Trail Of Skeletons Led To Safety

Chronicle (Levin), 2 November 1949, Page 5

Trail Of Skeletons Led To Safety

(N.Z.P.A^-

— Reuter.

ComriQtit)

Received Wednesday, 9.45 a.m. NEW DELHI, NOV. 1. Robert Dressen, aged 29, of St. Louis, described today hoy/ he had led the American Legation staff from the remote Sinkiang Province of China across the forbidding Himalaya Mountains to India. He said tljat the party of 11 White Russian and Chinese employees were never in danger of losing the trail — they just followed the skelecons of horses, camels, ponies' and humans Mlled by exhaustion orcold in the mountains. The American Legation was forced to leave Tinhyfa, the capital of Sinkiang, on foot after the Comi munists took over and refused permission for American planes to land at Tinhwa. Mr. Dressen's party crossed the Himalayas ✓ to Kashmir Province, where an American piane picked them up. Through Raging Blizzard. He said that 17 o" the party's horses and'donkeys di?d during'the trip. Three of them plunged over a precipice as the party inched its way across the hazardous Khardung Glacier, near Leh. Mr. Dressen said that this was the worst part of the trip. Most of the animals died of exhaustion. as the party, in thick Mongolian furs, fought its way over the 18,300ft. Karakarom Pass with the temperature at zero and a blizzard raging.