iss NOME NUGGET
_OLDEST NEWSPAPER IN ALASKA—MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS__
VOL. XLIX. No. 157 NOME. ALASKA. WEDNESDAY. DECEMBER 31, 1947 . PER COPY — 15c
NEWS IN BRIEF
SEATTLE, {#) — The Coastal
Navigator, an army transportation
i corps vessel, has been sent to
Cathlamet Bay for decommission
v ing and ultimate return to the
maritime commission.
The ship, used by the army in
Alaskan waters, was stripped of
her army gear at the Seattle port
of embarkation. She will be
turned back to the government at
Astoria after decommissioning.
* JUNEAU l/P)—A Sitka man and
his wife were bound over to the
grand jury yesterday after hear
m ing before U. S. commissioner Er
nest Deniis on a charge of negli
gent homicide in connection with
the death of an eight-month-old
boy found dead in their home
Christmas Day. The baby allegedly
died of neglect and starvation.
The defendants are Mr. and
Mrs. Richard Bennett.
MANILA, (i<B) — Twenty-four
bedraggled survivors of the motor
ship Kina, victim of a Christmas
1 Day typhoon, and a young Amer
ican couple who also were victims
of the storm, arrived by plane to
day. All will undergo complete
medical checkup, then rest.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (>P) — Al
fred North Whitehead, 86, inter
nationally known philosop her,
died today of a cerebral hemorr
hage. He was professor of philoso
phy emritus at Harvard univers
ity.
LAKE CITY, Minn. (/P) — A
broken rail, snapping in zero cold
today derailed 13 cars of the Mil
waukee Road’s Pioneer Limited,
running from Minneapolis to Chi
cago with about 130 passengers.
Division superintendent L. W.
Palmquist of La Crosse, Wis., who
reported the cause of the accident,
* said none of the passengers were
injured althought a few were
shaken.
RANGOON, Burma, (IP) — U.
Saw, prewar premier of Burma,
and eight others were sentenced
today to die for the assassination
of Maj. Gen. U. Aung and six
other Burmese cabinet ministers.
A special Burmese tribunal
found that U. Saw, leader of the j
opposition Myochit party, was the i
brains behind the plot in which
assassins burst into the ministers’
council chamber July 19 and
sprayed it with machinegun bul-j
lets.
WASHINGTON, (^—President
Truman said today he is looking
forward confidently to world
peace upon which all nations can
agree.
In a New Years message, the
President said this hope includes
proper deevlopment of the United
Nations which he says offers hope
to the world.
Mr. Truman said he has every
faith in the work of the United Na
tions and that neither the United
States nor any other nation can af
ford to abandon its task for a
“workable world peace.”
I
Richter Tells Of
Rescue Of Six
Crashed Airmen
NOME. <.P)—One of the rescue
party who saved six of the eight
crewmen aboard the crashed B-2£
(“Clobbered Turkey” told yester
day how the stranded men, with
J hope of survival about gone after
! six days and nights in the freezing
Arctic, greeted them:
“Where did you guys come
from?”
Bud Richter, a photographer,
was one of the volunteers who
flew on the rescue mission by pi
lots Frank H. Whaley and William
Munz and one who remained at
the crash scene in far-below zero
weather while the survivors were
flown to Nome.
Richter said of the rescue: j
“Bill (Munz) circled the wreck
once and landed near the top of
the hill. The wind was howling
and the thermometer showed 40
below.
“Bill said the wind was blowing f
35 miles an hour. We quickly cov
ered the plane’s motor. I looked at
Munz and Kennedy (Dr. Maxwell
Kennedy). Their faces had frozen
almost instantly in the terrible,
cold wind and crusts of ice were
hanging to their eyelids, lips and
nose.
“We went dow nto the wreck.
There were six men, one with a
(Continued on Page Eight)
Molotov Blames
U. S. For Failure
Of Conference
• ■■■■
LONDON, (#*) — Soviet foreign
minister V. M. Molotov threw thej
blame for the collapse of the Lon
don foreign ministers’ conference
on the United States today and de
clared that only the efforts of the
Russian delegation kept the con
ference from being entirely fruit
less.
His statement, given to the Rus
sian press in Moscow at a news
conference and broadcast by the
Moscow radio, was largely an echo
of what he said at the Big Four
meeting in London, which ended
on Dec. 15 after 17 sessions with
out agreement.
He charged that. the American
/Continued on Page Eight)
Army B-29 Down
Near Anchorage
ANCHORAGE UP) — Airforce
B-29 with nine aboard apparently
met disaster two minutes after
leaving Elmendorf Field on wea
ther flight shortly after midnight
today. Field authoriaties said
"blinding flash" seen moments af
ter pilot radioed plane in trouble.
Plane believed down in Point Mc
Kenzie area across the arm of wa
ter west of Anchorage. Bad wea
ther prevented aerial check.
Ground party enroute.
