Rescue Delayed

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 617, 20 March 1929, Page 9

Rescue Delayed

BYRD’S AIRPLANE FAILS

Absent Men Still Silent

BY RUSSELL. OWEN ‘■FosGDHDXch 6 ”’ Alfl’ijT ! he ”Vf. w York Times” company and the St. Louis to the

W . BAY OF WHALES, Sunday. itH the continued silence of Gould, Balchen and June, who are away In the Rockefeller Mountains, Commander Byrd is prepared to take off in the next few hours. He has had many tries, but the motor failed to start. It is the first time it has baulked in all the weeks we have been here.

When adjustments were made, and the motor was turning, the high wind and the approaching darkness prevented the flight. There is a bare chance that Byrd may he able to go to-day. The dog teams, therefore, will start in a few hours, as soon as preparations have been completed for the journey, which at best will be an extraordinarily difficult one. No word has come from the men since Thursday, but we all still believe the silence of the mountain party is due to damaged radio. No one who has flown over the mountains has seen anything resembling a crevasse. The snow slopes are firm, and the mountain sides have been driften smooth.

MAWSON’S EXPEDITION CHARTER OF DISCOVERY (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) '(United Service) Reed. 9 a.m. LONDON, Tuesday. Following the charter of discovery given to Sir Douglas Mawson, Mr. L. S. Amery, Secretary of State for the Dominions, has sanctioned the construction by Fergusons, Port Glasgow, of a ship which, with the vessel William Scoresby, which at present is in the Antarctic, will enable uninter-

rupted continuance of the Discovery committee’s work. It is anticipated that the investigations of the Australian expedition will occupy the two seasons 1929 to 31. Every effort will be made to maintain co-operation between the Discovery committee’s and the Australian work, for which a member of the Discovery’s staff will be secured for service with the Australian expedition. The new vessel will be a steamship able to undertake long traverses, for which the Discovery is unfitted, though the Discovery’s defence against icepressure equips her for prolonged operations in the ice.

WILKINS AND BYRD CHRISTMAS DINNER JOKE (Australian and. N.Z. Press Association) NEW YORK, Monday, Sir Hubert Wilkins, speaking over the radio, said he was planning to partake of dinner next Christmas with Commander Byrd in Little America, Antarctica. The broadcast speech apparently was picked up by Byrd’s station. The latter sent an immediate reply, saying that the expedition would welcome Sir Hubert, and that a penguin’s leg would be saved for him. “We have 200 seals for winter,” added the message. “We are eating seal and whale now, and we like it.”