Famous Explorer Goes Down With His Ship

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 303, 7 December 1936, Page 3

Famous Explorer Goes Down With His Ship

LONE SURVIVOR TELLS HOW *• 30 WERE LOST

, _ a LONDON. Thirty men, including the famous French explorer Dr. Jean Charcot, lost their lives when the research ship Pourquoi Pas? returning home with members of the French Greenland expedition, sank in a terrific gale off Iceland.

Only one ffian survived; after clinging to the wreckage he swam through the surf and was dragged out in an exhausted state by those on shore. The bodies of 30 men, among them that of Dr. Charcot —who said before he left France, "This will be the last voyage I shall ever undertake” —were washed ashore on the Myra coast, in Western Iceland. The-■ Story of how the Pourquoi Pas? was lost is told by Eugene Gouidec, jietfy-officer, the only survivor. He sitys the Pourquoi Pas? was forced to return from Cape Reykjanes to seek shelter at Reykjavik. In the ■ early hours she ran aground and shortly afterwards sprang a leak. Terrific seas broke over the ship, presenting the launching of the lifeboats. Gradually she was submerged by huge wave* and one by one the others were washed overboard. Th* Icelandic gunboat Aegir arrived ♦ near the wreck of the Pourqoi Pas? ;to a message from the eapfwrri HO reports ihat the masts were above the waves, but there of any of the party clingiag to the masts, which confirms the belief that all perished except the one ' J«aißaptiste Charcot, France’s most famous War Explorer an d geographer, iy-sur-Seine in July,

18« T. Uil.Bieeess In ducting Allied antietJPpiigU during the -war -Whiia the British Distiagwshed BerTlw original Greenland . expedition m composed of M. Paul-Emile Victor, Dr. Rqfet. Gestaih, ISL Michel Perez, all young Danish artist Count Eigel Knuth. They had spent the summer entirely ent off from the outer world, crossing great ice ranges on a 620-mile trek aeroM* ■.Greenland. to Angmagssalik, Bv. Ohareot picked them up. •VLJ’