1960-10-04 — Page 6

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THE CHINA MAIL, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1960,

They wanted to fly too soon. So Britain's pride never flew again

LAST VOYAGE OF THE R. 101 And why it ended in disaster

She

turned, circled the airfield, and sailed

Slowly the gap widened between the tip of the tall mooring mast and the nose of the great airship. Above the cheers of the crowd, the airship's diesels throbbed into life. majestically into the dark October sky.

R.101, the biggest airship in the world and

Britain's pride, was off on her first big

proving light,

Her destination: India. Her alm: to establish

by Guy Jones

Britain's leadership in a bright, highly competitive's designer urged the Air

new branch of aviation.

She seemed set fair to bring back the golden prize. Except that. :

girts

the

Not everyone was cheering on the sirfeld at Cardington, Beds., as the sleek monster's faded, to pinpoints on evening of October 4, 1930-just inirty years w

Not everyone stared the bland. Mister, optimism of the Air Lord Thomson, the R.101's most distinguished passenger.

MILLIONTH CHANCE

quite

341

Not everyone was sure that R.101 was a safe as a house, except for the millimath

Chanou.'

The millionth duiness. It was very much in the minds of the few who held back their cheers. They knew about the doubts, technical songs, delays and eve- of-flight modifications that had complicated the birth of Bri- tain's graceful No. 1 airship.

to

They knew she had had no thorough trials when the order came from

Minister the through: "The R.101 must be ready in time for my flight India... Perhaps

only they really grasp straight away the size of the tragedy that stunned Britain a few hours later,

Only six of her 54 pussengers and crow survived.

Cruelly, Fale had turned up the millionth chance. If it ever millionth really was only chance.

It was onsy for erities to say afterwards that the project had the start. been doomed from But certainly there was Lin- deniable evidence to suggest this.

A certificate of airworthiness was banded to the captain only

Ministry to follow suit.

puzzled. The field was 200 yards above 典 level. R.101

seemed to be only 100 yards above the field.

the

In the dirigible's control car, the men on watch were puzzled, they The R.100 team haughilly too. The altimeter said rejected a suggestion from Car- were 1,000 feet up. But

should ground looked much closer than dington that both trips be deferred,

Jauntily, they that. set off for Canada-and return- ed successfully.

In sleeping Beauvais, lights snapped on us R101's engines the

HE SAW THE HUGE BULK OF R.101 COMING STRAIGHT AT HIM.

From end to end, lying asiant across the border of a field and a wood, R.101 was a crackling,

But Whitehall would not too allow it. There had been many headlines stressing how mate her diesels were.

When the graceful R.101 few for the first time, she proved

white-hot furnace. underpowered.

two plainer sister, tried out months later, could at least fly. STRUGGLE TO HALT PLUNGE

andy

There wore whispers of in the airship progriumang,

and zivalry gew tercer bitter. The two teams now that one ship must

is the airship's complement fled. They were ighling for

board, just before she sailed, Julxi

Many died when

an earlier

airship, 1.38, broke in half over the Humber. An inquiry re- vealed insufficient research into the problems of her design.

The same CGovernment teum that built R.38 buli R.101. CERTIFICATE OF SAFETY

hustlou the Rivalry along. For, across country, private-enterprise design

Her

the

It was india for R.101 now throbbed overhead. Fira or failure without ever leaving secretary of the police station, her mast. Brusque Lord Thom- then others, saw the great daik

bnilling

against son said he would sall abourd shape

storm. poll- her to keep a number of

She seemed to be just behind tient engagements.

about 200 His scheduše was tight. In the tennis courts, desperation, R.101's builders had feet up. Was she about to crash

into the town centre? to tell him his September de-

be parture deadline could not kept. more But Thomson was impatient, knew" must insist

"he wrote. win.

A new timetable was laid down, their On October 4, in worsening weather, the ill-starred airship towards chugged sluggishly London, bucking like a ship at

cuts The

At Cardington, an extru bay was inserted in the middle of to give 11.101 in a drastic bid

when shu her more Ft. But went to her tower a 90-foot split appeared in her fabric within minutes. Then, next day, an other.

