IS NOME NUGGET
_OLDEST NEWSPAPER IN ALASKA—MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS_
:VQL. XLIX. No. 132 NOME, ALASKA, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1947 PER COPY — 15c
NEWS IN BRIEF |
——. !
WASHINGTON, </P)—A unified
command for the Caribbean de
fense system, with Lt. Gen. Willis
D. Crittenberger in charge, was
announced Saturday by the joint
chiefs of staff.
Creation of a unified command
for the Caribbean is in line with a
policy adopted last year and an
' nounced in December as approved
by President Truman.
Under that program, seven uni
fied commands either have been
or will be set up for regions of
military importance to the United
* States, each under a single com
mander.
GLENDALE. Calif. </P)—In the
same chapel where they were
married last Sunday, Earl Davis,
23, and his bride, Frances Ann, 20,
will lie in death tomorrow as the
same minister reads h joint funer
• .
al service.
The young honeymooners were
found dead of asphyxiation last
Wednesday in a tourist court at
Pleasant Grove, Utah, en route to
visit the bride’s parents, Mr. and
Mrs. A. M. Germano, at Superior,
Wis.
BERKLEY. Calif. (>P)—‘Theater
manager William E. O’Neill tried
, to usher out a dog that had fol
lowed his young master in. Bitten
promptly on the right leg, O’Neill
retired. Police officer M. M. Tho
I mas took over, was bitten on the
hand, also retired. Patrolman N.
H. Harstad took over successfully.
He used a lassoo.
McCHOR FIELD,. (£>)—'Thrity
three giant C-82 “flying boxcars”
winged their way toward Big
Delta, Alaska, today for Exercise
Yukon, winter army maneuvers.
More than 300 Second Division in
fantrymen plus technicians and
t specialists made the week-end
hops which called for stops at
Great Falls, Mont., and Fort Nel
son, B. C.
JUNEAU, </P) — The body of
Capt. Alf M. Monsen, pilot of the
ill-fated Pan American World Air
ways plane that crashed last Sun
day on Tamgas Mountain, will be
brought from Ketchikan to Jun
eau this week for burial in Elks
cemetery, alongside the grave of
* his father-in-law, former Gov.
John W. Troy.
Services will be conducted by
the Juneau Elks lodge of which
Monsen was a member.
t _
JUNEAU, (/P)—Seward will be
the site of the 1948 encampment
of the Alaska Department, Veter
ans of Foreign Wars, delegates to
the V.F.W.’s council of adminis
tration announced Sunday.
The encampment will begin
June 16, closing five days later
, with memorial services.
William H. Olson, Anchorage
attorney, was named by the coun
0 cil to replace Charles Smith as
judge advocate of the department.
Smith has left the Territory.
v SZCZECIN, Poland, <>P) — The
government has announced that
the entire administration of the
port of Szczecin now is being
handed over by the Russians to
Missing Polish
Leader Arrives
In England
i • ——
(By Alex Singleton)
LONDON, (A*) — Stanislaw
Mikolajczyk. the Polish opposition
leader who fled from Warsaw two
weeks ago, has made his way to
Britain by plane, a foreign office
official notified a cheering House
of Commons today. The British
government has "promised Miko
lajczyk sanctuary.
Chistopher Mayhew, undersec
retary of state for foreign affairs,
said the plane carrying the 46
year-old leader of the Polish Pea
sant party had landed at Manston
airfield, southeast of London in
Kent county. There was no imme
diate indication as to the national
ity or the type of aircraft in which
Mikolajczyk arrived in Britain.
Mikolajczyk’s whereabouts re
mained a mystery until today. Ap
parently he fled Poland in fear of
his life. Since his departure from
his homeland with a party of
seven friends his Polish Peasant
party has been remodeled along
lines favorable to Poland's Com
munist-led government. Inform
ants in Warsaw have declared that
Mikolajczyk’s departure meant
the end to organized political op
position to the present Polish re
gime.
A Polish foreign min i s t r y
spokesman announced in Warsaw
today that a special Polish parlia
mentary commission was investi
gating the circumstances sur
rounding Mikolajczyk's flight.
Glohe-Girdlers
Await Weather
At Cold Bay
ADAK, (/P) — Globe-gird ling
light plane pilots George Truman,
39, of Los Angeles, and Clifford
Evens, 26, of Washington, D. C.,
awaited favorable weather condi
tions here Saturday for the next
jump on the Arctic leg of their
journey—a 650-mile hop to Cold
Bay, near the tip of the Alaska
peninsula.
