ministers, Ministers, and representatives of the United Kingdom, the Dominions aad India followed in cars. A group of relatives came on foot, then representatives from the Air Ministry, Aeronautical Societies, attaches of foreign Powers. These last mentioned in their uniforms imported the only bright colouring in the whole procession. The Third Watch of the 8101, the crew qf the 8100, the Boya! Marine Band, and a detachment of the Boyal Navy marched by. Many largo wreaths were carried, and after these came eight or ten Air Force tenders laden with floral tributes. Perhaps the saddest part of the procession came-last of aIL Twenty-seven cars contained relatives of the dead. All that had gone before had that touch of pageantry in it which indicated hot only sorrow, but a national pride in tho men who had. given their lives for their country. Here in these twenty-seven cars were those whose hearts were yet too sore to think of honour ind duty. They had lost their loved Ones and little else mattered ftt present. At Etiston Station was gathered perhaps the greatest concourse of people oh the route. In the station itself the central hall was draped, and flags hung the platform from which the funeral train should start. The coffins werfe soon removed from the road into the rail waggons, which were draped inside with purple, and these in turn were attached to the waiting train. Some minutes after mid-day, find rather more than two hoiirs after the procession had left Westminster, it movea away. The band of the Boyal Ajr Force played the music of appropriate hymns, and it was with the tune of "Bock of Ages" that London made its final gesture of salute. The coffins were shut from sight within big vans. Only the huge wreath on the foremost engine and the blackgarbed mourners iij the eoaches that followed marked this as a funeral tritiri. At C aldington. i The October afternoon was Approaching the time of twilight when the long funeral procession drew within sight of those who were waiting in the eflmetery at Gardington (writes "The TihSes" correspondent). . Across the fields the tohders with their burden could be seen moving

slowly between what seemed dark hedge#, but wire In reality thif crowds on either side of the winding roadway. Unbroken, these crowds stretched along the three miles of road to Bedford, and in many places were Six-deep. It was still many minutes before the van of the procession swung into the empty space of road commanded from the cemetery—a detachment of the Boyal Air Force, with rifles reversed, slowly pacing ahead of the band. Behind the band marched the firing party, and then came the tenders, with two coffins covered by the Union Jack in each, and those relatives who were able to walk so far, the representatives of the Air Ministry and aeronautical societies, the Air Council, the Third Watch of 8101, and then 4 long line of cars conveying the rest of the relatives and officials. There were nearly 3000 wreaths—si striking testimony to the widespread Sympathy ealled out by the disasterarid these were brought on tenders, which completed a procession that mu&t have been fully a nlile lon&. It had left Bedford in the bright sunshine, receiving its last salute front a blue sky 4s two squadrons of bombing machines circled over the tows in arrow-head formations. Within the Cemetery. ■Within the cemetery the mourners gathered beside a grave almost as big as the lounge of the airship itself, a Shallow grave hung at the sides with artificial grass-oh which were scattered bronze chrysanthemums, carnations, and gladioli. Into this hollow an inclined trench had been dug, ftnd down the trench the 48 coffins, each covered with the Union jack and strewn with rose petals, ivere carried by comrades of the dead men. At the same time the band played Softly a number of familiar hymn tunes. The great mound of earth b#side the grave glowed With masses of flowers, and at the edge of the grave on the Bftme side stood soldiers helding the Royal wreaths. Behind them was the firing party, leaning on reversed rifles. More flowers were on the side of the grave nearest to the road, and at the other two sidei were the clergy and the mourners and the representatives of the three Services. Tfrere were four services—Anglican, Presbyterian; Wesleyan, and Roman Catholic. When the last words had been pronounced there was silence, for some a silence so laden with emotion that when it was shattered by the volleys of the firing-party they found themselves suddenly at the end of their ehduraijce. Trumpets at the graveside sounded Last Post, mad from the fields outside the cemetery the sail mi

answered by the triumphant notes of the Reveille. A great many New Zealanders saw the procession from the windows of the High Commissioner's Office in the Strand. Now Zealand's Tributes. Wreaths were sent by the New Zealand High Commissioner (Sir Thomas Wllford), representing the New Zealand Air Force and the Government, and people of New Zealand. The former, which was a chaplet with solid ground of chrysanthemums and a spray of golden chrysanthemums, mimosa and autumn foliage, was inscribed: With deepest sympathy from the Members of the New Zealand Air Force." The Government wreath was a chalet of todioides fern with spray of carnations and white roses, and bore the words: ''With deepest sympathy from the Government and People of Now Zealand.'' Squftdron-Leader T. M. Wilkes, M.0., and Lleut.-Col. N. W. B. B. Thorns, iJ.S.O., M.C., represented New Zealand in the funeral procession.