Air Retuming from Hendon Pageant, she plunged into a work sharp

dive. 500-foot

Grimly to keep her officers struggled her nose up. Again and again she plunged. The third time, more than a ton of ballast water

*

team

was busy on a parallel project- 8.100

Rivalry, but never once col- had to be shed. could

laboration. Never once, during the five years R. 101 was being

de built, were the two chief

to exchange signers in touch ideas.

At five minutes past two, on the morning of October 5. near Beauvais, the great airship crashed to her doom. Bursting into flames, she came an in- ferno of twisted charred remains.

girders and

When she landed, there, were

in sixty holes her hydrogen cells.

was The new bay

rebuilt. counted now. It was R.101, Britain's oficial stake Days

most olmost time for the big show- In the airship race, drew headlines. When R.100 changed down-the overseas trips of the from diesel to petrol engines, rival ships on which everything to save valuable weight, her depended.

CARTOONS The

Ghost

* Mag, Blat *

"Oh, we didn't mind waiting. Mom. Pop was talking to a triand and I entertained mysalt tracing shadows."

"It's a vicious strela, dani,”'.

sea in the rising wind.

Over London, three engineers already tolled in the aft gondola over an engine that had stopped

trough oil pressure failure.

They were hallway over the Charmel before it was

going

Aboard the airship, a Was ordered peace.

Then, suddenly, she dived. In the smoking room, a siphon and glasses crashed to the floor.

tele From the control room, graph bells shrilled out. "Re- ballast!" an Lese emergency officer shouted in the welter of raised voices and pounding fool- steps.

Racing aft, the Chief Coxs wain roused the sleeping crew,

The elevators were not respond. ing. They were going to crash, By the edge of a small wood outside Beauvais,

rabbit-

Eight menthe lucky ones... of the lung themselves clear

over and horror, then rolled over in the

wet CSS, Folk

from the town racing to the feld, led them to safely. Two soon died.

Only six were left to fill in the tragic story,

What had happened?

At the inquiry, experis de- cided that a big split must have developed in the airship's outer covering. Cas bags, exposed to the fury of the gile, must have bogun to leak.

But other experts thought it

again. The radio warned of entcher stood frozen to the spot had all happened too fast; that

storms over Northem. R.101 was flying straight Paris.

France. for

A LAST CIGAR

after In her smoking room, an excellent supper, the little

of eminent group

passengers enjoyed a last cigar before re- tiring to bed. It had been eventful day,

0s he saw the huge R.101 apparently straight at him.

bulk of coming

DEATH DIVE

With a crushing sound, the ground. airship's bow hit the Then she bounded along for sixty feet. Were they after all to escape with only a bumping? Suddenly a searing, blinding Then explosion it the gloom. two more. Then a red glow li up the woods and Belds. was

an

At Poix Aerodrome, between Abbeville and Beauvais, official Louis Maillet heard the airship's mators, looked up. and

'HERE WAS LONDON'S HISTORY-IN

too much the storm had been for the new bay, and R.101 had broken in two.

massez, than

It was by now an academic question. The British

by inoved more deeply anything since the war, had no good words left for airships.

The waiting mast! in

Indla used. The sister. was never ship R.100 was sold as scrap for £504.

Airships were out. The mil Month chance had seen to that,

THE MAKING: BUT IT WAS A CHAPTER

WHICH PROPERLY BELONGED TO THE PAST'

I saw in St. Pancras

THE police horses stood quietly now in a side street. A little girl was lifted up to stroke their velvet noses. She paid no attention to the cheers and jeers and boos, and the harsh loud-speakered voice, which still echoed round the battle-scarred courtyard of the St. Pancras council flats behind her.

Over there another slightly older girl fainted in the crowd and was carried away amid cries that the police had "done her" and now wouldn't even fetch an ambulance. Orange peel and broken glass and a wreckage of barricades littered the pavements.

Grubby

"No banners cried Evictions!"

United We Stand," and "Down with the Rent Act,"

A page from a magazine call-

of

cd Soviet Weekly, had been pasted on a wall and a notice- board carried 11 "Roll Honour listing the trade union branches which were prepared to strike in sympathy with the rent rebels.