From the Fort Randall army
field at Cold Bay, the two plan to
fly their 100-horsepower cub
planes to Anchorage, then south
ward to Annette Island near
Ketchikan.
lYuman said on his arrival here
late Friday after a 3Vfe hour flight
from Shemya that he and Evans
will attempt to reach Los Angeles
non-stop from Annette, a distance
of more than 1,700 miles. Their
planes are equipped to carry fuel
for 26 hours.
“What we want most of all af
ter getting back to the United
States is to see our families,’’ he
(Continued on Page Five)
the Poles.
Since the Nazis fled from Po
land in 1945, much of the port has
been Russian-controlled, but the
Poles now say only a small strip
is still leased to the Soviets for
shipments between their country
and their occupied zone in Ger-!
many.
"Quake Wrecks
Two Towns
In Peru
LIMA, Peru, oP)—Planes bear
ing nurses, medicine and food
were dispatched today to stricken
areas in the mountains of Peru,
where an earthquake shattered the
peace of All Saints Day Saturday,
killing at least 50 persons and re
portedly demolishing two Andes
towns.
! Government officials said bad
1 weather and quake-ruined run
I ways had prevented planes from
landing in the affected zones, but
! added that if landings were still
j impossible today supplies would
be parachuted.
Poor communications from the
isolated mountain area where the
quake struck obscured details of
the damage, but official dispatches
said San Ramon and neighboring
La Merced, both about 130 miles
northeast of Lima, had been “to
tally destroyed.” Each town has
a population of about 5,000.
Reports indicated that the heav
iest loss of life was at Satipo, 165
miles east of Lima, where dis
patches said at least 40 had been
killed and many injured.
The Lima newspaper El Comer
i cio published a report by the may
or of San Ramon that seven men
had been killed and seven injured
at San Felix, near San Ramon.
The shocks, said to be the se
verest in the mountain region east
of Lima, were felt 650 miles north
in the area of Quilos and1 200 miles
southeast at Ayacueho.
In stricken Satipo the river and
and resultant floods washed away
a hospital.
Hughes’ Giant
!“Pile Of Lumber”
Reallv Flies
w
j LONG BEACH, Calif. (/T) —
Howard Hughes* $25,000,000 fly
! ing lumberyard has tested its
; wings, and they work.
Acting on impulse, the million
a i r e ^>portsman-film producer
plane maker- tool manufacturer
took the 400,000 pound plywood
giant aloft yesterday at the end of
what he earlier had announced
would be a mere taxiing test.
The dark-haired 43 year old
Hughes had made two taxi runs
over the choppy surface of Los
Angeles-Long Beach harbor while
a throng of thousands ohed and
ahed over the plywood goat’s im
mensity. Then, on the third run, j
after its eight 3,000 horsepower:
engines had speeded it up *to
about 100 miles an hour, Hughes
eased back on the hydraulic con
trols, and the monster was air
borne.
“The buoyancy felt so good that
I decided to take it up,” Hughes
grinned at an informal press con
ference immediately afterword.
Some thirty of Hughes’ aides—
technicians, engineers and observ
ers—were aboard the plane, larg
est ever made, on its maiden
flight..
In the co-pilot’s seat was Dave
Grant, Los Angeles, Hughes’ chief
hydraulic engineer. An observer
Wavering Radio
Beam May Have
(Caused PAA Crash
(By William L. Baker)
'Editor, The Ketchikan Chronicle) I
KETCHIKAN, (AP> — Aviation
charts showing snow-tipped Tarn
gas mountain on Annette Island to
be 3,610 feet high may have been
a factor in the crash of Pilot Alf (
Monsen and 17 others in a Pan
American DC-4 Sunday within
six miles of Annette airfield.
Flying with Chris Weitzel, coast,
| guard pilot who first saw wreck
i age of the big airliner on the north
I slopes of the highest peak on the
: island, I could see how the pilot
crashed into the peak which ap
parently is 4,000 or 4,100 feet high.
The plane’s altimeter showed
3,400 feet when we were on a level
with the wreckage, and the peak
loomed several hundred feet
above us.
