Mcallen Daily Monitor

RELIEF PARTY REACHES MEN IN MOUNTAINS
Survivors Of Hillside Crash Start For Civilization. - Lived In Sub-Zero Weather.

MOREHOUSEVILLE, N. Y., Dec. 31-(AP)-Three of the four men stranded for three days with a wrecked plane in the Adirondacks eight miles from here were walking in this direction with their rescuers today, while the fourth waited at the scene of the wreck with a wrenched hip, the state conservation department announced today.

Reached at 10 o'clock last night by four woodsmen from Hoffmeister, the cold and hungry men realized they had been rescued when ten men of the conservation department arrived on the scene at dawn today.

At 11:30 a.m. the trip to Morehouseville had started, through three feet of snow and at temperatures about 30 below zero.

Hamilton Chequers, a foreman of the CCC, who went in with the group, returned early and told of the joy with which the survivors of the hillside crash greeted their rescuers.

He said one of the fliers, either Ernest, the pilot, or his brother Dale, the co-pilot, had a wrenched hip and would be taken out later by sled. The others were expected to reach Morehouseville at 2 p.m. Dryer's injury was only serious enough to prevent his walking.

ALBANY, N. Y., Dec. 31-(AP)— Doggedly, and in the gripping manner of a Poe horror tale, searchers today made frantic efforts
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Relief Party-
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Efforts to rescue four men marooned in a desolate wilderness spot where their huge transport airplane crashed during a howling storm last Friday.
Searching parties ploughed through deep snow in the foothills of the Adirondacks about 18 miles north of Little Falls. N. Y.
They slashed their way into heavy forests to the wrecked plane which had been definitely located by Dean Smith, veteran flier.
Hopes that the victims had been finally reached by a searching party of six men received a cold douche when Earl Ward. vice-president of the American Airlines operators of the wrecked luxury liner. announced he had been informed the marooned men were

Earlier, Smith, aviator who was with Admiral Byrd's expedition to the South Pole in 1929. circled his plane above the smashed ship and radioed this report to the Albany airport:
Drop Food To Flyers
"Searching party reached plane. Food dropped. We now coming back."
This followed shortly a report by another pilot hovering over the scene, Ray Jones, that a searching party was only a mile from the marooned quartet.
Canned food was dropped for the victims from the two National Guard planes.
Ward announced he had received word from a searching party that it had all been a mistake-that the men had not been reached.
The food had been dropped at the feet of a band of searchers. not the marooned men, Ward said. and he dispatched a plane to aid ground parties in locating the dis- abled ship. At the controls was Carl Day. blind flying pilot.
The plane returned shortly be- fore dawn with a report that the occupants of the disabled ship were still huddled around their fire and none of the ground searching parties was within five miles of them.

New Supply of Food
Another National Guard plane was dispatched with a new supply of food to be dropped by para- chute. The Guardsmen also plan- ned to drop a small axe with the package of food so the men might cut wood for their fire.
When Smith. who had circled his plane above the wrecked cur- tiss-Condor. wirelessed the infor- mation that the men had been found by the ground party, Mrs. Dryer, wife of Ernest Dryer, pilot of the lost ship, wept.
"I can't wait until I see my hus- band again." she exclaimed through her tears.