"Shame'

Outside the Tomania'

mon Room Arthur Rowe,

Сап- the

Timell, grizzled waller who had

by

Anthony

Lejeune

cil do with It? bluebottlen."

Sends for the

not be

the rebels to have chosen. But Panerna, Wo shall

And repeat it again they had no choleo. Sympathy moved." winning CB9CS Widows and and again. under-paid familles and

dear

old ladies have had their rents Here too there were broken reduced under the differential burricades. scheme.

The

籍

af

and

whole antry Affair The right for which the rebels seemed to me both frightening are fighting is the right to have and pathetic.

bland their rents subsidised by somo- incorrigible prejudice one else, irrespective of their unreasoning obstinacy with carnings and without the traditional deñance of authority indignity of a means test.

and championship of the Little But they regard their struggle man who feels he is being in black and white slogan terms, Fushed around.

ancient

prejudices. A band of young strikers had bot with

And the appeal is very power- the South Bank, Iul vrrived from carrying placards which sald "South Bank Workers Condim

They talk of defending their Police Brutality," Lawrence homes, winning security for jumped down among them urging them

to fall in for march "o our other battle front"

Paradise

Here was London's history in their children, fighting balllif's the making: but it was a chap a and landlords and police. They or which properly belonged are rebels. They are the van already to the past. Or to the Guard of the worlding clam future, of course; depending on movement: They stand ready your political point of view." at the barricades.

The other battlefront Leighton-road, where aircraft Inspector Don' Cook, who · carns £13 15s, and was asked to pay 56, rent, had been evicted.

It lies on the other side of

:: Pathetic

"We'll get rid of all these landlords," John Lawrence was shouting now, ttall thesa governors, and we'll build

A

In Leighton-road another society where there won't be St. Pancras, that ancient London long line of impassive police much an animal, such a weasel, borough with its long tradition to another man harangu as a bailit."

been forcibly dispossessed at darned the lights off and done of trouble and milliancy, where ing the crowd through a loud- dawn, was making an impas- us up." sloned speech.

And round him seemed to fit noi so long ago the Red Flax halier: We told the dockers the host of every old cloth flew over the town hall, Beeboat our Faretst police. They "Shame!"howice the crowd. hind the cyclopean

panthic weren't surprised. The only capped Idealist who once looked forward, a to milk-and-honey of St. " tell you what to do," he

of us may get six battlements "Samo

Pancrus thing wrong with the polles is proletarian paradise where there few station stretch grimy acres that they're not wearing black were no more bosses and every rest for doing a shouted: Refuse to pay the months' rant, go to court, then come coppers, But I'm prepared for railway arches

thing, including houses, would back and

barriaade yourselves that we've all got to be blackened, yellow-brlek terrace houses with unkempt poćko- In. We'll bury differential prepared for that,"

▲ row of wornen chant in be free. handkerchiefs of grass in fron

unison: Tenants of St rents,"

of them.

The kiota ol policemen John Lawrenko, Mee: stormy watched hlav stokkily, alienily. Communis ex-coinclice, dood

close

behind him,

and

smoke-

For the most part like the rast of London, it is prosperous. "Look at Arthur Rowe. Inough today, but this quarrel how very little to do with straight socmominate. It's a master of bottled-up emotions,

the cheons. Now he took the took six of them to get him out microphons over, aut from 12% Now they say two more folles first moment it was obvions he wish movo, in off the housing know just how to conduct a list. But I say, 89 Bilverdale erowd.

belongs to Arthur Rave. 32. (anyone else, moves in, we'll

*** Agh Jan's org" be topve them out again.

eriod. "It's just

There aren't wrongh

la the whole world ta

“When they aport vas

Black Maria

"How we're going to need

Ready

Ti plight of Don Cook

uniforms and faskies.”.

W

-London Express Service).

TOODWORK CLASSES for, women are being start- ed at Dereham in Norfolk, Organiser Mr John lak: money. There's a collecten: Arthur Rowe, able-bodied man Kirby says: “A number of women fed up with waiting, refor their husbanda to repair something are prepared to soming round. / Puk In Makau, who when asked to pay perous, que le paunimas Pul mina e quartz) of Del wagen learn how to do it themselves.