Other pilots said several peaks
in Southeastern Alaska are im
'Continued on Page Eight)
j British Election
Shows People Have
Lost Confidence
LONDON, (/P)—Britain’s major
| party leaders rallied their forces
i for a new period of intense politi
cal activity today as they took
stock of returns from Saturday’s
municipal elections, which observ
ers of all leanings agreed had re
sulted in a„ setback for the ruling
Labor party.
Complete returns from the 388
, English and Welsh boroughs vot
ing showed the Conservatives
! made a net gain of 621 seats and
Labor sustained a net loss of 652.
Labor party leaders frankly ad
mitted that the outcome was “dis
appointing,” and Conservatives
acclaimed the result as a sharp
swing to the right which showed
the handwriting on the wall.
t Even the staunchest Conserva
' tive organs, however, refrained to
1 day from backing editorially the
demands of Winston Churchill and
Conservative party chairman Lord
Woolton for a national election to
throw the Labor government out.
The wartime prime minister last
night proclaimed that “ the result1
deprives the Socialist (Labor) gov
ernment of any mandate they ob
tained at the general elections” in
1945.
“Henceforward,” he declared,
“they will govern without the
moral support and against the will
of the people.”
Lord Woolton said that the elec-,
tions showed that “the voters of
the country have no confidence in
the government.”
for the civil aeronautics adminis
tration also was aboard.
Hughes said he is “thoroughly
satisfied” with the performance of
the craft, which flew approxi
mately a mile at a maximum
height of about 70 feet. Earlier in
the day he told a news conference
that he couldn’t be certain that
his great craft, 219 feet long and
with a wing span of 320 feet,
would flv at all.
Rescuers Find All
Dead ( )n (Crashed
P.A.A. Plane
KETCHIKAN, </P) — A deep
snow blanket'near the top of Mt.
Tamgas, on Annette Island, ham
pered searchers seeking Saturday
to recover bodies of 18 persons
killed when a Pan American Air
ways plane plowed into the peak
last Sunday.
Eight Coast Guardsmen, led by
Lt. Comdr. F. S. Schreiber, reach
ed the wreckage late Friday and
messaged they had found found
four bodies with no survivors. The
plane had apparently partly burn
ed and exploded, scatt e r i n g
wreckage far and wide. With im
proved visibility, search planes
i found the spot earlier Friday.
A possible cause of the crash
was avadnced by William L. Ba
ker, editor and publisher of the
, Ketchikan Chronicle, who said he
believed the 2,610 foot elevation
listed for the peak on the charts
was incorrect. Baker voiced his
l theory after accompanying search
planes on their flights around Mt.
Tamgas.
Baker said the altimeter of the
; Coast Guard plane in which he
: was flying showed 3,400 feet at
the level of the wreckage and that
the summit loomed several hun
dred feet above, apparently at
4,000 or 4,100 feet. The crash
scene was aboue six miles from
i the Annette field.
Several pilots had also reported
that the Annette Island airport ra
dio beam was wavering Sunday
afternoon at the time of the crash,
he said. Neither civil aeronautics
administration officials nor coast
guard foficers would comment.
The plane, flown by Capt. Alf.
N. Monsen, veteran pilot, found
extreme air turbulence over An
nette, his last message said, and
planned to fly on to Juneau.
Monsen, however, had flown for
years in the Alaska service and
knew the Southeastern Alaska
terrain well, other filers said.
Friday night, 6 CAA men and 11
army air force mountaineers land
ed on Upper Tamgas Lake, on the
mountain’s slopes. Other inspec
tors were to arrive there Saturday
morning and Pan American Air-''
ways had a crew of 40, headed by
Capt. G. F. Maxwell, also set to
climb the peak.
A Pan American Airways
spokesman said the bodies would
be brought down the mountain
either to the lake, or to the ocean
shore where the coast guard cut
ter Citrus would bring them here.
They could be flown from the
lake in seaplanes.
The disaster was the worst in
the history of commercial flying
in Alaska.
KETCHIKAN. (/P) — Bodies of
the 18 passengers and crew mem
bers killed in the crash of a Pan
American Airways plane a week
ago all have been recovered from
the snow-buried wreckage atop
Mount Tamgas and only two re
main unidentified, rescue parties
reported today.
Pan American headquarters on
Annette Island, where the ill-fated
clipper met disaster Oct. 26, said
(Pont inn oH nn