Hope For Missing
Airmen Virtually
Abandoned
_ l
NOME (jP)—With hopes dimmed
almost to the vanishing point,
search parties continued today to
scan the bleak icy wastes of the
Seward Peninsula for a B-29 pilot,
his navigator and three army par
atroopers who vanished after leap-,
ing to the aid of the airmen’s six
fellow crew members.
The two airmen, Lt. Vern H.
Arnett, Santa Ana, Calif., pilot,
and Lt. Frederick I. Sheetz, Key
ser, W. Va., disappeared Christmas
Day, two days after the crash of
their plane 95 miles north of
Nome, when they set out together
to seek aid at the Eskimo village
of Shishmaref 50 miles from the
stricken plane.
Six other members of the crew
were rescued Monday by Alaska
Bush pilots, William ^lunz and
Frank Whaley, both ol Nome.
Munz, who returned to the
crash scene yesterday with his
ski-equipped plane, said he saw
“what I think was one dead para
trooper and possibly two” lying in
the snow about 1,500 feet from the
burned plane.
“There was also another ’chute
lying nearby, which might have
covered the third missing man in
the snow,” he added.
None of the three men, a doctor
and two paratroopers from Ladd
Field, has been seen since they
leaped to the aid of the stranded
survivors last Saturday night.
(Continued on Page Five)
Wallace Will Run
For President With
Third Party
CHICAGO, m—Henry A. Wal
lace says “I shall run as an inde
pendent candidate for President of
the United States in 1948.”
He announced he will campaign
on a platform advocating “peace
and prosperity” and said both
Democrats and Repu b 1 i c a n s
“stand for a policy which opens
the door to war in our lifetime,
and makes war certain for our
children.”
Asked if he hoped to be elected
as an independent, Wallace replied
“There’s always hope.”
Wallace made his announce
ment in a nationwide radio ad
dress Monday night. A former
Democratic vice president and
former cabinet officer under two
Democratic Presidents, Wallace
thus bolted the Democratic party
which he had joined despite the
background of a staunch Republi- J
can family.
He also ended speculation about |
his political plans — speculation
that had been started when he re
signed as secretary of commerce at
the request of President Truman.
The resignation followed Wallace’s
opposition to secretary of state
James F. Byrnes, policy of a firm
hand in dealings with Russia.
At the same time, Wallace an
nounced that he had resigned asj
editor of the New 'Republic, a
weekly publication, but said he
(Continued on Page Seven)
Six of Crashed B-29
Crew Rescued;
Five Missing
NOME, (/P)—Six of eight crew
men from a crashed B-29 were
back to safety yesterday through
the heroism of two Alaska bush
pilots, but five other men are still
missing and feared dead in the
frigid wastes of the Seward penin
sula 95 miles north of Nome.
The bodies of two men, thought
to be members of the three-man
parachute team that leaped to the
aid of the stricken fliers Saturday
night, were believed to have been
sighted less than 500 yards from
the crash scene. A driver and dog
team will attempt to locate them.
An intensive search also will be
continued for the pilot of the su
perfortress, Lt. Vern H. Arnett,
Santa Ana, Calif., and navigator,
Lt. Frederick I. Sheetz, Keyser, W.
Va.
Neither has been seen since they
set out together Christmas night.
48 hours after their big ship
plowed into the side of a low hill.
They told fellow crewmen they
would seek aid at the Eskimo vil
lage of Shishmaref, 50 miles to the
| north.
The daring rescue was perform
ed by Frank H. Whaley of the
1 Wien Alaska Airlines and William
! Munz of the Munz Airline, both of
Nome.
Flying in 40-below zero weather
they set their small, single-engine
planes down in a hazardous land
ing on the crest of a hill close to
the crumpled bomber, the Clob
j bered Turkey.
They quickly loaded the six
[ weak but happy airmen into their
I ski-equipped craft, made a dan
| gerous takeoff from the snow-cov
ered slope and returned to Nome
without mishap.
Their aid was enlisted by the air
forces after military rescue opera
tions Saturday night and Sunday
met with misfortune.
The driver of the dog team,
Charles O’Leary, flown into the
crash scene Monday in a Norse
man plane piloted by Col. R. R.
Steward, was ordered to remain
at the disaster site and search for
bodies of the medical aid trio.
Their names have not been re
leased.
Nome air base authorities said
all six of the survivors were in
good spirits and fair health de
spite spending nearly six days and
nights in the sub-arctic where
temperatures hovered between 30
and 40 degrees below zero. One of
the men suffered a broken leg and
another is being treated for a
frozen face.
Lt. Donald B. Duesler, San Fer
nando Calif., the co-pilot said the
accident occurred as the big
bomber winged southward toward
Nome from the Eskimo village of
Kotzebue, near the Bering Sea.
“I asked the pilot (Arnett) if he
was getting sleepy,” Duesler said.
‘‘He said ‘No’ and said he did not
need me to spell him. Just then
one of the crewmen yelled that the
ground was coming up.
‘‘I grabbed the wheel and pulled
it back. The nose came up and the
tail hit, breaking off. Then the
rest of ,the plane smacked into the
Continued on Page Three