HOW HARD IT IS FOR

BIG TALENTS TO GET A

JOB WITH

LABOUR!

IT

(MICHAEL FOOT APART)

by William Barkley

must be some time now since I agreed with Mr Hugh Gaitskell,

But he is reported as saying that he will welcome..

Mr Michael Foot in the Commons as a col- league. There we are agreed.

Mr bla his the

of party politics, has rain- forced at 47 the wide rastgo of a mind that was always studious of history.

Possibly my welcome is more His scholarly study of the early 100 per cent than eighteenth century, the cradle nearly

Tale. his and, at any

nol show Gottskeli did feelings

having on

inside bitterest crie party on his way to join him when he spoke in London an the day after the decision. Not a ward about Foot.

One of my everlasting com-

plaints

against the Labour Party is in their selection of condidates. They never go out to recruit

future Cabinet Ministers.

Only five

The local selection comunitiees never seem to contemplate that their party will ever be in power and will require to Treasury, stock the whole Bench with at least 20 out- standing personalities. That in never, never twice, and now in Ebbw Vale, almost by acel- dent and at the last moment, they have broken this miser- able tradition.

the Among

present Labour M.P.s one can spot âve per- fectly adequate members of n future Cabinet Galtskell, Wilson.

His nuclear views caused a split even with his adored Bevan and this has sharpened the . claws of controversy which were already as strong ana wild cat's.

And the other clause, the one which Gaitskell wants to repudiate, found such a dem. fender in him that he is now one of the great controver- stalists of the day. One outstanding memory is of In the last his courage. speech he made in the House of Common et the near- death of the Labour Govern- ment he defied the Home Secretary of the day. Mr Chuter Ede.

Like a rock, he faced the whole of his own Labour Party, who

G news were ravening for paperman's blood and ba stopped Chuter Ede in his tracks.

He took this stand in the interests of freedom of the Press.

And next?

Sunumerell, He is a curprising mixture of passionate beller in liberty and faith in Socialist mi- thority.

Gordon Walker, and Soskice also a bevy of useful under- mass secretaries, and then a of cheerers and supporters (sometimes) of a Cabinct that we cannot see anywhere,

They are gound, local trades- men, mostly good, fellows in themselves but their eres can- not ft above the town hall or the miners' lodge..

Matured

His bany, skeletal features, his

Angertip. quivering vibrant voice will all be wel- come at least who see too few vivid ·-per- somalities In these dim back benches.

to reborters

What is his future? If the Scarborough conference which opened yesterday, in such a way explodes that the "nuclear nudes,++ ny I call them, canno-be They come in at an edvanced

reconciled with the official rush axc.

through their polley then Michael Foot will malden speeches and having have strong claim to load the

m"

the

Lett. to "clocioed Commons generally take a He, could example. small part in public debates however busy they might be individual constituents' over Krievances

I well remember years ago a tough old miner M.P. banging the table until his lankard shook and saying: “My only

easily eclipse, for Sydney Silverman or Swingter, not to mention Crossman who, of course, could lead Right, Left; and Centre at the same time. But that would be no great, prospect for long. The Labour Party crushes lis Left-Whigs

duty in the Commons is tong time goes on but perhaps

30.

vote for my party." This wort thing carried too far creates the dilemma of a mass

of supporters with not enough. to support.

Michael Foot did not have time We

on his last visit to the Cham- ber to make tie full mark,”

he will of Ianat, establish such ascendanay. Hke the lase lamented MP: for Eobw VAIO, that it would be worth tile while to compromiss á bi

might

standing Galtakell, and Foot together jurt se "wo" BUT

Gaitskell said surprisingly. sion then, not as an orator Bevari towards the end, DOCKING HI always had the girty in that case Mb Galaktel), pote of energetic eloquence, but heat last fighting for his leade baa matured in, style and ex- ship, may insumé welovine Michael Godt an 'a' delledega.

He has developed enormouky,