FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1920
1920 - 0867.PDF
AUGUST 5, 1920 WE are getting a step nearer to that Territorial Air Force. It appears now to be known that the report upon the subject has been drawn up and is in the hands of the Secretary for War. One great doubt arises. Has the matter, even if brought into being in the near future, been left overlate to ensure the immediate success which an earlier launching of such a scheme would otherwise have been ? We hope not, but there is a great deal in the remarks of a critic who writes that one of the main difficulties to be faced is that so many of the officers of the R.A.F". who would like to join a Territorial Air Force are now engaged in other occupations, and have little chance of gaining further flying experience. Mechanics, too, who now can earn very good wages at engineering, are not inclined to give up this good pay for camp. The report, it is stated, proposes a short course offlying instruction for ex-officers, and that means should be .taken to train unskilled men as possible air mechanics. THE authority who last week alleged that aeroplanes were being supplied mysteriously to Sinn Feiners—who, dressed in British uniforms, bombed certain camps in the West of Ireland—now supplements his news with the informa- tion that the authorities are on the trail of a certain individual who is believed to be the " supply officer " on this side. IT is sad that such fearless men as Lieuts. Locklear and Elliott, the cinema aerial " stunters," should have passed in their checks whilst thus " at work," but what could have been reasonably expected from such utterly foolhardy monkey tricks ? The pity of it is that public taste should be diagnosed by the cinema folk as requiring this outrageous sort of performance. There might be a good deal worse " League" started, than one to systematically hiss down films recording this type of suicide. A VERY human document has been given the light of day by our French contemporary L'Illustration in connection with the air tragedy of the Sahara desert which we reported some months ago. It is a report by Marcel Vaslin, one of the two French airmen who accompanied General Lapperine on the flight to Timbuctoo (West Africa), in February, when the party had to make a forced landing in the Sahara. Their first thought after the forced landing on February 18 was to rescue the water, and next day the general decided that they should start for the mountains of the Adrar. The two airmen loaded themselves up with provisions and water, and the three agreed to ration themselves to 1 $ pints of water a day each. The going was terribly hard, their feet sinking 4 ins. into the hot sand, and the sun was terrible. They marched at intervals until the afternoon of February 20, when they reached a little height in the sand, and, looking out, saw nothing but the desert stretching out in front of them, and no sign of the mountains. The general anxiously consulted his maps, " but," says Vaslin, " we read in his face that we were lost." It was then decided that they must return to the aeroplane. All three men were growing weaker, and the general suffered greatly. They reached the aeroplane again after three days' march. They rigged up a tent and recovered 6 gals, of water from the radiator, leaving 6 pints in it as a reserve stock. So they remained until February 29. On that day Marcel Vaslin made his will and signed it " Marcel Vaslin, whom Fate is leading to God." Once or twice a gazelle appeared, at which they shot, but without effect. The recurrent sand-storms added to the horror of their existence. The two men then tried to reach the military post at Tin Zaouaten, which they reckoned to be 85 miles away, but Bernard collapsed almost at once, and, with despair growing in their hearts, they returned to the general, who had consented to their departure. Lapperine was by now obviously dying. "On March 4," says Vaslin, "we saw vultures circling round us croaking. They scented that one of us was about to die." The general died the next day. Before his death he said : " My children, people think I know the desert, but nobody knows it. I am the cause of your misfortune. I have crossed the Sahara ten times. On this, my eleventh trip, I shall stay here." BY March 10 the airmen had consumed the last of their provisions. The diary says : " Bernard ate some glycerine which the general had in his valise. I ate toothpaste, which made me very thirsty. We also took a few pastilles. We reduced our consumption of water to 1 pint a day between the two of us. " On March 12 Bernard wanted to make an end of it, and proposed it to me. I tried to restore his moral." Next day Bernard insisted on suicide more imperiously than before. '* We drank the last of the water. Bernard got out of his valise two razor blades. We took one each, but beforehand we put two receptacles beside us to catch our blood so that we might drink it and thus still our thirst for the last time before we died. Bernard, the more coura- geous, made the first start. With the razor blade he made a pretty deep wound in the artery of his left wrist. " I had just begun to wound myself also, but seeing that no blood came from Bernard's wound I refrained. My poor comrade got very angry. He threw away the blade, and I did the same. Then he said : ' We'll do it tomorrow with our three last cartridges.' " Very early on the morning of March 14 I heard Bernard say : ' I still have a little hope left.' On this I pulled the blanket over us again. We did not sleep, but we reflected. An hour had scarcely passed when I heard the bray of a camel. At this some unknown force gave me strength. I seized the carbine and fired three shots. ..." Lieutenant Pruvost, head of the party which had provi-dentially stumbled on the missing men, explained that he was not looking for them, but was going to Agades for rations. WE are just wondering whether the victim of the following ghastly example of bureaucracy was an R.A.F. man :— " A strong protest has been made, writes the Guildford Evening Standard correspondent, to the Ministry of Pensions by the Surrey County War Pensions Committee regarding delays in awarding pensions to disabled men and their depen- dents, and in sanctioning treatment. The worst of a long list of cases cited was that of Corporal Oliver, a Farnham man, taken ill six months after demobilisation. This is its tragic history :— " May 22.—Case considered by Surrey Committee, and forwarded to department with request it should be dealt with. " June 4.—Further request to department that Oliver should be examined as soon as possible. " June 15.—-Request by committee for reply to two previous letters. " June 17.—Further urgent request for reply. " June 29.—Request that man be examined, as he was not expected to live. " July 1.—Request for instructions by return of post. " July 6.—Department at last take action—District Controller of Medical Services (Guildford) visits man's home and finds that he is dead. "The chairman of the Surrey Committee (Lieut.-General Sir Edmond Elles) and members expressed the opinion that the delays were due to over-centralisation by the Ministry, and insufficient decentralisation to local committees, and also to the difficulty in getting any one department to give a definite ruling on a case." ' . 869 /
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
